M82 from the BMO - Group Capture / Group Process

 Some processing fun on a very soggy Astronomy Day ...

Saturday May 5th was Astronomy Day. Our club had a busy day scheduled. We were going to open the observatory from 12 to 5 pm for Solar Observing and various other activities. A small group was leading a group of local Girl Scouts through a badge workshop. Finally, we had our monthly Public Night event. Mother Nature had other plans. We canceled the 12 to 5 pm Astronomy Day event due to persistent rain all day. We did use the time to clean and organize the observatory. The Girl Scout badge workshop went on as planned (just no observing) and we never cancel Public Night. We had one visitor, and I think that person was a friend of a member. 

One of the members of our club's imaging special interest group (The Tuesday Night Imagers) had collected data on M82 on Sunday 4/27 with our club's telescopes. She collected data with both the Celeston 14" Edge HD and the Tele Vue NP101is. Collecting data with only a UV/IR filter and some data with a Dual Narrowband filter. I copied the data from the 14" telescope to my portable hard drive and transferred it to my laptop. I had joined via Zoom and a few other members participated, but had to leave early. I fired up PixInsight and started processing it. I connected my laptop to one of our large screen TV's and we worked on the data as a group. I drove but many of the choices made during the processing came from the other members that participated. In particular one of our members who is an experienced astrophotographer and a meteorite hunter/collector. It was a lot of fun, and the resulting image is undoubtedly different from what I would have come up without their input. Here's the resulting image. 

M82 from the BMO on 4/27/2025 - Group process

Processing:

I'm going to keep this pretty high level. too much time has elapsed for me to accurately describe all the steps we used. Basically, data from both the UV/IR Cut filter and the Dual Narrowband filter was loaded into WBPP with all calibration frames and pre-processed. This resulted in two master light frames that were registered to one another. Both master lights were processed up through making them non-linear. We then split a clone of the Dual Narrowband data into separate channels (R, G, & B). We treated the R channel as Ha and added it to the UV/IR data. We also fully processed the unsplit Dual Narrowband data. Ultimately, we blended both images together with the image blend script. 

What is it?

Messier 82 (M82) is also known as The Cigar Galaxy. M82 is an example of a peculiar galaxy. It is also a starburst galaxy. It had a relatively recent (astronomically speaking) encounter with its neighbor, M81. M82 has been disturbed as a result of this encounter. We can see this in the dust lanes and heavy star formation.  

An annotated image of M82

How Big is it?

M82 has a size of 11.2 x 4.3 arcminutes (1 degree is 60 arcminutes) on the night sky. It is about 40,200 light years in diameter.

How Far is it?

M82 is located about 12 million light-years (ly) from Earth.

How to find it?

M82 is a popular target or visual astronomers and astrophotographers. For visual observation, larger aperture, a night with no moon, and dark skies always help for galaxies. I would recommend a low power (wide field if view) eyepiece. With my 24 mm Tele Vue Panoptic and my 8" f/6 Dob, I can get both M81 & M82 in the same field of view. Ust eh following steps to find M82 (and M81):

1. Find the Big Dipper.
2. find the Bowl Stars Phecda & Dubhe (Note: Phecda is the Star where M109 is indicated in the finder chart below)
3. Draw an imaginary line from Phecda to Dubhe
4. Extend the line through Dubhe roughly the same distance as the Phecda/Dubhe line
5. M81 & M82 should be in your eyepiece or an optical finder scope

Finder Chart for M82

Image Details:

Capture Date: 04/27/2025

Location: North Java, NY (Buffalo Astronomical Association's Beaver Meadow Observatory)

Telescope: Celestron 14" Edge HD w/0.7x Reducer

Camera: OGMA AP26CC

Filter: OGMA 2" UV/IR Cut & Antlia 5 nm Alp-T Dual Narrowband

Mount: Astro Physics AP1200 Mount

Exposure: UV/IR Cut: 18 exposures at 300 sec / Gain 100 / Offset 100 / -10° C each for a total exposure of 1 hour 30 minutes. Alp-T: 10 exposures at 600 sec / Gain 100 / Offset 100 / -10° C each for a total exposure of 1 hour 40 minutes. Combined: 3 hours 10 minutes

Software: NINA, PHD2, and PixInsight

Clear Skies!

