Stuff in the Sky

[Canuck from Kansas]

Thanks, needed these after the underwhelming show the Leonids gave me. Rising at my normal 0330-0400 time and standing on the deck with coffee in hand in 37° air was not real uplifting. Everything was so clear tho it held my interest until daybreak after which I went looking for False Albacore who seemed to be aligned with the Leonids!?

Yeah, the predicted possible burst was pretty much a bust. I did see one super bright shooter threw the trees as I went out the back door last week, but that was it. Just have to hang on til 2032.

cheers

 

[Canuck from Kansas]

So last night, 2 of Jupiter's moons underwent occultation events, passing behind the gas giant. I caught each emerge, Io, at 7:11 PM and Europa at 10:42 PM:

Jupiter calving; a composite time lapse taken with Sony Alpha 77ii; G 70-400 mm @f/5.6; each a 1 second exposure:



Cheers

 

[Vagabond]

Was admiring the sky last night watching Jupiter while grilling steaks on the deck in the gloaming.
Admire your work.

 

[Canuck from Kansas]

If you should happen to have a clear sky tomorrow night, check out the full Moon, it will be just about kissing Mars, or depending on where you are, Mars will disappear behind the Moon for an hour or so (not looking too promising here in NC, and the Moon will not occult Mars here):

| EarthSky

earthsky.org

Cheers

 

[SurfnFish]

sure do admire your photos..as well as the ability to stay up late enough at night to take them

We're looking forward to the Geminids Meteorite Shower next week, supposed to be a stunning one, hoping for a clear night here in the Cascades.

The 2022 Geminids Meteor Shower Is Approaching – Watch the Skies

blogs.nasa.gov

 

[Canuck from Kansas]

So, over the last 2 weeks we had a couple of "cold" snaps, where temperatures went to the high 20's and skies were relatively clear, with lower humidity (we're in the 70's now with high humidity and cloudy). As a result, the Canuck Observatory, home of the Not Terribly Large Telescope (NTLT), as opposed to the VLT (https://www.eso.org/public/usa/teles-instr/paranal-observatory/vlt/) went into action, capturing several targets over several nights:

The Flaming Star (IC 405) and Tadpole nebulae (IC 410), are a pair of emission nebulae in the constellation Auriga. The Flaming Star nebula is illuminated by the variable star AE Aurigae and the Tadpole nebula by an open-cluster of stars. The Tadpole is is approximately 12,000 light-years away, and is over 100 light-years across. Formed in the interstellar cloud a mere 4 million years ago, the radiation from these hot stars pushes the gas away from them and creates dark "tadpoles" trailing away from the nebula's central regions (not sure I see it, maybe I need a VLT). The Flaming Star nebula is approximately 15,000 light years distant and about 5 light years across.

Flaming Star (IC 405; center top) and Tadpole nebulae (IC 410; right bottom): 30 x 240 second light exposures, 30 Darks, OIII/H-alpha duo-narrowband filter (tried getting them in a single field of view, but it appears I may have cut off, so tried just the Flaming star over subsequent nights, see below) :



Flaming Star (slightly cropped):



NGC 7380 is an open cluster of stars in the constellation Cepheus. The surrounding emission nebulosity is commonly referred to as the Wizard Nebula, which spans an angle of 25′. NGC 7380 was discovered by Caroline Herschel in 1787; her brother William Herschel included it in his catalog, labelling it H VIII.77. The nebula is known as S 142 in the 1959 Sharpless catalog (Sh2-142).

NGC 7380 and the Wizard nebula (SH 2-142): 40 x 300 second light exposures, 30 darks, OIII/H-alpha duo-narrowband filter:



Finally, I had a few extra hours, so turned to Orion, which I have posted previously, but it is such a magnificent target. This time I had the narrow-band filters. Orion is so bright, I used only 60 second exposures and still risked blowing out the central core. I also took some "artistic" liberties, playing a little more with the temperature, hue, and saturation levels than usual:



Information from Skysafari 6 Pro and yes, Wikipedia.

