Comet C/2013 R1 (Lovejoy)

Lately, comet ISON has been getting a lot of attention in the press and among astronomers, but at present it is difficult to see because it is close to the horizon just before dawn. Comet C/2013 R1 (Lovejoy), however, is considerably higher up in the early morning sky at my latitude.  It reached naked eye visibility in early November.

Comets are named using a convention that indicates the type of comet, and the year, half-month and order in which it was discovered. The discoverer's name is often included, and is sometimes used as the familiar name for the comet. This comet was discovered in September 2013 by famous amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy. It is a long-period comet, with an estimated orbital period of over 10,000 years.

I made these images early in the morning on November 13. The first is a stack made in RegiStax 5 of 16 two-minute exposures centered on the comet core. The comet was moving rather quickly, so over time it moved a significant distance within my camera's field of view. As a result, aligning the images on the comet core caused the stars to trail.

Comet C2013 R1 (Lovejoy); ST80 on Vixen SP; EOS Rebel T3; 16x120 at ISO-1600

The second image is a combined stack of four images using the comet stacking settings in Deep Sky Stacker. The program attempts to stack the comet and stars separately, then combine them.

It did a fair job of producing the image, but it washed out the color of the comet and left "holes" in the brighter stars. After a bit of work I got most of the color back and fixed the stars.

Although it does not have the detail of the first image, it looks better than a single frame.

4x120 at ISO-1600, stacked in DSS using the "Comet and stars" stacking mode.

The Fireworks Galaxy and NGC 6939

I like finding objects that are close to one another in the sky like this interesting pair. Of course, they are many millions of light years apart from one another, but from our perspective they are neighbors. The spiral galaxy to the lower-left is cataloged as NGC 6946, but is more commonly known as the Fireworks Galaxy due to the unusually large number of supernovae recorded there in the past century. The Fireworks Galaxy is located along the border of the constellations Cepheus and Cygnus.  Distance estimates vary between 10 and a little over 20 million light years away.

Open cluster NGC 6939 is considerably closer, at about 4000 light years, in the constellation Cepheus.

Fireworks Galaxy and NGC 6939; Canon EOS Rebel T3 (1100D); ST80 on Vixen SP mount; 16x120 @ ISO-3200

The Andromeda Galaxy

With good eyes at a dark location, you might see a faint smudge of light located about halfway between the Milky Way and the Great Square of Pegasus. This is our nearest galactic neighbor, the Andromeda Galaxy, also known as Messier 31. It spans an area in the sky several times the angular size of the Full Moon, but most people don't notice it. Regardless of this lack of notoriety among the general public, the Andromeda Galaxy is at least twice the size of our own galaxy, and appears to be heading straight toward us!

This is a difficult object to image due to its size. A patient person with enough time on his or her hands would do it in sections and build a mosaic. Not being particularly patient or possessing much time, I chose to do it in one series of shots. It barely fits within the field of view of my camera on the ST80; and since I do not have a field flattener there is a noticeable distortion on the edges. Still, I think this is my best one so far.

Messier 31; Canon EOS Rebel T3 (1100D); ST80 on Vixen SP mount; 20x120 @ ISO-3200

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.

Autumn Equinox 2013

The road in front of my house runs east-west, so I thought I'd try one of those sunrise or sunset equinox pictures. Today was the first full day of autumn in East Texas. The sky was overcast at sunrise, but I was able to get these pictures about 20 minutes before sunset.

Looking West shortly before sunset.

Looking East, casting a long shadow.

Messier 16

I imaged Messier 16 back in July 2010, but was never satisfied with the results. It was one of my early attempts at imaging with the astrograph and the Canon EOS Rebel XS (1000D).

I've learned a lot about image processing since then and have gained better tools. So, occasionally I like to go back and rework older images to see if I can make them better. I'm satisfied enough with this image to post it, but I would like to go back and reshoot it one day when I get a chance.

Messier 16, also known as the Eagle Nebula, is perhaps most famous for the Hubble Space Telescope image of the Pillars of Creation. The pillars are visible in this image near the center, although they certainly don't look as spectacular here as in the Hubble image!

Messier 16, the Eagle Nebula; Epsilon-200 on NJP mount; 19x120 at ISO-800

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.