Dust Bunny

Here is my first CCD image to be processed from Okie-Tex. This is an enormous dust complex in Taurus, centered around the blue reflection nebula Vdb27.

After working on this image for a while it started looking to me like a giant bunny leaping right to lower left across the frame (please tell me you see a bunny too).

These types of targets are among my favorite to image. The illuminated dust has a very 3D quality that I really like and try to bring out in the photo.

FSQ 106EDX f/3.6
STL-11000M -20C
LRGB 150,30,30,30
CCDStack, PixInsight, CS5

Okie Trails

Spent last week at the Okie-Tex Star Party in the Black Mesa area of Oklahoma (literally across the highway from both Colorado and New Mexico). It was a spectacular SEVEN CLEAR NIGHTS under the stars with some great folks.

I imaged every night until the sun came up, so I am gorged with photons! Before plunging into all of my data, here are a couple of star trail images taken with my Nikon D700.

If you have never attended a star party under extremely dark skies, you owe it to yourself. The feeling is like being on a spaceship drifting through the stars...

Upside Down!

Got back a week ago from our trip to Australia and New Zealand. Needless to say we had a GREAT time (despite the 20 days of rain). This was my first view of the Southern skies, and although the weather was a killer I managed to find 2 clear nights in dark parts of the countries to observe and image.

This first shot is of the galactic core of Milky Way that is straight over head. This is special because in northern latitudes, the core barely gets above the horizon and is harder to see through all of the additional atmosphere. But straight up at zenith... WOW!

I was on Thornton Beach in New Zealand and just finishing an imaging run on the Large Magellanic Cloud (yet to be processed), when I noticed an odd "fuzzy patch" rising over the sea. A few minutes later it climbed up and over the dormant volcano Moutohora... it was the (upside down) Pleiades!

So I took this shot about 1 AM. You can also see the star Aldebaran and the Hyades cluster peeking into frame on the right.


On another clear night I found myself in Wangaratta, Australia. So I drove over the hills and into wine country, parking next to a vineyard. It was VERY dark, except for a little light dome from a nearby town (that you can see in the pic). This was the first time I ever saw the Magellanic Clouds (the 2 fuzzy patches to the left of the Milky Way). They were fantastic! These two galaxies orbit the Milky Way and are only 2 of 3 galaxies (the other being Andromeda) one can see "naked eye" from Earth.

Here is another quick shot of the Milky Way dropping down over some palms on a beach near Cairns, Australia. It was a bit cloudy that night (evidenced by the red clouds drifting by, illuminated by light pollution) but still a great night on the beach.

All images were taken with my Nikon D700.

Cepheus Mosaic

Here is a 2 panel mosaic from the constellation Cepheus. I wanted to frame both the Bubble Nebula (far left) and the Cave Nebula (far right) into one composition, so this forced me to shoot two different fields and blend them together into this mosaic. It was a lot of work, since I shot separate passes for L, Ha, R, G, B, and then not only did these pieces need to be registered, but also matched in terms of exposure (which can vary because of angle in sky and high clouds, etc.). But I am very happy with the end result.

There is so much to see in this field -- red emission nebulae, dark nebulae, reflection nebulae, dust, etc. Sometimes these images remind me of abstract surreal art by artists such as Tonguy, Matta, or Richard Powers (I am a huge fan of these artists).

This image represents about 9 hours of exposure last week at the 3RF astronomy campus.

FSQ 106EDX f/3.64
STL 11000M -10C
LHaRGB 225x135x65x35x75
CCDStack, PixInsight, CS5

A Dusty Serpent

This huge dust field resides in the constellation Cepheus. It stretches from reflection nebulae VDB 150 to VDB 152. This represents one of my favorite types of objects -- dusty reflection nebulosity.

Reflection nebula reflect light from nearby stars (duh) as opposed to emission type nebulae that glow like a neon sign. As such, reflection nebulae have a naturally cool 3D appearance.

I imaged this last week at the 3RF astronomy campus and had 3 excellent nights of clear dark skies! Not only that, but the Perseid meteors put on quite a show. It was a fantastic trip.

FSQ 106EDX f/3.64
STL 11000M -10C
LRGB 195x40x40x40
CCDStack, PixInsight, CS5

(imaged flipped for presentation)

A Blast from the Past

Here is a shot of the Cygnus & Cepheus region of the Milky Way I took last fall at the Okie-Tex Star Party. I never processed it because I never thought the data was very good. But a week ago I started testing a new (to me) piece of software called PixInsight designed specifically for processing astro images. I decided to go back to old data to see if I could resurrect anything. I'm pretty happy with this test run!

Not only is this data a "blast from the past", but you can see the remnants of a literal blast from the past -- the Veil Nebula (a supernova remnant). Look closely and you can see some tiny semi-circular "arc" type structures at the far left.

Canon XSI at ISO 800
AstroTrac mount
Nikon 85mm lens (I think)
15 x 3min
DeepSkyStacker, PixInsight, CS5

Aussie Rig is GO!

Kim and I will be heading to Australia and New Zealand soon and I am planning on photographing the southern skies as much as I can! We will be traveling fast and far and I need to go very light, so I have assembled a rig that is not only very accurate but very light and small.

Using a QSI 583 camera (mono w color filter wheel) tracking on an AstroTrac mount, I can get 10 min sub frames with nice round stars. I am using a set of Nikon lenses (instead of a heavy/bulky telescope) that I can also share with my Nikon D700 camera. I am controlling everything with a little Toshiba netbook. All of this will fit into a backpack.

Here is my first test shot I took last weekend with the rig -- a wide field in Cygnus using a Nikon 85mm lens. I'm very pleased with this QSI camera!

So why go to all the trouble to carry this stuff all over Australia and New Zealand for several weeks? Because there are sights in Southern skies that we cannot see in the Northern hemisphere. The sky is very different! Not only is the core of the Milky Way straight overhead, but there are incredible objects like the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (viewable with the naked eye), as well as BUNCHES of constellations and nebulae that one can see nowhere else.

Kim and I are also going to attend a couple of nights at the Border Star Gaze -- a star party near Albury. We just happen to be there at the same time.

Hopefully I will have many new photos to share soon (but they may appear upside down)!