Reason for edit was to update the Wizard - better color calibration.

Cheers

 

[Gyrfalcon22]

So, over the last 2 weeks we had a couple of "cold" snaps, where temperatures went to the high 20's and were skies relatively clear with lower humidity (we're in the 70's now with high humidity and cloudy). As a result, the Canuck Observatory, home of the Not Terribly Large Telescope (NTLT), as opposed to the VLT (https://www.eso.org/public/usa/teles-instr/paranal-observatory/vlt/) went into action, capturing several targets over several nights:

The Flaming Star (IC 405) and Tadpole nebulae (IC 410), are a pair of emission nebulae in the constellation Auriga. The Flaming Star nebula is illuminated by the variable star AE Aurigae and the Tadpole nebula by an open-cluster of stars. The Tadpole is is approximately 12,000 light-years away, and is over 100 light-years across. Formed in the interstellar cloud a mere 4 million years ago, the radiation from these hot stars pushes the gas away from them and creates dark "tadpoles" trailing away from the nebula's central regions (not sure I see it, maybe I need a VLT). The Flaming Star nebula is approximately 15,000 light years distant and about 5 light years across.

Flaming Star (IC 405; center top) and Tadpole nebulae (IC 410; right bottom): 30 x 240 second light exposures, 30 Darks, OIII/H-alpha duo-narrowband filter (tried getting them in a single field of view, but it appears I may have cut off, so tried just the Flaming star over subsequent nights, see below) :

View attachment 44164

Flaming Star (slightly cropped):

View attachment 44167

NGC 7380 is an open cluster of stars in the constellation Cepheus. The surrounding emission nebulosity is known commonly referred to as the Wizard Nebula, which spans an angle of 25′. NGC 7380 was discovered by Caroline Herschel in 1787; her brother William Herschel included it in his catalog, labelling it H VIII.77. The nebula is known as S 142 in the 1959 Sharpless catalog (Sh2-142).

NGC 7380 and the Wizard nebula (SH 2-142): 40 x 300 second light exposures, 30 darks, OIII/H-alpha duo-narrowband filter:

View attachment 44168

Finally, I had a few extra hours, so turned to Orion, which I have posted previously, but it is such a magnificent target. This time I had the narrow-band filters. Orion is so bright, I used only 60 second exposures and still risk blowing out the central core. I also took some "artistic" liberties, playing a little more with the temperature, hue, and saturation levels than usual:

View attachment 44169

Information from Skysafari 6 Pro and yes, Wikipedia.

Cheers

Insanely cool !

 

[Kenneth Yong]

Like, REALLY LIKE!

Thanks for sharing,
Kenneth

 

[Vagabond]

Outstanding work, as usual!

 

[Canuck from Kansas]

Thanks to all for the encouragement, it is greatly appreciated.

Didn't get a chance at the full Moon/Mars occultation last night, cloudy all night. Anyone get a chance to see it?

 

[Canuck from Kansas]

sure do admire ... ..as well as the ability to stay up late enough at night to take them

Don't admire that, it's a consequence of having a prostate the size of a grapefruit, I have to get up anyway, so might as well try and do something more productive than just trying to take a leak

cheers

 

[Bonefish Jack]

Thanks to all for the encouragement, it is greatly appreciated.

Didn't get a chance at the full Moon/Mars occultation last night, cloudy all night. Anyone get a chance to see it?

You do great work

Please keep it up.

Thanks

 

[Canuck from Kansas]

A new bit of stuff in the sky this morning (T -1:00 minute is at 3:16:03):



Cheers

One less item in the sky, Orion made it home safely.

