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clusters in a dark sky, like fish in a barrel

iamjulian

By iamjulian
in Observing - Reports

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iamjulian

iamjulian

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Perfect night predicted on Friday, and I noticed quite a lot of anticipation here on SGL. I decided to invite my father in law over at 9pm to have a look at a few objects. We had a great time; I love showing people the various sights through a telescope. I was told today that he hasn't stopped talking about it yet ;)

By 9.45 I was observing in earnest and decided to aim for a few more Messiers. A quick look at M31, which showed me only my second view of M110, told me it was definitely a night to go looking for the harder to spot objects. M101 and M109 in Ursa Major have eluded me thus far so I went straight for those. I star hopped to the locations but still no sign. I'm really not sure about these two. I cannot imagine the sky is going to get much darker from my back garden, so I may have to head for a slightly darker place to check.

I went back indoors to check Stellarium for other targets and decided on the globs M92 in Hercules, M2 in Aquarius, M15 in Pegaus, plus three open clusters in Auriga: M36, M37 and M38. To be honest they were all bright and pretty easy to find. In terms of the open clusters, M15 was interesting because it appeared to have a much brighter core than the other globs. As for the open clusters, again all bright enough to be easy enough to find and M37, the lowest as I viewed them, was the most impressive. It was a very tight cluster, more glob-like that the other open clusters I have viewed.

I also attached my camera, piggy-back, for the first time. Used a high magnification EP and manually guided the scope using the slow motion controls on the EQ mount. I managed 3 frames of about two and a half minutes each which I then stacked. Really pleased with the results. I took one of Auriga which clearly showed the 3 open clusters that I saw. This one is Andromeda, with the Triangularum galaxy below it.

4018612347_69557aba1e.jpg

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Astro Adj

Astro Adj

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Great report! Sounds like you had another superb night, and I love the image! I also really enjoy showing others the views our scopes can provide, funnily enough the only person who I've yet to convince is my wife!

Quick question on your image, you mentioned that you used a high magnification eyepiece yet the field of view is large - how did you manage this? I'm hoping to get my basic imaging set-up out for the first time tonight and am taking on all the advice I can!

Congrats on your climbing Messier count by the way!

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iamjulian

iamjulian

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Thanks for all your comments everyone. I have a larger image I can post but I wasn't sure what the image size limit here was. I'll go and have a look if I can find any guidelines and maybe post a slightly bigger version.

Adrian, I have no way of guiding the scope when the camera is attached at prime focus. So instead I just attached the camera to the tube ring then looked through the telescope eyepiece, with high magnification, to keep the scope moving at the same speed as the stars (earth!). The camera tracks with the scope so the stars track pretty well.

Edit: looks like I cannot edit the original post. So here is a larger image:

4018612347_69557aba1e_b.jpg

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Beulah

Beulah

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Thanks Julian for the larger pic - if you get told off, I'll take the blame. What a goregeous starfield! ;)

Nice report Julian and you did extremely well with the photo considering you were manually tracking.

I am no expert in the imaging field, but it seems from this post that you are a natural. :)

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iamjulian

iamjulian

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ha ha, thanks for the compliments, though I'm definitely sticking to widefields only. OK, we'll risk the wrath of the moderators. Here is the Auriga image. Unfortunately the north east is my most polluted bit of sky, but not too bad. See how clear those open clusters are.

4019373816_253c6c80a4_o.jpg

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mike.brightmore

mike.brightmore

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Julian, that is beautiful - I love it. Can I suggest that you post a copy in the imaging section and ask how to reduce the skyglow. I'm sure the helpful imagers there would really be able to help you to enhance it.

Can you see Talitha's 'Big Ol' Smiley Face' asterism? http://stargazerslounge.com/astro-lounge/58750-auriga-smiley-face.html It's just right of centre. The mouth is the arc of stars almost touching M38. Just above the grin is a pugilistic nose with two stars for eyes above that. It looks fantastic through binos.

The Messier clusters are clearly shown - M38, 36 and 37 really stand out. Well done.

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iamjulian

iamjulian

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Thanks Mike. I don't mind at all.

To be honest though, I left the light pollution in on purpose. I was aiming for a realistic display of what I can see. The light is from Telford, about a dozen miles to the east.

In terms of your reprocess, it looks very noisy. Have a go at this:

Image > Adjustments > Selective Colour

Using the red channel: increase Cyan, reduce Magenta and Yellow.

Make sure you have the default black/white colour palette.

Image > Adjustments > Gradient Map

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