Milky Way on a Country Road

There is a region north of Huntsville, Texas where the sky is considerably darker than most of East Texas. It measures from a low to a high 3 on the Bortle scale, and is roughly located between the Old Spanish Road (OSR) to the south, Palestine to the north, Interstate 45 on the west, and Lufkin on the east. A portion of it is south of the OSR, not far from my house.

My son and I drove through part of this area last February doing a light pollution survey. I was really impressed with how the sky looked there, and decided to revisit it during the summer. So, the other day we drove out to a spot on the side of a road somewhere between Weldon and Lovelady, about 30 minutes from our house. The view was spectacular!

The Milky Way stood out with very high contrast compared to how it appears at the ObservaRory. It's not quite X Bar Ranch dark there, but it is still very good. Below is a composite image of photos that I took with the DSLR and a zoom lens.

Milky Way, Canon EOS Rebel T3, EFS 18-55mm lens @ 18mm (f/3.5), 6x30 @ ISO-3200, stacked in DeepSkyStacker, color-corrected in Photoshop CS6

Below is an enhanced version that brings out the stars and dust lanes:

Same image as above, enhanced using the Detail Extractor in the Color Efex Pro 4 filter collection, which was part of the former Google Nik Collection of filters in Photoshop.  The current version of the Nik Collection can be found at DxO.

Back Yard Astronomy

The right combination of time, energy, and weather conditions still elude me lately. I haven't done much more than peek out the window at the stars now and then. That gave me an idea, however.

Last night I set up the trusty DSLR at one of the back windows and started making a time-lapse of the sky.

But I didn't account for last night's high humidity. The window fogged up shortly after the sequence was started, and I didn't discover the problem until the morning. There weren't enough frames to make a decent time lapse.

Still, there were a few pictures that I thought were pretty.

Below, the constellation Scorpius, containing the bright red star Antares, dominates the center of the image. Mars and Saturn are visible in the upper-right. Ptolemy's Cluster and the Teapot asterism are on the left. There are clouds, mostly above the treeline, to the right. The Milky Way is visible at the top, just to the left of center. The image at the end of the post has labels.

To the ancient Greeks, the star Antares appeared similar in color and brightness to Mars, which they called Ares. The name Antares means, "rival to Ares" or "equal to Ares." Mars is approaching Antares in the sky, and the two will be less than 2 degrees apart, forming a nearly straight line with Saturn, on August 24, 2016.

Single, 30-second exposure at ISO-1600 made with a Canon EOS Rebel T5 with the stock EFS 18-55mm zoom lens @ 18mm. Corrected for lens distortion and color balanced in Photoshop CS6. Noise reduction using Google Nik Collection Dfine 2.0 Photoshop plug-in.

X Bar Ranch Nature Retreat

My older son and I spent a couple of nights at the X Bar Ranch Nature Retreat near Eldorado, Texas. The ranch features hiking and bike trails, and they have observing fields for amateur astronomers. They also host the annual Eldorado Star Party.

The sky at the X Bar Ranch is rated Class 2 on the Bortle Scale, which is almost as dark as possible. The night sky is amazing!

Below is a panorama of the one of the observing fields, taken from the deck of the Live Oak Lodge. The area is kept mowed, and electrical outlets are located on the back of the lodge and surrounding cabins:

We stayed two nights, but it was only clear on the first night. Seeing was steady above about 20 degrees, with some haze below that. I set up in a small field outside of our cabin and took some pictures of the Milky Way, and the Lagoon and Trifid nebulae. Here is a single 2-minute exposure of the Milky Way taken at ISO-3200 with the Canon EOS Rebel T3 (1100D) mounted on the Vixen Super Polaris:

The very dim illumination of the field at the bottom of the image is from some small, solar-charged walkway lights located behind the camera. The regular observing field is darker.

This is a crop of a stack of 27 2-minute exposures at ISO-3200:

Compare that image to images that I took at the same time two years ago from the SHSU Observatory. While I am pleased with how the older images turned out, they required a great deal more processing to tease the stars out from the light pollution. Most of the time that I spend processing images is usually concerned with removing haze and gradients caused by city lights. More on light pollution later...

