Out With The Old, and In With ...

Hi All!

Here are a few photos to round out the year. I've been busy the entire month and haven’t been able to write any BLOG entries.

My star gazing opportunities have been few and far between because of cloudy nights.

Photo 1 is Comet Holmes taken December 14th with a jet flying through my field of view while I was taking the shot.

Photo 2 is the Constellation Perseus portion of the Milky Way Galaxy. The star field is very dense in this portion of the sky. You can see Comet Holmes in the upper-right portion of the picture.

Photo 3 is M42 "The Great Orion Nebula". The Pinkish-Purple colors are the actual colors of the nebula. Some photographers doctor the colors, but you'll not see that with my pictures. I believe in showing what can be seen with the naked eye through a telescope or binoculars.

Photo 4 is M31 "The Andromeda Galaxy. It's our closest neighboring galaxy. The fuzzy spot just below Andromeda is M32, and just above Andromeda is M110, two dwarf galaxies.

Photo 5 is uhmmm ... Mars. It's the best I could do with a shaky camera tripod. I got a new camera tripod for Christmas, but haven't had a chance to use it yet.

That's it for this entry. I've been studying visible constellations for this time of year and am planning some star gazing sessions to locate new (to me) galaxies and other deep space objects.

See you in 2008!

Star Pilot

P.S. – Comments are always appreciated.

The Newest Member of the Family

Say hello to the newest member of my family. No, not my Son-in-law or Granddaughter. I'm referring to the tall, black tube beside them.

Give a heartfelt "Hoooooowdy!" to the Celestron StarHopper 8" Dobsonian Telescope. It has an 8" reflector mirror that allows excellent viewing of dimmer deep space objects.

I bought it for $50 on CraigsList. I had no idea it was so large until I picked it up from the buyer. When I saw it, I said: “Cool!” When my wife saw it, she exclaimed: "Holy Crap!" (It’s all a matter of perspective.) :)

My wife wanted to know if I planned to spy on the angels. Hmmm!

It's not the best thing for taking pictures, but it sure is great for observing Solar System and Deep Sky objects.

This is going to be fun!

StarPilot

Latest Observations

The weather is getting colder, but viewing of celestial objects is getting better with lowered humidity in the atmosphere.

Images 1 thru 5 are some of my latest astronomic observations.

Image-1: I'm glad to see Mars rising earlier in the evening. I should have some opportunities to view the ice-capped poles and if I'm lucky view some terrain features. More to follow in a future post ...

Image-1 was taken on 11-16-07 at 9:04PM.
Weather: Partly Cloudy, 50F
Method: Piggy Back on ETX-125
Camera: Nikon D80
ISO Speed: 400
Lens: 50mm
F-Number: F/1.8
Exposure: 8 Seconds

Image-2: M45 Pleiades is the most brilliant open cluster that can be seen with the naked eye. I hope to capture more pictures of this Messier Object in future photo sessions.

Image-2 was taken on 11-16-07 at 9:45PM.
Weather: Partly Cloudy, 50F
Method: Piggy Back on ETX-125
Camera: Nikon D80
ISO Speed: 400
Lens: 50mm
F-Number: F/1.8
Exposure: 8 Seconds

Images 3 & 4: [Image 3 is an untouched picture of the constellation Orion. Image 4 was a modified image of the same picture to include boxes around major stars and objects in Orion.]

The constellation Orion is one of the easiest objects to identify in the sky. Orion contains M42 (Orion Nebula) IC434 Horsehead Nebula, along with M43, M78 and NGC2024 (Flame Nebula). The Orion nebula gas field is the most active star forming region in our stellar neighborhood. If I get some good viewing/imaging sessions, I’ll dedicate an entire BLOG post to Orion.

Here’s a link to the Wikipedia entry for the constellation Orion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_(constellation)

Images 3 & 4 were taken on 11-27-07 at 9:45PM.
Weather: Clear, 29F
Method: Piggy Back on ETX-125
Camera: Nikon D80
ISO Speed: 800
Lens: 50mm
F-Number: F/2.8
Exposure: 8 Seconds

Image-5 is my latest photograph of comet 17P Holmes. The bright star below the comet is Mirfak, which is the brightest star in the constellation Perseus.

Images-5 was taken on 11-27-07 at 9:32PM.
Weather: Clear, 29F
Method: Piggy Back on ETX-125
Camera: Nikon D80
ISO Speed: 1600
Lens: 70-300mm @ 155mm
F-Number: F/4.8
Exposure: 30 Seconds

Hope you're enjoying the pictures!

Star Pilot