Astrophoto blitz - an exciting start

Venus Setting with Gemini - May 23, 2015

Saturday night, May 23, the Cuyahoga Astronomical Association (CAA) hosted their first Public Star Party for 2015. The event took place at the club’s observatory situated on the grounds of the Medina County Park System’s Letha House Park in Spencer, Ohio. As a member I was in attendance with my massive Meade 6-inch refractor, one of many members there to share telescopic views with public visitors. Attendance was light, around 50 for the event, though folks were generally enthusiastic excitedly moving between telescopes. The sky was beautifully clear and allowed high-quality views of the Moon, Jupiter, Saturn, Venus, the Hercules Star Cluster (M13), and other amazing things.

Things quieted down early and, after a while, our visitors disappeared. I’d brought my DSLR camera hoping to try some through-the-telescope astrophotography. As other club members began packing their gear, I hastily attached my camera, focused on the Moon, and began a quick photo run of several interesting objects. My telescope's "go-to" function had been running very well during the star party, so I had high hopes that I could trust it for photographic aiming!

Waxing Gibbous Moon, May 23, 2015

I shot the Moon, M13, M4, Jupiter + moons, M57 – the Ring Nebula, and M81/M82 – formerly aka Bode’s Nebulae, or (now) Bode's Galaxies. The Moon shot (above) was easy and beautiful and M13 (below) was pretty good considering how little time I was able to spend on it.

M13 and Star Field

The Bode Galaxies (as they are sometimes now known), aka Messier 81 & 82, were literally a shot in the dark; I couldn’t see them in the camera viewfinder due to their faintness. I let the telescope system aim and I triggered a couple of brief exposures and was not disappointed.

M81 (left) and M82 (right) as "Faint Fuzzies"

Even with the galaxies depicted as the "faint fuzzies" they are to the oberver's eye, when excessively brightened (below), the digital image begins to show the spiral pattern of M81 extending far beyond the bright core seen above. The elongated, split appearance of M82 is also quite visible in my blitz-images. Seeing the galaxy pair in the same telescopic field of view is one of my fond memories of visually exploring the sky; seeing it mimicked in one of my photographs is pretty cool. Seeing how how much detail begins to emerge using a single brief (10-second) exposure excites further efforts!

Image Excessively Brightened Reveals some Recorded Data

To end my night at Letha House Park, I took flashlight in hand and, with camera now mounted to a tripod and camera lens installed, hiked down to the edge of the park’s lake. Reflected in the still waters was brilliant Venus, close to the horizon and about to set, the stars of Gemini floating above the Goddess of Beauty. I made several hurried exposures of the lake scene and returned to my telescope to pack up and head home.

I arrived home at 1:00 AM and moved my gear into the house, then downloaded the camera’s image files to my desktop computer. Looking at the camera’s preview window, I had some idea of how well things went but the computer's much larger display reveals all. I was delighted with what I saw. The telescope had located each of the several objects without my needing to look through the viewfinder — some were too dim to see there — and tracked those objects well enough to prevent most movement during the several seconds of each exposure. I had been able to perform only a rough alignment at the beginning of the public event!


There, on the screen, was a beautiful gathering of stars — the M13 star cluster — and the best deep sky image I’d ever made. The dim and distant Ring Nebula (M57) also registered, even displaying some color. Less impressive was my image of the M4 star cluster in Scorpius, though it registered well enough to be readily identified.

By today’s amateur astronomy standards, mine are primitive beginner’s efforts. Still, I’m pretty happy and very excited with what I got during my photographic blitz session. The successes were promising indications of what is to come as I continue to image the sky.

Photo Notes: The camera was attached to the telescope, in essence, using the telescope as a 1,200mm telephoto lens; this is called the “prime focus” approach. Moon shot was ISO 400 and 1/200 sec. Most stellar images were shot with the camera set at ISO 2000. Exposures of eight to 10 seconds worked best, given alignment limitations. The large, bright star cluster M13 in constellation Hercules is made up of about 300,000 stars and is located 22,000 light-years away. The Moon was in waxing Gibbous phase, 5.9 days old, and 396,748 km (246,528 miles) distant.