Ernie

M109 captured on 4/23/2025 from the BMO

 Another clear night ...

The forecast for Wednesday April 23rd was promising. Therefore, our club's observatory directory decided Wednesday would be our imaging special interest group's session for the week that night. I could not attend as I had work meetings that night. However, I was able to join the group via Zoom and contribute to the night's imaging efforts while still attending to my work commitments. T skies were not the best but clear enough to image. With no Moon until four in the morning, we decided to go after a broadband target like a galaxy. I wanted to go after M64, The Black Eye Galaxy. Another member of the group suggested M109, a Barred Spiral Galaxy in Ursa Major. They made a better case than I did, and the group decided on M109. I'm glad they did. It is a very beautiful target.

After solving the usual array of issues that come with operating the observatory so infrequently, we began imaging at 9:24 PM and imaged until 10:54 PM. We captured data with both the NP101is and ZWO ASI2600MC-Pro system and the Celestron 14" Edge HD w/0.7x Reducer and the OGMA AP26CC system. I only worked on the data from the 14" telescope. With the combination of the 14" telescope and the OGMA AP26CC camera, we have settled on 300 sec subs for broadband imaging with the UV/IR cut filter, assuming sky conditions allow for it. If the Moon were up, we would most likely have to reduce exposure time. This target is framed very well with this telescope/camera combination. Here's the resulting processed image:

M109 from the BMO on 4/23/2025.

Processing:

All pre and post processing was performed in PixInsight. Pre-Processing: All light Frames, Flats, Darks and Dark flats were loaded into WBPP. After processing the resulting Master Light Frames, Satellite trails were visible. I blinked the individual subs and found 3 of the 16 subs had very bright satellite trails. I opened the 3 raw frames with the trails and used Seti Astro's Blemish Blaster script to remove the trails. The trails were reduced in intensity but could still be seen. I saved the 3 frames and then re-ran WBPP with more aggressive settings for rejection (reducing the High sigma in Winsorized Sigma Clipping from 3 to 2 and enabling Large Scale Pixel Rejection at a sigma of 2).  Linear Post Processing: Background extraction was performed with GraXpert followed by BXT (correct only). SPCC was used for Color Calibration followed by a full application of BXT. The Stars were removed using StarXT. Starless Linear: Noise was reduced with NXT. The image was made non-linear with HT. Starless Non-linear Post Processing: Saturation and intensity were increased with CT. Exponential Transformation was used to increase intensity. The Create HDR Image script was used to compress the core of the galaxies (mask was used). The Image Blend script was used (with high pass filter) to increase sharpness. LHE was applied at two different kernel radii and Unsharp Mask was applied (lightly). Stars Linear: The Stars image was made non-linear with Seti Astro's Star Stretch script. Stars Non-Linear: Saturation was increased with CT. Starless: Intensity, and contrast were adjusted with various applications of CT. The Stars and Starless images were combined with Pixel Math to produce the final image

What is it?

Messier 109 (M109) is a barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Ursa Major. Scientists believe our galaxy, The Milky Way, is a barred spiral galaxy. 

An annotated version of the M109 image.

How Big is it?

M109 has a size of 7.5 x 4.4 arcminutes (1 degree is 60 arcminutes) on the night sky. It is about 177,000 light years in diameter.

How Far is it?

M109 is located about 81 million light-years (ly) from Earth.

How to find it?

M109 is located in the constellation Ursa Major as shown by the small red square in the Finder Chart below. The galaxy is located about 40' southeast of Phecda, one of the bowl stars in the big dipper asterism. Dark skies and large aperture are helpful in viewing this galaxy.

Finder chart for M109.

Image Details:

Capture Date: 04/23/2025

Location: North Java, NY (Buffalo Astronomical Association's Beaver Meadow Observatory)

Telescope: Celestron 14" Edge HD w/0.7x Reducer

Camera: OGMA AP26CC

Filter: OGMA 2" UV/IR Cut

Mount: Astro Physics AP1200 Mount

Exposure: 16 exposures at 300 sec / Gain 100 / Offset 100 / -10° C each for a total exposure of 1 hour 20 minutes.

