Csillag&shy;túra

Bagoly-halmaz C 13 NGC 457 Owl Cluster Szitakötő-halmaz

NGC 457 Owl Cluster

The Moon was still up when I started imaging the Owl Cluster, on 2017-07-29 from Dângău Mare. I used my usual setup for small objects, the Canon 1100D mod, N 150/750, Baader MPCC Mark III, HEQ5. The autoguiding was done by the recovered camera and a very old netbook with limited battery life, run from 12V plus a DC-DC converter to feed it 19V. I gathered 22×90 sec, at ISO 400 with a few shorter and intentionally blurred frames to verify the color of the stars. It was a bit windy.

C 13, NGC 457, Mel 7, Col 12 [open cluster in Cas] A small cluster in a rich region., Owl Cluster, E.T. Cluster, Bagoly-halmaz, Phi Cassiopeiae Cluster, Dragonfly Cluster, Szitakötő-halmaz 6.4^m ø13′ [wiki] [simbad] 750mm

Also visible, but rather faint is the galaxy LEDA 4831 or MCG+10-03-001, see in Simbad.

M57 captured at f/13

2017.07.01. admin

IC 1296 M57 Gyűrűs köd

M57 Ring Nebula

During the last session, and parenthetically eff Microsoft for its forced Windows updates, I also imaged M 57, NGC 6720 [planetary nebula in Lyr] Ring nebula in Lyra, Gyűrűs-köd, Ring Nebula, Nebuloasa Inel 8.8^m ø1.43′ [wiki] [simbad] A very faint galaxy, IC 1296 [galaxy in Lyr] 15.39^m ø1′ [wiki] [simbad] also found its way onto the picture, as seen on the annotated frame m57, annotated by astrometry.net , though it took some extra work to highlight it through masking, due to the great dynamic difference between the planetary nebula and the galaxy, as it is visible on the raw frame M57 raw sample .

Canon 1100Da, 10×4 min, ISO 1600, MC 102/1300, HEQ5.

M27 at F/13

2017.06.26. admin

M27 Súlyzó-köd

M27 Dumbbell – Canon 1100Da @ MC 102/1300

F/13 is not the opening at which one wants to photograph deep sky objects. But I wanted to field test the guiding I recently got. So I set up the HEQ5 with the Canon 1100Da @ MC 102/1300 on it, and let it go for the stars with 4-5-6 minutes exposures. And … it worked. However, there is a big but: effing Microsoft Windows decided it could not wait with the update, so under the starry sky, I was looking at the don’t turn off your computer screen, running on precious battery power. And I paid for Windows. After Africa, this is the second time the effing windows update effed me while on the field. So 6×4 min, ISO 800, Dângău Mare, Cluj.

M 27, NGC 6853 [planetary nebula in Vul] Dumbbell-nebula, Súlyzó-köd, Nebuloasa Dumbbell 7.4^m ø8′ [wiki] [simbad]

raw

raw curved

Planetary images from the long weekend

2017.06.05. admin

hold jupiter Szaturnusz

ε Lyrae

Using the N 150/750 on the HEQ5 and the Scopium webcam, I obtained the following frames. Do note that planetary imaging means a technic – many frames, a 1-2 minutes long video of short frames, stacked -, essentilly lucky imaging, so planetary does not mean a target type. Just sayin’ :P

The clouds obscured the occultation of Porrima, so next time.

From a semaphore error to autoguiding

2017.06.04. admin

saját asztrofotóim

M13 gömbhalmaz M57 Gyűrűs köd

Last night I tested an old CCD Labs Q-Guide camera as an autoguider solution. I got the camera from AȚ (thank you :) ) but it came with an unexpacted „semaphore error” message, which rendered it useless. It turned out the firmware was damaged and needed to be reflashed. I found some ideas here, but not the solution itself, which started to come from here, though it was still miles ahead. Worth mentioning the answers given by QiuHY are rather cryptic (tending towards useless), more like from an oracle than a tech guy – and I’m not a believer. A good indicator of just how cryptic: only a month has passed and I already cannot find the best answer, only that it included CySuiteUSB program and a guide in which order to flash what.

So I took some test photos with the Canon 1100Da, N 150/750 on the HEQ5 setup, 4 minutes subs. Ten for the M13 globular cluster, and six for the M57 Ring Nebula. Each at ISO 100 – not that far from the city center (Bortle scale 6-7 if not 8 – better to the north).

M13 test

M57 test

M57, second processing

M57, 3rd processing

Some Solar System

2017.06.03. admin

hold jupiter Nap Szaturnusz

Sunspot 2661

A few clear hours, in conjunction with my free time, allowed me to take some photos: the Sun, the Moon, Jupiter and Saturn. I still could not find Enceladus. The setup: N150/750 and MC 102/1300 on the HEQ5, Scopium and CCD Labs Q-Guide webcam.

english saját asztrofotóim szappantartóval

Days Go By – with a raspberry pi

2017.06.01. admin

english saját asztrofotóim szappantartóval

raspberry pi time-lapse

Venus- and Sunrise, and other stuff with a Raspberry Pi

2017.05.20. admin

raspberry pi

I resurrected an old project of mine, a Raspberry Pi with a camera put on a time lapse duty. Right now it is pointed towards East, and takes a picture every minute. I captured several Venus rises (the planet is the morning star right now), Sunrises of course, and some atmospheric optics too.

Popularity of Deep Sky Objects according to Astrophotographers

Distribution of 2900 photos of 250 objects

I was curious which objects are the most popular targets according to astrophotographers. I used their activity to answer this question.

To find out, I deployed a crawler on two popular Hungarian forums, on asztrofoto.hu and tavcso.hu and harvested all the photos posted from the sites’ beginning till november 2014. Most of the posts had a catalog number in their title, some only a variant of the popular name, but they were heterogenous, as none of the two forums apply strict title/naming conventions. I worked with those that had a recognizable catalog number like M7, Messier 24, NGC 7000, C 38 or something similar – so perhaps many Orion nebula and Lagoon nebula pictures are left out, especially because the most popular objects are easily identifiable without a catalog number. Then I created this table containing around 2900 posts of around 250 objects.

Let’s say popularity is the count an object has been photographed. No wonder the most popular objects are the most prominent Messier and Caldwell objects (like NGC 7000), although the Caldwell catalog”s usage is sparse, the NGC or IC numbers are used instead. I used my DSO to collapse most aliases. Another conclusion is that few objects get a lot of attention and many very little, which is not a surprise either.