One of my goals that night was to make a mosaic of four to six images in the area around the Lagoon and Trifid nebulae. Time was running short, though, and the Trifid was in the haze by the time I got to it. I had to settle for three sets of images. Still, I think it turned out well over all. Here is a mosaic stitched together using Microsoft Image Composite Editor (free software alert!):

Each of the three images is a stack of 12 2-minute exposures at ISO-3200. All were taken with the Canon EOS Rebel T3 (1100D) on the Orion ShortTube 80 with a Baader Contrast Booster filter. The scope was mounted on the Vixen Super Polaris.

I'm really impressed with how well the Baader Contrast Booster works at minimizing chromatic aberration. After using this filter a few times I've concluded that my ShortTube 80 crown/flint achromat is now working about as close to the performance of an ED achromat as it ever will. If only I could find a 1.25" field flattener...

Here are close-ups of the Lagoon and Trifid from the images that compose the mosaic:

Messier 8, The Lagoon Nebula

Messier 20, The Trifid Nebula

The sky here at the ObservaRory is about a 4.5 on the Bortle Scale. The Milky Way is fairly bright overhead, but is lost in the light dome of Huntsville, Texas near the horizon. The difference between the ranch's Class 2 sky and my Class 4.5 sky was immediately apparent, both to the naked eye and through the scopes. Even the polar alignment scope on the mount had a better view at the X Bar Ranch!

To illustrate the difference, compare these two subs taken exactly one month apart. Each image is a 2-minute exposure taken at ISO-3200 with the same equipment under similar weather conditions. No processing has been performed on either image, except to reduce them for display here. (The yellow cast was caused by the Baader Contrast Booster.)

Bortle Class 4.5 Sky at the ObservaRory

Bortle Class 2 Sky at the X Bar Ranch

Besides the darker background, many more stars are visible along with fainter portions of the nebula.

I am definitely spoiled by the sky in West Texas. I plan to make more trips as often as I can.

I hope to visit the X Bar Ranch again, too. The accommodations are comfortable, and the scenery is beautiful. The Meador Family, who own the ranch, are terrific hosts. They've thought of nearly everything and seem very friendly. If you happen to head that way, also check out the Caverns of Sonora:

Lower Room, Caverns of Sonora

The Milky Way

This is a wide-angle image of the Milky Way that roughly encompasses the area between the constellations Aquila (lower-left) to Scorpius (upper-right), taken during the night of the 2013 Perseid Meteor Shower from the SHSU observatory.

Milky Way; Canon EOS Rebel T3 (1100D), 18-55mm zoom lens at 18mm; Vixen SP mount; 15x120 @ ISO-1600, f/3.5

Here is a close-up centered on the area around Sagittarius. Several prominent features are visible, including the Sagittarius Star Cloud (M24), the Eagle Nebula (M16), the Swan Nebula (M17), the Lagoon Nebula (M8), the Trifid Nebula (M20) and Messier 21, Ptolemy's Cluster (M7), the Wild Duck Cluster (M11), and Messier 22.

2013 Perseids

I went out to the Sam Houston State University observatory the night of August 12/13 to watch the Perseid meteor shower and try to catch a few on camera. The shower wasn't as active as I'd hoped, and as the night progressed some thin clouds rolled in; but, there were still quite a few really nice fireballs and several fainter meteors. Here are pictures from the event.

Meteors:

Meteor over the dome.

Perseid fireball.

Faint meteor right of center.  The Andromeda Galaxy is the fuzzy patch located to the lower-right of the meteor, just above the power line.

Things that Looked Like Meteors, but were not Meteors:

I got really excited when I saw this bright streak on the camera preview, but after examining the images before and after I found that it was just a satellite. I have not been able to determine which satellite this is. Two more satellite trails are visible a little to the right of the streak at the bottom edge of the image.