Software: NINA, PHD2, and PixInsight

Clear Skies!

Ernie

Building a “Super” Wide-Field Imaging Rig.

Super Sizing my Field of View ...

I have been thinking about and planning my next Astrophotography acquisition for many months. At the end of last year, I made the decision build a “super” wide-field imaging rig. The initial purchase for this project was the telescope, an Askar FMA180 Pro. In addition to the telescope, I also purchased the Askar EAF kit for the FMA180 Pro, Player One Ceres-C Guide Camera, and SvBony 30 mm f/4 Guide Scope. I purchased both items from Astroworld Telescopes around the holidays. Astroworld is a new retailer for astronomy related equipment with a strong focus on astrophotography gear. The company was started around NEAF 2023 by Daniel Higgins. Dan is an astrophotographer himself and in my opinion, he truly provides excellent customer service. The plan is to pair Askar FMA180 Pro with my ZWO  ASI2600MC Pro (APS-C) One Shot Color (OSC) camera. Wait!!! Let me back up for a minute and get into why I'm heading down this path.

Why Build a “Super” Wide-Field Rig:

My current primary imaging rig is already somewhat wide-field. I use an Explore Scientific Essential Series ED80 Triplet Refractor with my ZWO ASI2600MC Pro camera. This telescope has an aperture of 80 mm, a focal length of 480 mm, and is f/6.  It is an entry level scope as far as quality goes, it has served me well but long-term plan is to upgrade and use this for visual observer. The 80 mm refractor will make a nice compliment to my 8" Dobsonian. 

This 80 mm refactor has been perfect for many targets (Orion Nebula, Western Veil Nebula, Eastern Veil Nebula, and many others. The next piece of equipment in my collection that has a wider-field of view (FOV) is my 50 mm lens (the Nifty Fifty) for my DSLR. This is quite a gap and has proven to be a limitation, especially when bright comets with long tails are visible, as was the case this past October. Additionally, I live in Western New York (WNY), not far from Buffalo, NY. The weather here is persistently cloudy, primarily due to our position relative to Lake Erie. Also, I'm very active in our local astronomy club's (Buffalo Astronomical Association) outreach activities, which results in losing some nights to outreach events. Factoring in life's other obligations, I get about one night of imaging a month (on average). This creates a real obstacle for going after mosaics to capture larger objects (entire Cygnus Loop, Heart & Soul nebulae together, etc...). 

I was looking for telescopes/camera lenses in the 135 mm to 200 mm focal length range. I narrowed my choices down to the Rokinon 135 mm lens and the Askar FMA180 pro. An astronomy pal has let me use his Askar FRA600 telescope while he recovers from shoulder surgery. I'm really impressed with the quality of the optics and the overall quality of the scope. Feedback on the Askar FMA180 pro from other members of my local club and members of the AstroworldTV Discord community helped me come to the decision to go with the Askar. I want to be clear; feedback was positive on the Rokinon lens was positive too. Overall, the Askar won out in my brain. The combination of the Askar FMA180 Pro and the APS-C sized sensor of my ZWO ASI2600MC Pro camera will give me a FOV of about 7.5 degrees by 5 degrees. Here are a few screenshots from the website Telescopius.com Telescope Simulator tool showing how some popular objects will be framed with this setup.

Equipment Needed for the Build:

The Telescope: Askar FMA180 Pro. 

• An apochromatic sextuplet refractor 
• 40 mm aperture
• 180 mm Focal Length
• f/4.5 Focal Ratio
• New Purchase (Astroworld Telescopes)

Imaging Camera: ZWO ASI2600MC Pro

• APS-C sensor (IMX 571)
• color
• 3.76 um pixels
• integrated USB 2.0 Hub
• USB 3.0
• Shared with existing rig

Guide Camera: Player One Ceres-C

• IMX 224
• Color (a mono camera would be more sensitive, color is fine for this rig)
• 3.75 um pixels
• New Purchase (Astroworld Telescopes)

Guide Scope: SvBony 30 mm f/4 Guide Scope

• 30 mm aperture
• 120 mm Focal length
• f/4
• Helical Focuser
• New Purchase (Astroworld Telescopes)

