I did get a chance to get out and do some imaging last weekend and also a few days ago. I wanted to try IC 1805 Heart Nebula. Well what can I say… other than this is one tough object. TimH told me one day that IC meant ‘I can’t C’ 🙂 Funny, but true. For this object I had to process my individual raw file and stretch with levels in order to get a bearing on where it was on the frame… then I attempted to re-frame it. This took me a good half hour. Then I started the 3min exposures at ISO 1600 totalling up to 2.5 hrs. After stacking, I saw absolutely nothing but then loaded it in PS and tried to work some magic with layer masks, curves, filters… you name it I did it. Anyway in conclusion: it is possible to image a faint hydrogen alpha target with an unmodded DSLR camera and no LP filter under mag 5.5 skies… but not without a lot of work. It was pretty much overhead at the time so that probably really helped.

Canon 40D with 80mm APO (full frame)

Holmes, Mirfak and Mellote 20 taken with the camera lens… which was piggybacked.

KerryLH

I added a comment to a posting more than a week ago that Hubble was scheduled to look at Comet Holmes. I’ve been looking around since then to find them. Well finally some of the pictures have been released.

Follow the link to BadAstronomy blog site to see some of the pictures.
Comet Holmes

One of the pictures show a montage with a ground based image taken by Alan Dyer. I think some of our club members have taken images that easily compare. Way to go HAA AP’ers!

The weather forecast is degrading for Sat night (not surprising). The Weather Network is now calling for 90% chance of rain or snow. So since it doesn’t look too promising, I’m thinking we may not want to make too much of an effort to see this occultation (that is, try to find a truly optimal location which may require more driving).

Therefore I’m going to suggest that if weather permits, we set up at our usual spot at Binbrook Conservation Area.

This is still within 2.5 km of the path center so we should still be able to see some of the bigger mountains and deeper valleys (5-6 km is the max limit). We might miss out on some of the smaller objects. If we manage to see the star wink in and out even a couple of times, that will be a big success for us. We can always try again later for a better show.

The occultation will begin at around 8:47pm local time. So I’m going to suggest that we begin setting up at around 7-7:30pm. This will be dark enough to do some other observing while we’re waiting. If the main gate is locked, we’ll put our usual combination lock on it so members who know the secret code can get in. Visitors will be welcome and can either walk in or wait to drive in with another member. Of course, if weather is really bad, then we won’t bother going out for this event. We’ll post an update on Sat afternoon.

Let’s hope for clear skies.

UPDATE: 17 Nov 2007 – 2:10pm
The CSC is still showing clouds for the night, but the Weather Network indicates that there will be some clearing later in the evening. It may make the occultation tough to see, but we might still see Neptune, the Leonid meteor shower and maybe a few other things. So I think we’ll take a chance and head out.

I will arrive at the gate between 7 and 7:30pm to open up. Hopefully we’ll see you out there for some observing. If we get lucky to see the occultation, don’t forget your shortwave radios and camcorders along with your scopes and binoculars.

Tonight, it was clear, for a while anyway — long enough to have another opportunity to photograph Comet 17P Holmes outside my front door in Burlington, so, here’s one of my better shots I took tonight. Tamron 300mm lens @ f/2.8; Canon Digital Rebel 300D; ISO 400; 53 second exposure. Cropped. A quickly-processed “rough cut”.

The comet appears beside Mirfak (Alpha Persei, that bright blob of a star on the right).

Cheers,

Bob Christmas

It was clear last night, of course. That’s because I hadn’t expected it to be and hadn’t made any plans. The fact that our main scope is temporarily down until Monday is also a major factor, I’m sure. The astronomy gods love taunting me.

The first thing I did when I discovered it was clear was to grab Alex, our binoculars and the laser pointer (thanks again Steve!!) and dash outside to show Alex the comet. It was late and she was only moderately enthusiastic. I was afraid it would cloud over any second, but there were no clouds. Amazing. I was surprised to see that Comet Holmes had gotten so big and dim since the last time I’d seen it. However, it was still visible naked eye in the light pollution and prominent in the binoculars. Alex was impressed.

I had left my CG-5 mount set up and aligned in the SkyShed from the last time I was out there a week ago, so I grabbed my 4″ scope and camera and dashed out. I spent the next two hours re-aligning my “already aligned” mount (@#%$!), then taking photos of the comet for about two hours. I’ve included one of them here. Unprocessed and compressed for your viewing pleasure. Exposure was 30 seconds, ISO800, f/6 500 mm (4″ refractor). I took a number of these as well as some dark, bias and flat field frames. I will post the stacked, processed image once I have a chance to.

