Further adventures with a computerized telescope

When we have a few expected clear nights strung together, I try and get out with telescope and/or camera to enjoy the night sky -- such as it is in modern towns. And so it was that Thursday I set up the "new" Sky-Watcher mount with the intention of practicing polar and stellar alignment.

In order for a computerized equatorial telescope to aim at the celestial targets one seeks, it must be sitting level, it needs to know: where it is (latitude and longitude), what time it is -- down to the second, the location of a couple of bright stars, and have its axis of rotation perfectly aligned with Polaris -- the North Star -- actually a specific point in space near Polaris! If you get all of those right, computerized mounts are great; you simply tap into a control device what you want to view, tap another button to tell it to "go-to" the target, and bibbidi-bobbidi-boo, motors whir, the telescope moves, and in a few moments you're enjoying wonders of the universe. If you get everything right. If you don't get everything right, it's frustration and mosquitoes in the dark.

Waiting for Dark. The telescope sits atop its very demanding computerized mount, and sports a new finder telescope.

So Thursday night I managed to get the polar alignment better, probably, than I have ever before. I was using a telescope control app that seemed to occasionally get the location wrong and that's a big deal. Eventually I was able to get the telescope to approximately locate objects and got decent views of Jupiter and Saturn before calling it quits -- there was a lot of struggle involved. I put the weather cover over the scope and headed in.

Friday night was cloudy. I needed the rest anyway.

Saturday night saw hazy skies, glowing from ground-based light pollution but with cloudy nights ahead, I uncovered the telescope -- already polar-aligned -- and was particularly meticulous about date and time entry using the hand controller instead of the phone app. After a bit of trouble finding alignment stars in the soupy sky, I enjoyed seeing the message saying setup "COMPLETED."

From then on, the system worked "as advertised." So I keyed in Jupiter, and Saturn, followed by a number of other objects. Photography wasn't the primary objective -- conquering proper setup was -- but with the telescope balanced for use with a camera, what the heck! I was glad I had the camera at the ready because many of the objects I wanted to view were not visible by eye in the milky sky. Time after time the scope pointed at the objects of interest. Wonderful! It's been years since I had a go-to telescope work as well as this.

The field of view allowed the Perseus Double Cluster to be recorded in one camera frame. I was using my Canon EOS 6D Mark 2 DSLR mounted at the telescope's prime focus -- it's essentially using the telescope as an 1,800mm telephoto lens.

Perseus Double Cluster. A pair of open star clusters in one field of view.

One of my favorites, Messier 82, showed faintly in an image (also not shown here) and was invisible to the eye on account of light pollution. The pairing of M81 and M82 is one of my favorite galactic sights though a telescope; I'm going to need better skies or a different location to see them again!

My photos, though certainly not spectacular, revealed more galaxies than I'd yet seen in my lifetime. Barnard's Galaxy (not pictured here) was revealed by the camera. I shot a photo of the star Mirfak because I thought it would be pretty with diffraction spikes. When I viewed the image on my computer, several small streaks with central bulges showed up -- distant galaxies in the background

Star Mirfak sports diffraction spikes making it seem to shine brighter. The spikes are caused by support vanes within the telescope affecting the light pattern focusing in the camera.

 

 

 

 

 

Mirfak and the Galaxies? It's unlikely the circled objects are galaxies but I am at a loss as to what may have caused the artifacts; other objects bright and dim do not look like those.

A first viewing and new fascination of mine is the Saturn Nebula: a planetary nebula around 5,200 light-years distant, which resembles planet Saturn in shape only. It's a beautifully complex cloud of star-stuff that photographs in vivid color. Its image via DSLR is disappointingly small and required much cropping to see in any detail. I was delighted to capture a bit of its complexity and I'll be visiting the object repeatedly for viewing and photographic challenge.

The Saturn Nebula. Clouds of stellar material glow, the aftermath of the death of a star. The oval shape of this planetary nebula resemble an unfocused image of real planet Saturn.