Other Items/Accessories:

• Askar EAF Kit for the FMA180 Pro (New Purchase - Astroworld Telescopes)
• ZWO EAF (shared with existing rig)
• Pegasus Astro Powerbox Advance (shared with existing rig)
• ZWO Filter holder (shared with existing rig)
• Dew Strips 
• Losmandy Style Rail to mount everything on 

Future Items:

• Apache Case
• Dedicated Pegasus Astro pocket Powerbox Advanced
• Mini PC

Build Status and Next Steps:

The rig is pretty much ready to go. I need to attach the Pegasus Powerbox (currently on my main imaging rig). I will share my imaging camera and the powerbox between the two rigs until I can afford to buy another powerbox (1st priority) and camera. I haven't had first light yet. That probably won't happen until late May / Early June. We are currently in galaxy season, as I write this in mid-April of 2025. I will use the FRA600 or our astronomy club's Celeston 14" Edge HD to image if any opportunities arise. They will be better suited for galaxies and my friend's shoulder will heal and he will want the FRA600 back. Looking forward to a super wide-field take on Nebula Season this year!

Clear Skies!
Ernie

Aurora March 21st from the BMO

 An unexpected surprise ...

Friday night March 21^st was intended to be one of our club’s Messier Marathon nights. Due to the forecast for clouds after 11 pm and poor sky conditions, the organizers decided to postpone. Although I disagreed with this call, as a person responsible for multiple astronomy related events per year, I respect the difficulty in making this call. Our club’s observatory director and I decided to head out to the observatory anyway. Our plan was to work on correcting sensor tilt with a new camera that is intended to be used with our Tele Vue NP101is. Imagine the telescope presents an image to the sensor in the form of a circle. If the plane of this circle is not aligned with the plane of the sensor, stars will be elongated in parts of the resulting image. Since the skies weren’t great, it was good use of the time to perform this tedious work. One of the participants of the Messier Marathon decided to come out anyway and visually observed for a few hours.

After successfully improving the sensor tilt of the telescope/camera system, I checked my phone and saw reports of Aurora in our area. It was a little before 11 pm. We went outside and faint Aurora were indeed detectable (by camera only). The display would ebb and flow, ultimately, we decided to pack it in and head home for the evening (it was a very long and tiring week). This is a single photo from my iPhone. The iPhone was mounted on a fixed tripod. My red headlamp illuminated the Sky Shed Pod and the Main Observatory structure. No additional processing, other than what processing the phone automatically performs, was done to the image.

Aurora captured from the BMO on 3/21/2025. iPhone on a tripod.

Image Details:

Capture Date: 3/21/2025

Location: North Java, NY (Beaver Meadow Observatory)

Telescope: N/A

Camera: iPhone 13 pro

Filter: N/A

Mount: Tripod

Exposure: 7.5 sec @ ISO 1250 26 mm f/1.5

Software: N/A

Clear Skies!

Ernie

Video - My Year (2024) in Astrophotography - Part 2

Happy New Year!!!

Hard to believe another trip around the Sun is almost coming to an end. Here's a little video of my astrophotography from 2024. This video is part 2 of 2. Wishing you and yours all the best for 2025!!!

Clear Skies!

Ernie

Click on the Square in the Bottom Right of the Window Below to View the Video Full Screen

Blog Posts Corresponding to Images in the Video:

M8, M20, and friends from across the street

A Smoky Sea Horse Nebula

A Tiptoe Through the Tulip Nebula

The Cocoon Nebula from the BMO

M16 from the BMO (No Blog post for this one)

NGC 281 - The Pac-Man Nebula

NGC 7331, The Deerlick Group from the Beaver Meadow Observatory (BMO)

October 2024: An Amazing Month for Astronomy - Part 2 (Comet C/2023 A3)

NGC 7635 - The Bubble Nebula - from The BMO

NGC 7635 - The Bubble Nebula - from The BMO

 Bubblicious ...

Thursday November 7th & Tuesday November 12th were our club's (Buffalo Astronomical Association) imaging group (The Tuesday Night Imagers) imaging sessions at our club's dark sky observatory, The Beaver Meadow Observatory (BMO). Our club's Observatory Director and Tuesday Night ringleader ran the Celestron 14" Edge HD while another member ran the Tele Vue NP101is with his personal camera attached. I joined via Zoom. Of the two nights, the 12th had better seeing/transparency. The 7th was also plagued with software issues. They were not able to connect to the Pegasus Astro ultimate Power Box after a windows update. After several updates and reboots, the situation was resolved. 

I have (and continue) to take PixInsight classes from Masters of PixInsight. Their most recent Photons to Photos class was on processing Bubble Nebula data from a Celestron 14" Edge. The timing was perfect. I picked up a few techniques that were ultimately used to process this image. Here is the result.

NGC 7635 - The Bubble Nebula from 10/7 & 10/12 at the BMO.

Processing:

All pre and post processing was performed in PixInsight. Pre-Processing: Our club's Observatory Director pre-processed the images in PixInsight (WBPP) and sent me the Master Light image. Linear Post Processing: Background extraction was performed with Auto DBE Script from Seti Astro followed by BXT (correct only). SPCC was used for Color Calibration followed by a full application of BXT. The Stars were removed using StarXT. Starless Linear: Noise was reduced with NXT. The image was made non-linear with HT. Starless Non-linear Post Processing: The CreateHDRImage script was used to compress the Bubble and bright surrounding nebula (a mask was created and used by the script). Narrowband Normalization (Mode 1) was used to create the SHO or Hubble Palette look. Saturation and intensity were increased with CT. Sharpness was improved with ImageBlend script using a High Pass Filter. LHE was applied at 2 Kernel sizes. Additionally, Unsharp mask was applied. Finally, the DarkStructureEnhance script was applied (0.2). Stars Linear: The Stars image was made non-linear with Seti Astro's Star Stretch script. Stars Non-Linear: Saturation was increased with CT. Starless: Intensity, and contrast were adjusted with various applications of CT. The Stars and Starless images were combined with Pixel Math to produce the final image. 

What is it?

NGC 7635 is also known as Sharpless 162, Caldwell 11, and The Bubble Nebula. It is an H II region emission nebula in the constellation of Cassiopeia. The Stellar Wind from a young, massive, and hot central star has created the bubble by blasting it out of the glowing gas against the denser material in the surrounding molecular cloud.

Annotated image of NGC 7635 - The Bubble Nebula.

How Big is it?

NGC 7635 has a size of 15.0 x 8.0 arcminutes (1 degree is 60 arcminutes) on the night sky. It is about 6.1 light years in diameter (similar in size to our Milky Way Galaxy).

How Far is it?

NGC 7635 is located about 11,000 light-years (ly) from Earth.

How to find it?

The NGC 7635 is located about halfway between Cassiopeia and Cepheus, very close to the Open Star cluster Messier 52 (M52).  Dark skies, large aperture, and a nebula filter are helpful in viewing this group.

Finder Chart for NGC 7635, The Bubble Nebula.

Image Details:

Capture Date: 11/7/2024 & 11/12/2024

Location: North Java, NY (Buffalo Astronomical Association's Beaver Meadow Observatory)

Telescope: Celestron 14" Edge HD w/0.7x Reducer

Camera: OGMA AP26CC

Filter: Antlia Alp-T

Mount: Astro Physics AP1200 Mount

Exposure: 11/7: 9 exposures at 600 sec / Gain 100 / Offset 100 / -10° C each for a total exposure of 1.5 hours. 11/12: 22 exposures at 600 sec / Gain 100 / Offset 100 / -10° C each for a total exposure of 3.67 hours. The total combined integration time is 5.167 hours.

Software: NINA, PHD2, and PixInsight

Clear Skies!

Ernie

October 2024: An Amazing Month for Astronomy - Part 2

Chasing Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS)

Saturday 10/12/2024 - Lakeview, NY

Chasing comets is so much fun. My first experience trying to capture one photographically was Comet Neowise in July of 2020. I was pretty new to astrophotography, so my results were ok, but it was so much fun. Was waiting for a chance for a bright comet now that my skills have improved. The Astronomy community has been excited for Comet C/2023 A (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) almost as soon as it was discovered. Even though predictions for this comet indicated it could be a good one, we all take them with a grain of salt. Comets are like cats; they both have tails and they do what they want. 

Saturday 10/12 would be the first chance for me to catch the comet in the evening sky, as the comet had traveled around the Sun and became an evening object on Friday 10/11. The weather was poor on Friday, but Saturday was clear all day with clouds coming in at twilight. Would the clouds stay away long enough to get a peak at the comet? Next problem, where to observe? I have a fairly decent western horizon if I go to the farm across the street from my house. Looking at planetarium apps, it was close. My son-in-law's parents have a home on Lake Erie. In fact, their backyard is on a cliff above Lake Erie. They were gracious and allowed me to set up my DSLR and tripod in their yard. I also had my binoculars and my son-in-law's father also had a pair of binoculars. We were treated to a beautiful sunset, but there was a heavy bank of clouds on the horizon. I was afraid the comet would be behind the clouds. 

Spoiler alert, my expectation of where the comet would be, specifically how high above the horizon, was significantly off. My expectation of when the comet would be visible was off as well. Their neighbor came outside and asked if we could see anything. We told him we couldn't see anything, so he went back inside to attend to his parental duties. Just as was about to give up, we noticed Venus. It was much higher and further South than I expected. Arcturus became visible as well. The comet was roughly between Venus and Arcturus in azimuth, and it was close to Venus' altitude. We renewed the search, and their neighbor returned. We took turns looking through the binoculars. I kept snapping photos with my camera in hopes the comet would appear to the camera sensor before our eyes could detect it. Lots of false alarms, wispy clouds, jet contrails, but no comet. My son-in-law's mother told us she was seeing something and to her it felt like the comet. We thought it was another airplane contrail. She was pretty adamant; I pointed the camera based on her description relative to the clouds near the horizon. Took a photo at 7:33 pm, there it was!!!

We took turns looking through the binoculars and I kept taking pictures. The comet got brighter, and you could make it out naked eye. We watched it go behind clouds, then reemerge. We lost it to the dense cloud bank on the horizon around 8:07 PM. I was shooting with my Ha modified Canon T6i, fixed tripod, Canon 50 mm lens (The Nifty Fifty), and an intervalometer (used as a shutter release). I was taking pictures at different settings, bracketing exposures, to ensure I captured the comet. 

Here's my best shot of the evening:

Saturday 10/12/204 from Lake View, NY at 7:53 PM. 2.5 sec exposure at f/2.8 and ISO 1600. Processed in Adobe Lightroom Classic and NoiseXTerminator in PixInsight.

Monday 10/14/2024 - Eden, NY

It was very cloudy on Monday 10/14 so there was no expectation of seeing the comet. I had to pick up something from the grocery store and noticed significant breaks in the clouds, especially to the west. After returning home, I ran across the street and snapped a photo with my iPhone. Could definitely make out the comet. Went back home and grabbed the tripod with the iPhone adapter and set up to see if i capture the comet despite the clouds. The comet was visible to the naked eye, and I moved around to try and capture a pleasing composition. Here's my favorite shot from that evening. Cool note: The Planetary Society reposted my photo on their Instagram!

Monday 10/14/2024 from Eden, NY at 7:57 PM. iPhone on a tripod. 

Wednesday 10/16/2024 - Eden, NY

Similar to Monday, patchy clouds and a bright Moon impacting the images and the visual observation. Set up across the street but in a slightly different location. Here are a couple of iPhone shots. 

Wednesday 10/16/2024 from Eden, NY at 7:46 PM. iPhone on a tripod.

Wednesday 10/16/2024 from Eden, NY at 7:46 PM. iPhone on a tripod at 3X Zoom.

Thursday 10/17/2024 - Eden, NY

The skies were clear on Thursday night, but the transparency was not good. The Moon was full and definitely had an impact once it rose above the trees. I had difficulty seeing the comet naked eye, no trouble with binoculars (10x50). I had two imaging set ups going. The first set up was my Ha Modified Canon T6i with Canon 50 mm lens on the iOptron Sky Guider Pro. The other setup was an iPhone on a tripod.

