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.