Historic moon mission ends with splashdown of Orion capsule | CNN

The Artemis I mission around the moon meant to pave the way for future astronaut missions — came to an momentous end as NASA's Orion spacecraft made a successful ocean splashdown Sunday.

www.cnn.com

Cheers

 

[Canuck from Kansas]

While not colorful like a nebula, star clusters are still pretty impressive when you dive into the numbers. M15 is a globular cluster in the constellation Pegasus discovered in September 1746 by Jean-Dominique Maraldi, and included in Charles Messier's catalog in 1764. M15 has an absolute magnitude of -9.2, which translates to a luminosity of 360,000 Suns. M15 is estimated to be 13.2 billion years old, making it one of the oldest known globular clusters. The cluster is estimated to contain over 100,000 stars, and 112 variable stars, 8 pulsars, and 1 double neutron star have been identified. M15 also contains Pease 1, the first planetary nebula discovered within a globular cluster in 1928.[13] Just three others have been found in globular clusters since then.[14]
Sidenote: Pease 1 requires telescopes with an aperture of at least 300-millimetre (12 inches) to be detected, the Canuck Observatory NTLT has a native aperture of 81 mm (Honey, I need to buy a 12 weight ...)

M15 is thought to host a rare intermediate-mass black hole at its center: Supermassive black holes are found at the center of galaxies and can be billions of times more massive than the sun; “stellar” black holes, on the other hand, are on the order of 10 solar masses; the black hole thought to exist at the center of M15 is estimated at approximately 4,000 times the mass of the sun.

M15: 70 x 60 second light exposures, 35 darks with multispectral broadband filter:



Information from SkySafari 6 Pro, Wikipedia, and NASA.Gov (https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/messier-15).

Cheers

 

[Vagabond]

Canuck from Kansas:
“Observatory NTLT has a native aperture of 81 mm (Honey, I need to buy a 12 weight ...)”

 

[Canuck from Kansas]

A few weeks ago, in that ever-popular gameshow, "Name that Nebula", the Heart Nebula was featured ( #150 ). As was pointed out in the clue, the Heart Nebula (IC 1805) is a close neighbor of, and often paired with, the Soul Nebula. The Nebulosity is illuminated by a star cluster designated as IC 1848. The cluster is a rather rich but loose group of 11th magnitude and fainter stars. At least two dozen stars can be counted in a 12' area. Now I have no idea what a soul actually looks like, but this is what is up in the sky:

Soul Nebula and IC 1805 star cluster: 30 x 300 second light exposures (got cut off by incoming cloud cover), 30 darks, OIII/H-alpha duo-narrowband filter:



Information from SkySafari 6 Pro.

Cheers

 

[Canuck from Kansas]

Cracks me up ... "How quickly do we grow accustomed to wonders. I am reminded of the Isaac Asimov story Nightfall, about the planet where the stars were visible only once in a thousand years. So awesome was the sight that it drove men mad. We who can see the stars every night glance up casually at the cosmos and then quickly down again, searching for a Dairy Queen.”—Roger Ebert

 

[Canuck from Kansas]

From all the staff at the Canuck Observatory, wishing you all a wonderful holiday.

The Christmas Tree cluster (NGC 2664) is an open cluster of about 80 stars in the constellation Monoceros. The cluster gets its name for its triangular shape that looks like a tree in visible light. It illuminates the Cone Nebula and the Fox Fur Nebula. The bight star, S Monocerotis, at the bottom of this image, is a variable star with a magnitude that varies from 4.62 to 4.68. HD 47887, the star at the tip of the cone nebula is a 7th magnitude Double Star.

The Christmas Tree cluster, featuring the Cone and Fox Fur nebulae: 88 x 300 second light exposures taken over 2 nights; 40 dark exposures; OIII/H-alpha duo-narrowband filter. For this image, the red channel has been changed to green, and the image has been flipped 180 degrees (cone nebula should actually be at the bottom) and cropped about 100%:



Information from SkySafari 6 Pro and https://www.constellation-guide.com/christmas-tree-cluster/

Cheers

 

[Scott Salzer]

Wow!

 

[SurfnFish]

I look at these pics, representing billions of planets around millions of stars, a per centage of them likely M type planets...and it makes one wonder of the astonishing variety of intelligent life that must exist out there.