Alumni Night 2013 at Stephens

June 14, 2013: It is Alumni Weekend at Hiram College. A modern featured program for the annual event is Alumni Night at the Observatory. In all more than 60 visitors came to Stephens, many of them arriving during twilight and before anything could be viewed through the telescope. When the sky did darken enough for viewing, moving people around in the dome was difficult. At first seeing was mediocre but as the sky darkened and the atmosphere settled, seeing become very good. At its best, observers were able to see the Cassini Division within Saturn's rings along with several of the planet's larger moons. Visitors were happy and enthusiastic the whole evening. As the crowd thinned out, I was able to move the telescope to other objects and we had excellent views of M57 - The Ring Nebula, and M4 - the globular cluster in Scorpius. M4 was actually quite stunning with a swarm of stars and a central, vertical bar showing in the field of view. Scorpius was well-placed and beautiful to behold.

As I was leaving I looked back at the Observatory wishing I could stay and photograph the scene: the "scorpion" floating above the observatory dome. One more treat awaited as I crested a hill at the start of my drive home: a glowing orange sliver of Moon floated above the western horizon; a fine ending to the night's activities. A public night is planned for tonight (June 15) but clouds are expected to move in with rain chances beginning around our 9:30 starting time.

Saturn and Moons Image via "Gas Giants" app simulation for June 14, 2013 @ 10:30 PM EDT.

Alumni stargazing

Saturn and Largest Moons - June 15, 2012 ~ 10 PM EDT. Simulation via "Gas Giants" iPad app.

It is Alumni Weekend at Hiram College this weekend and Friday night featured observing for attendees at Stephens Memorial Observatory. The first visitors arrived at our door during bright twilight and it was a good many minutes before Spica and nearby Saturn began to glimmer in the southern sky. There was a thin veil of cloud high above the region but, as night fell, the veil lifted and revealed decent views of the ringed world. About 27 alumni and family members took a look at Saturn and several of its moons over the course of the warm, 70+ degree evening. Though the seeing was not nearly so good as May's public session, it was still adequate to display the "F" Ring, Saturn's shadow falling across its rings, and hints of color cloud belts. We viewed at three different magnifications but visitors most enjoyed the detail that emerged in our new Brandon eyepieces, particularly 16mm optic that delivered 208X magnification. Common comments were: "Oh, wow!" and "Oh, that's a picture!" which are not unlike what we hear in public sessions. The crowd thinned out rapidly as folks drifted off to social functions but three stayed behind. The sky was dark and at its peak around 10:30 so I swung the big W&S refractor around to find M57 -- the Ring Nebula in Lyra. In short order I picked it up, an object I describe as a gray donut. One alum, in biology, said it reminded her of the shape of a red corpuscle of blood -- actually an apt comparison! We also took a look at Antares blazing away in constellation Scorpius, and open star cluster M4, nearby. Both were impressive and quietly beautiful. In fact, the view of M4 seemed better than some of my previous sightings with bright stars scattered across a bed of diamond dust and with a roughly oblong shape in the FOV. We noticed seeing was rapidly deteriorating and as I escorting our last guests out the door, we looked up -- a thicker veil of clouds was moving into the area. By 11:45 the sky was opaque again.

A fine night out

After a long period of hazy, hot, humid, and cloudy weather we caught a break... last night's skies were predicted to be about as good as they ever get here. So I went out on an independent session to the astronomy club observing site near Spencer, Ohio -- something I have not done in far too long a time. Skies there are not as dark as they were a few years ago, but a paved parking lot, no street lights, and official permission for the activity made it acceptable.

I got a late start and had to forgo opportunities to enjoy and photograph a marvelous sunset over a broad valley. I did, however, arrive on site in time to use the fading twilight in setting up my equipment. As the last light faded the Milky Way emerged, visible from near the southern horizon to overhead and a bit beyond. Along the horizon were the summer constellations: Sagittarius and Scorpius. Saturn was sinking into the murk of the western horizon but I got a hazy glimpse of the ring world through another's telescope, already set up.

Due to not using my own telescope in some time, I suffered some difficulties in setup and alignment. I couldn't even find Polaris in the telescope mount's alignment optic and so "eyeballed" it. Surprisingly, the alignment was very good and for the rest of the night the scope was able to center or come close to all objects I asked its GoTo computer to find.

Though the sky was cloudless, it did suffer overall from light pollution or, perhaps, some lingering natural twilight. Viewing of a number of Messier objects was only fair. My old friends M81 and M82, which can be a lovely sight within the same eyepiece field of view, were barely discernible against the gray background sky. I did view, for the first time, M20 --the Trifid Nebula-- but observed no nebulosity, only the associated star cluster. The "Whirlpool Galaxy" (M51) could barely be seen at all though M31 --the Andromeda Galaxy-- put in an appearance looking, typically, like a cottonwood seed fluff.

I love refractor telescopes but frequent issue is that, when aimed straight up, the eyepiece can be uncomfortably low to the ground. So I happily got a nice view of the Ring Nebula (M57), which at that hour was high overhead, through the SCT of a companion.

In all, I viewed M11, M20, M22, M31, M51 (barely), M57, M81, M82, all in the space of a couple of hours. Then came the Moon.

As the waning gibbous Moon rose, its glow obscured the lovely path of the Milky Way and made it increasingly difficult to see any but the brightest deep sky objects. So I pointed my telescope towards Jupiter.

Jupiter emerged from behind the Sun earlier this year minus its dark southern equatorial cloud band or belt. I was eager to see. Though still low in the sky and rising at nearly the same altitude as the Moon, I was able to get a decent view of the planetary disk. Observed at several magnifications, with and without ND filter and sure enough, only one dark band was visible. I thought I could see hints of the Great Red Spot but, with the planet still low in the atmosphere, couldn't confirm that. I hope to get a better view of Jove next month but, at least, I got to see it!

I aimed the telescope at planet Uranus but that distant world was barely a dot in the eyepiece.

My project for the night was to attach my Canon EOS 50D digital SLR camera directly to my big Meade refractor -- using the 1,200mm optic as a telephoto lens. I'd never tried it before and it worked beautifully. There was some difficulty achieving sharp focus which was a surpise to me. Add to that the fact that I did not yet have a cable release for the camera and I was happy to get usable images at all. I did, however, get one very good shot out of the experiment (shown here) and will be ordering a cable release soon. That little device will help me minimize vibration -- I had to trigger the shutter by pressing the shutter release button by hand; an action that shook the entire telescope and did not help picture taking.

Packed up and left at about 11:15 a happy fellow.

Image: The Moon... both cursed and loved by amateur astronomers worldwide. It brought an early end to deep sky observing tonight but, itself, made a great subject for viewing and photographing. Canon EOS 50D: ISO 400, 1/400 sec., Meade achromatic f/8 refracting telescope: 1,219 mm. August 28, 2010, 10:54 PM. Photo by James Guilford.

A changeable sky

Even before heading to Stephens Memorial Observatory conditions were changeable. The mixed forecasts called for partly cloudy skies with the chance of isolated thunderstorms. Seeing conditions, well, the forecast was from no good to okay. As it turned out, all of those things were true! I opened the Observatory and my first visitors for the night began arriving shortly thereafter. Due to neighboring trees, we hauled the portable 10-inch reflector out to the lawn to catch a look at the Moon which was floating in clear sky. Nice views enjoyed by all present. Even as we watched a shelf of clouds moved steadily from the northwest first obscuring, then covering the Moon. As a few more folks arrived we talked about telescopes and adjourned to the Observatory interior to see and discuss the big refractor. In all 23 people took a chance that the sky would be clear enough and visited. By about 10 PM we were all talked out, there were flashes of lightning in the sky along with rumbles of thunder. I closed up, picked up my gear and loaded the car. As I left I could see patches of clear sky and one of my intended showpieces --Antares, the red supergiant star in Scorpius-- shining through a "sucker hole" in the southern sky. In the west, flashes of lightning. It was a changeable sky indeed!

Photo: A massive thunderstorm brews on the horizon east of Hiram. Photo by James Guilford.

Night of Scorpius

The day had been clear and predictions were for an unusually good sky for nighttime astronomy. I headed to Stephens Memorial Observatory for a private observing session. I arrived around 9:00 PM and quickly determined that both the Moon and Saturn were down in the trees so I took my time checking the place. There was much sweeping up do do --birds and, perhaps, wind had delivered a pile of leaf and grass material to the observing floor-- and I discovered that the timer for our front door lights had failed in the "off" condition. The huge dehumidifier vat was nearly full and had to be dumped. After some cleanup I opened the dome and uncovered the telescope. More sweeping... nesting materials had fallen on to the canvas telescope cover (which is why it is used) and then to the floor.

Once set up I quickly found that the formerly promising sky was really not so good with only fair to good transparency. The early evening saw the cloudless sky take on a pale blue cast, not the deep color I'd expected. Twilight and ground-based light pollution made the sky glow softly, even as the hours passed. The neighbor's obnoxiously placed, bright light at the side of their garage flood lit the observatory building and grounds so no wide-field sky photography this night! Not a dark night but better than we've seen here in some time. At least temperatures in the upper 60s made the night air comfortable for activity.

The "T" of constellation Scorpius dominated the southern sky. I focused the telescope on the scorpion's heart, star Antares, and nudged the scope to the right. Normally I can quickly find star cluster M4 that way but tonight, not so easy. I fished and fished, starting over again and again, estimating the degree separating Antares and M4 and trying again, all without success. I moved on.

The next target was the Ring Nebula --M57-- in constellation Lyra. I surprised myself and found the "gray donut" right away and viewed it at several magnifications up to about 124X. Its appearance was less distinct than I am used to and I am not certain if that was because of seeing conditions or a bit of trouble I was having with my right eye. It may just be it looked less sharp because I was seeing it as a larger image than I'd ever seen before -- a smaller view of a ring nebula would appear sharper and neighboring stars in the field of view were pinpoint sharp. Just finding and observing the ring was reward enough, however, so I was pleased.

Not admitting defeat, I turned back to Scorpius to again seek M4. This time, triangulating off Antares and neighboring star in the constellation I found the star cluster immediately. At low magnification, and as my eye adjusted to the view, a field of diamond-dust appeared in the eyepiece. The appearance was very subtle. It could just be I'd scanned over the object several times but didn't see it because twilight had obscured the view. A darker, more transparent sky would increase the contrast but this was a beautiful sight -- much more impressive than I remember from earlier viewings.

I closed up around 11:30 and headed for home. As I left the area I glanced to the south and could Scorpius floating in the sky due south of me, nearly all of the great constellation visible. The sight was a fine way to end the night's stargazing.

Public Night July 11

This was the first Public Night at Stephens Memorial Observatory since the dome shutter mechanism was repaired. Weather during the day made the night's activities doubtful. The region had suffered strong thunderstorms with plenty of lightning, rain, and wind. As predicted, however, the storms departed the area as quickly as they came and left us with a sultry evening and clear/clearing skies. The first of our 25 visitors for the night arrived early and helped dump the office dehumidifier tank --probably about 20 gallons-- and more visitors gathered as night fell. Daylight Saving Time has pushed twilight well beyond our 9:30 start time so we stalled until about 10:00 when stars began to become visible followed by our true target for the evening: globular star cluster M4 in the constellation Scorpius. As the skies darkened we could begin to see tiny, diamond dust-like stars resolving in the center of the cluster's diffuse cloud-like appearance. Despite that, star clusters aren't a sight that "wows" the public but our visitors paid polite attention and expressed interest in what they were seeing. We also viewed stars Antares and Altair, the latter impressing even yours-truly with its colorful brilliance. At 10:45 a thick bank of clouds moved in to cover the sky and put a stop to our improved seeing. A modest success, this night, but I can hardly wait to show people Jupiter and the Moon in a month or two; they're real crowd-pleasers!

Astronomy class semi-success

The weather forecast was all over the place for tonight's Hiram College astronomy class visit to the Observatory. Would it be cloudy, rainy, partly-cloudy, clear, clear but poor seeing? We saw all of those forecasts. It looked like it might clear up for the 9:30 start so we called it a "go" and opened up. About 18 students with their professor attended. Started off with the usual historical and interpretive talk about the Observatory and telescope while we waited for the sky to darken. We had partly-cloudy skies and sultry 80-degree air for the start, first viewing the red super-giant star Antares. Sometimes it winked out of sight as a cloud passed, then it would reappear. When everyone had seen the colorful blip, I moved the telescope to the neighboring star cluster M4. Seeing was not good but I could make out a faint cloud of stars and a few students also said they saw it. Many could not observe it. So the Clear Sky Chart prediction of poor seeing was pretty much confirmed. Clouds closed in at about 10:30 so all went home. The professor asked if we could schedule a lunar observation night during the last week of June or first part of July just before the end of the course. Hopefully we'll have a better night because the old telescope really shows its stuff with the Moon when viewed through its fist-size, low-power eyepiece. Driving home I encountered partly-cloudy skies, moderately-heavy rain, and clear skies! I'm happy not to be a meteorologist trying to forecast this!