Cheers,

Ann

Update: I’ve posted the stacked and processed version of this photo below. There is a bit more detail visible. I think the concentric rings in the halo are an artifact of the processing stage. Comments?

Stacked and processed Comet Holmes image

Well, we’ve been clouded out for our last 2 attempts to see a lunar grazing occultation. Thanks to a great contact, I’ve been made aware of another occultation coming up on Nov 17 (thanks Brad). Will 3 times be the charm???

A regular occultation is when the moon passes in front of a star and blocks its light. A grazing occultation (GO) is special in that the edge of the moon passes in front of the star. By being properly positioned along the path, you can observe the star wink on and off as it passes behind lunar surface features such as mountains and valleys. Astronomers have used this method to determine dimensions of lunar features and the apparent diameter of the star.

The path of the next GO will be moving through our area at 8:50 pm on Nov 17 (18 Nov 1:50 UTC). It will pass close to Binbrook Conservation area which is one of our favourite viewing locations. However, it won’t be positioned quite as close to the path center as our last attempt. From our regular observing location, we would be barely within the 5km viewing path. This is far enough from the path center that we’d lose some of the effect and details. Therefore we may want to consider observing from a different location along the path. The star to be occulted is SAO 164750, which is a mag 7.8 star. Not visible to naked eyes, but should be easy with binoculars and small scopes.

I’ve added an image of the map with the graze path on it. We are still working out our plans on the actual location where we’ll set up to observe this occultation.

I’ve also provided a link to Google maps which shows the path. Be aware that this page may not load properly in all browsers. I find that I have generally had good results with Firefox. IE has generally been less successful. Your mileage may vary.
Grazing Path

Update: 12 Nov 2007
The current long range forecast (TWN) is calling for variable clouds, 20% POP, low temp of -3C, winds 20km/h from the west. Sunday is currently forecast to be clear – we may get lucky if the clearing trend arrives earlier than expected.

The moon will be about 40-45% illuminated. If I’m reading the charts correctly the occultation will begin in our area at around 20:47. The moon will be positioned 24 deg above the horizon and the azimuth will be 218 (SW) (This means we’ll want to be south of the city along the path for observing). The occultation appears it will occur on the sunlite side, at the SE edge of the moon.

We also have the opportunity to view Neptune which will be mag 7.9 nearby and we’ll be getting into the peak days of the Leonid meteor shower. (peak is expected Nov 18-19) So if the clearing breaks don’t allow us to see the occultation, we may have an opportunity to see some other things in the sky on Saturday night.

Observing location still to be determined. Stay tuned.

cheers

I took this image of Comet Holmes last Friday and then majorly stretched (enhanced) it to see if I could see a similar tail to what I have seen in some very recent images online.

2 min exposures totaling ~48min with the Sky-watcher 80mm

By KerryLH

Folks:

Here’s an interesting article from MSNBC News about Comet Holmes. It outlines an interesting theory as to how it suddenly brightened.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21636369/

Just thought I would pass on this interesting news article that Bill found on the front page of the CBC website.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/space/light-pollution.html

I arrived at the Binbrook main gate at 8:00pm – shortly after KerryAnn then Don showed up. I stayed until just after 11:00pm when my camera battery was just about to die – Don and Kerry were still hunting DSO’s when I left.

I imaged using my new Canon 40D and timer remote through my Sigma 50-500 APO lens – I imaged at 191mm so I could leave the setup on auto-pilot (no guiding required) taking series of 2 minutes exposures for the Pleiades and 10 second exposures for the comet. The Pleiades and the comet:

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UPDATE By: KerryLH

As Tim mentioned, I also did some imaging. This time I concentrated on NGC253 Sculptor Galaxy. This almost edge on spiral galaxy looked fairly large and bright in the 6in SCT. Surprising, considering how close it is to the horizon. It is also very cool to be able to see some mottling in the eyepiece. I’m sure larger scopes will show much more.

Don wanted me to get a widefield image of Holmes… so here it is. I stacked a few 3 minute frames. I saw a pic on the web showing a very large and faint tail emanating from the soft edge and fanning out towards Mirfak and Delta Perseus. Pretty interesting eh? Anyway it is really hard to see, but the large fanning tail(extremely faint green hue) is just barely detectable in the image below. I will do another widefield image of this region… but with much longer and many more exposures to see if I can capture it better.

Below is another image which is a composite to try and show the very faint green outer halo and the bright compact inner core. Exposures ranged between 2 minutes and 30 seconds at iso800

Note: I posted a few more pics below in Glenn’s post as well.