I am uncertain about this little streak, which appears above the Milky Way in the constellation Ophiuchus. Its trajectory seems to point back in the direction of the Perseid radiant, but it may also be a flare from a satellite. The image was taken a little before 10:00 PM, which supports my satellite hypothesis since sunlight would still be shining over the horizon at the altitudes where many satellites orbit.

Other Shots:

This is the dome that houses the big telescope. The building to the left is the classroom. The streak on the left edge above the classroom building was created by an airplane's running lights.

There was a break in the clouds right along the line of sight with the Milky Way. I enhanced the Milky Way a bit in this image to bring out the detail.

Mike Prokosch, the observatory administrator, watches for meteors as the clouds start rolling in.

The Milky Way in the vicinity of Sagittarius, and a cloud.

Star trails over the observatory.

Wide-Angle Shots

I've been experimenting with taking wide-angle long exposures with the camera mounted on the Vixen SP. Here is an image made in September 2012 of the Milky Way, with the constellation Cygnus on the left, and the constellation Aquila on the right. Prominent features include:

• The North America Nebula, on the left.
• The Great Rift (the dark lane that stretches across the middle of the image from left to right).
• The Cygnus Star Cloud (the bright region just above the middle, from about the center of the image and extending to the left)

This image also encompasses part of the area that is being studied by the Kepler mission.

Note, too, that the Great Rift appears less dark on the right. This is due to light pollution from town.

Milky Way from Cygnus to Aquila; Canon EOS Rebel XS on Vixen SP mount; 15x240; click here for full size

The following was a test image made after focusing the camera on Jupiter during a brief imaging session in early November 2012. Jupiter is the bright star near the center of the image. The reddish star to the upper-right of Jupiter is Aldebaran, in the constellation Taurus. Also visible are star clusters NGC 1746 (which is actually an asterism partially composed of two open clusters), NGC 1647 and the Hyades cluster. The vertical streak is the light trail made by an airplane.

Jupiter; Canon EOS Rebels XS on Vixen SP mount; 1x30

After focusing the camera, I pointed it at Messier 31, the Andromeda Galaxy:

Messier 31, the Andromeda Galaxy; Canon EOS Rebel XS on Vixen SP mount; 6x150

My primary goal was to image the area surrounding the constellation Perseus. My time was running short and Perseus had just cleared the trees, so I pointed the camera in that direction and got enough subs for the image below. Some of the items visible here are the Double Cluster (above and right of center), and the Heart and Soul nebulae (the faint red patches below and left of center):

Perseus Region; Canon EOS Rebel XS on Vixen SP mount; 11x150; click here for full size

Sky Shots

The limiting magnitude here is about 5, which is not bad considering our proximity to Houston, Huntsville and so many prisons. (Prisons are lit up by dozens of sodium lights, most of which illuminate the sky as well as the ground.)

The light dome of Huntsville dominates the southern view from my house, but even so it is still possible to see quite a lot. The view from the Sam Houston State University observatory is even better.

My EQ-1 mount is not well-suited for taking images through a telescope, but it is adequate for making wide-angle shots. One of the rings that came with my telescope has a set screw for mounting a camera. Here are a couple of shots of the sky from my house.

Milky Way in the region of Cygnus

The Sun and Earth reside in a "spur" arm of the Milky Way Galaxy call the Orion-Cygnus arm. It is a relatively small arm located between two larger spiral arms that probably radiate out from the galactic center. When you look up at the constellation Cygnus, the Swan, you are looking up through the Orion-Cygnus arm. Here is a labeled version:

The center of galaxy is located in the constellation Sagittarius. Sagittarius is a very rich star field. It contains a number of bright, easily identifiable deep sky objects, including the Eagle Nebula, the Lagoon Nebula, Ptolemy's Cluster, and the Sagittarius Star Cloud. The Sagittarius Star Cloud, also known as Messier 24, is a portion of the Sagittarius spiral arm that is relatively free of the dust clouds that normally obscure our view of the galactic plane.

Milky Way, including Galactic Center, in Sagittarius

This image above was shot through the light dome of Huntsville. Here is a labeled version: