Time Warps ... and ... Space Pictures

First the Time Warp ...

This morning I was watching TV while eating breakfast. When the Today Show (which I sometimes suffer through on weekends) ended the host said something about your 9AM news begins now.


My eye caught the time on my VCR/DVD player which said: 9:27 AM. Meanwhile, the time on the TV said 9:00AM. I immediately became confused. I asked Char to check the time on the microwave oven. It too said: 9:27 AM. Confusion and illogic ruled! How could it be 9:00 when all my clocks said 9:27 ? Yikes! Did we have a time warp and I missed it ?


Then logic and reason caught up with my increasingly dumb-founded brain. While the Today Show was on, I paused 'Live TV' (we have TIVO) to make breakfast so I could see some scenes they were going to show from the upcoming movie: '2012'.


After cooking some sausage and eggs I un-paused 'Live TV' and watched the last 30 minutes of the Today Show. Apparently, I had the TV paused 27 minutes while cooking breakfast and forgot. Char and I had a good laugh over that one. Makes me wonder what kind of trouble Char and I will get ourselves into when we are Geezers.


Now the Space Pictures ...


I finally had an opportunity to do some deep space imaging last Sunday evening after weeks and months of clouds, humidity, rain and exhaustion when conditions were good but I was too tired to care.


Here are a few 'raw' images of some deep space objects I photographed that night. By raw image, I mean that I have not retouched these images with software. They are shown as I captured them. Using special astronomy software I can stack several of these images together and come up with a more defined picture, but that is time consuming and I don't have time to do that right now.


Messier Object 31 (M31) - The Andromeda Galaxy is our closest neighbor in the galactic neighborhood. Some astronomers think Andromeda and our galaxy, The Milky Way will collide in about 8 billion years. Uhhhhhhhmmmmm, I for one am not concerned about what happens 8 eons from now.






Messier Object 42 (M42) - The Orion Nebula is a very bright winter object that can be seen naked-eye in very dark skies and easily seen with binoculars. You will see many more photos of M42 as winter progresses and it gets higher in the sky. The picture looks so washed out, because M42 is low in the sky right now and is affected by light pollution.







Messier Object 45 (M45) - The Pleiades, or Seven Sisters as some call it is an open cluster that contains seven blue stars and dozens of other bright stars. It is easily seen in the ENE sky just after dark in the Fall and is straight overhead in the winter. The haze around the seven blue stars is left over dust from when the stars were born.





I also photographed M1, The Crab Nebula and M33, The Triangulum Galaxy, but these pictures were too faint to appreciate. Guess who I will be imaging next ?


That is it for now. Hope you liked the pictures.


Star Pilot, AKA Star Geezer


P.S. - I am planning a post sometime soon to dispel the hype that the movie 2012 is causing, so stay tuned. In short, the world will NOT end on 12/21/2012". Besides, if it did, what could we do about it anyhow ?


@@@

The Thirty-Something Collection

On December 29th I had a chance to give my new telescope mount a spin. I decided to take images of the "thirty-something" Messier objects (M31 - M39, less M30 which is not visible).

Hope you enjoy the pictures as much as I had viewing and imaging them.


M31, The Andromeda Galaxy is the brightest galaxy visible from Earth and is an easy naked-eye and binocular target for star gazers. M31 has two close neighbors, M32 and M110, both of which are much smaller and will eventually be absorbed by M31. This Grand Galaxy lies 2,900 light years (ly) from Earth and is due to collide with our galaxy, The Milky Way in about 1-Billion years. M31 was referred to as the "little cloud" to famous Persian astronomer Al-Sufi who depicted the object in his Book of Fixed Stars in 905AD.

M32 (at center, M31 is lower-right) is a companion galaxy of M31 and will eventually be absorbed by its huge neighbor.

M33 the Triangulum Galaxy (also the Pinwheel) is a spiral galaxy that is a companion of its much larger neighbor, the Andromeda Galaxy. M33 is 3,000 ly from Earth and is moving toward our solar system at a rate of 240 km/s. Don't worry though, at that rate it will take a billion years or so to get here.

M34 is an open star cluster in the constellation Perseus. It consists of about 100 stars and lies about 1,400 ly away from Earth. The object is naked-eye visible under dark sky conditions and can be seen any evening in the Fall, Winter and early Spring.

M35 is an impressive open star cluster that lies in the constellation Gemini. The cluster consists of several hundred stars, many of which are brighter than magnitude 13. M35 covers an area larger than the Moon, is 24 lyacross and is about 2,800 ly from Earth.

M36 is one of three bright open clusters in the constellation Auriga. M37 and M38 are the other clusters. From our perspective M36 measures 14 ly across and is 4,100 ly from Earth.

M37 is the brightest of the three Auriga open clusters. It contains over 500 stars, 150 of which are brighter than magnitude 12. M37 is 4,400 ly from Earth and spans 24 ly across.

M38 is the last of three open clusters in Auriga. Lying very close (2.5 degrees north) of M36, this is 4,200 ly from Earth and 25 ly across. It contains a very large yellow star that would dwarf our meager Sun many-fold. Some astronomers have seen a 'cross' pattern in some of the brightest stars while others have seen the math symbol 'Pi'. I will leave you to decide what pattern, if any you see in M38.

M39 is an open cluster in the constellation Cygnus. The cluster is 800 ly away and a about 7 ly in diameter. M39 contains 30 proven member stars, though some star catalogs put the number closer to 50.

My next outing (when the rain stops & clouds part) will include a journey through the constellation Orion.

There are several sky treasures to discover in that group of stars.

I just need to wait for the weather to cooperate.

Clear Skies


@@@

Second Glance

First Light with my new telescope was great, but not ideal because of haze and humidity in the air, along with light from a Hunters Moon. I had a chance to go out again the night of October 19th. I took additional pictures of M31/M110, M32, M33, and the Double Cluster (NGC869 & NGC884). They turned out much better without all the light pollution. Here are the pictures.

This picture of M31 (galaxy at left), M110 (appears as a star in M31's star cloud) and M32 (smaller galaxy to the right of M31) is untouched and unmodified. I should get better shots as I learn to track better, because I will be able to take longer exposures.





M33, The Pinwheel Galaxy actually showed up in the frame, which even surprized me. There is a lot of light pollution in my neighborhood, so it is almost impossible to see faint objects when viewing from my front yard. I eneded up shooting this picture in the dark, and was surprised when M33 appeared in the frame.




This 1.5 minute exposure of NGC869 (half of the Double Cluster) reveals many more stars than my original picture taken 10/11/08. (See my previous posting)

This 1.5 minute exposure of NGC884 (other half of the Double Cluster) reveals many more stars than my original picture taken 10/11/08. (See my previous posting)

All in all it was a successful evening under the stars. I will post more as time permits. I hope to catch Jupiter and Venus later in the week.

Enjoying Clear Skies!

StarPilot

P.S. - I have to pick a new name, because my wife said StarPilot sounds corny. Actually, she said it sounded 'gay'. I am taking suggestions.

Jim a.k.a. (soon to be formerly) StarPilot

@