I also captured my best image, to date, of globular cluster Messier 2 -- a beautiful ball of stars 55,000 light-years away. Capturing the brightest stars is easy but the cluster, one of the larger globular clusters known, is composed of around 150,000 stars. The cluster looks like a pretty fuzz ball by eye, photographs reveal some of those thousands of stars, and the best images look like diamond dust.

Messier 2 -- a large globular cluster of stars -- is found in the Aquarius constellation.

Flashes were lighting the sky to the south and east and clouds were beginning to flow in. A distant thunderstorm was drifting in my general direction. I called it a night at about 12:30 a.m., and tore down the entire setup stowing it in case of stormy weather.

It was a very good night, this further adventure in astronomy, giving me hope I've finally worked out the kinks and can more fully enjoy the experience.

A weak image but a personal best

Messier 101 -- The Pinwheel Galaxy -- in Ursa Major. The spiral and star clouds just emerging from the background. DSLR camera at prime focus of 1,800mm FL Cassegrain telescope. A first attempt that shows great promise.

All right, I know this is a weak and maybe ugly image of a beautiful gem of the night sky but to me it represents great promise. This was a target-of-opportunity imaging attempt I made after shooting comet photos. I keyed in M101 (for object no. 101 in the famous Messier Catalog) on the telescope's control pad and with loud whirring the telescope swung up and to the north. Peering through the eyepiece at stars in a light-polluted sky, I manually moved the telescope ... was that a little cloud in space, or a floater in my eye? Back again, yeah! Barely visible, but it's there! That's what a galaxy looks like through a small telescope: a little, dimly-glowing cloud. I shot a test image and sure enough, there's something there. I shot a series of images, a series of "darks" -- covering the telescope and recording the electronic noise of the camera's image sensor -- and called it quits for the night. So, after processing I got what you see above. I know I need to boost the camera's ISO (sensitivity) and maybe the exposure time for each image. The image shown here is, however, the best photo I've ever made of an object outside of the Milky Way -- the spiral arms show, star clouds and all. I know now I can do this and I hope the next attempt will actually be beautiful for others to see!

The Pinwheel Galaxy is a face-on spiral galaxy 21 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation Ursa Major. It was discovered by Pierre Méchain on March 27, 1781. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinwheel_Galaxy

Farewell to a comet

Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) the night of July 24, 2020 via DSLR camera at the prime focus of an 1,800mm FL Cassegrain telescope. Photo by James Guilford.

Friday night, July 24, 2020, offered possibly the last best chance for me to see and photograph Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE). The comet was nearing its closest approach to Earth but was speeding away from our Sun as it headed toward the outer Solar System -- it was closer to us but dimming!

I met up with other astro-folk and photographers at a Medina County park. This time, having made photos capturing the scenic beauty of the comet in the night sky, I traveled with telescope and computerized mount. I wanted to see what "close-up" detail I might capture in the comet's nucleus and tail.

The old Meade-branded mount fired up and, to my surprise, I quickly achieved good alignment using a compass and "eyeballing". The recently-discovered comet wasn't in the computer-controller's database so I selected a spot as near the comet as I could and manually moved the telescope for aim.

Through binoculars I was readily able to spy the comet, though it was noticeably dimmer than a week earlier. A companion and I both were sure we caught a naked-eye glimpse of the object through averted vision. It certainly did not reflect in the park's lake waters.

So I shot a number of image series, experimented with various ISO settings, and shot a few images in "portrait" orientation in case I might record long cometary tails. That's not what I got.

The camera recorded/rendered C/2020 F3 with a vivid green nucleus with a diffuse, reddish tail. Through the telescope I could see the greenish tint so I knew that was real and to be expected in the images. These close-up images are not what I expected but, I think, not bad; they serve as a farewell to a comet that brought a good deal of excitement to the amateur astronomical community in general and to me in particular.