Thursday 10/17/2024 from Eden, NY at 8:35 pm. Ha modified Canon T6i, iOptron Sky Guider Pro, Canon 50 mm lens (Nifty Fifty), and an intervalometer. 5 sec exposure, f/2.8 at ISO 800. Edited in adobe Lightroom classic, Photoshop, and PixInsight.

Thursday 10/17/2024 from Eden, NY at 8:23 pm. iPhone on a Tripod. Edited in Photoshop.

Friday 10/18/2024 - Eden, NY 

No photos (yet) from Friday night. 
Our observatory director came over to my house to observe/image the comet. I had the same set up as Thursday night. Conditions were better. Comet was more visible with the naked eye. The nearly Full Moon definitely impacted views and imaging.  

Saturday 10/19/2024 - North Java, NY

Our local astronomy club, the Buffalo Astronomical Association (BAA), has our dark sky observatory on the grounds of the Buffalo Audubon Society's (BAS) Beaver Meadow Nature Center. We call our observatory the Beaver Meadow Observatory (BMO). The BAS asked us to open the observatory on 10/19 to support their Trick-or-Treat Hike event. We had several members show up with their scopes and we had the Celestron 14" Edge HD with the club's camera. We put my ZWO ASI2600MC pro on the club's Tele Vue NP101is (w/0.8 reducer). Both scopes ride on the Astro Physics AP1200 mount. Another member of our club's imaging subgroup put his dedicated astronomy camera on his 85 mm lens. We mounted this onto the NP101/14" Edge setup. 

The event was from 4 pm to 9 pm so we shared views of the Sun early in the event and then switched to Comet, Saturn, and other Deep Sky Objects. We also have a member (he's one of the hosts of the 7th Magnitude podcast) that gives star/constellation tours with a laser pointer. This was a family-oriented event. Lots of families, with kids (and adults) dressed up in great Halloween costumes. The Comet was the ... STAR ... of the evening. We helped visitors find the comet and helped a few that brought their own camera set ups. People were able to find the comet using their phones, but some were able to see it naked eye (just barely). We had computer monitors and TV screens in the observatory control room displaying the images we were capturing of the comet. This worked out great, as large groups were able to cycle into the control to get a view and ask questions. One of our members did not bring her scope with her so she used my 8' Dob to share views of Saturn. Saturn's rings are almost edge on. It was a great night and the weather was perfect!

I was able to process the data from the NP101 with my camera (see image below). Still working on the data from the 14" Edge HD. I tagged Tele Vue when posting the image of the comet with the NP101 and my camera on social media. They reposted my post on X (formerly Twitter). That really made my day!!

Saturday 10/19 from the BMO. This is a picture of the monitor connected to the NP101is with my camera. This is a single exposure with NINA's unlinked screen stretch applied.

Saturday 10/19/2024 from the BMO at 7:41 PM. Handheld iPhone shot from outside the observatory. 

Saturday 10/19/2024 from the BMO at 8:02 PM. Handheld iPhone shot from inside the observatory (from behind the telescopes). The NP101is is the smaller telescope mounted on top of the 14" EdgeHD.

Saturday 10/19/2024 from the BMO at 9;04 PM. Handheld iPhone shot from outside the observatory. look carefully at the sky, note the Big Dipper skimming the trees.

Saturday 10/19/2024 from the BMO. Tele Vue NP101is telescope w/0.8x Reducer, my ZWO ASI2600MC Pro, and Astro Physics AP1200 mount. 112 exposures at 15 sec each, -10 degrees C, gain 100, & Offset 50. Processed in PixInsight.

I tagged Tele Vue when sharing the image of the Comet on social media. They reposted my post to X (formerly Twitter). How cool is that!!!!

Saturday 10/26/2024 - Eden, NY

The forecast called for skies to clear around 8pm on Saturday 10/26. We had family over for dinner. I snuck out around 7 pm and set up my Ha Modified Canon T6i on the iOptron Sky guider pro. I also had the tripod with iPhone adapter. I captured images with DSLR using both the Canon 50 mm lens (Nifty Fifty) and the Rokinon 14" mm Lens. The comet was near the Milky Way core. I'm not really pleased with how the DSLR shots turned out. Here's an iPhone shot processed in Snapseed.

Saturday 10/26/2024 from Eden, NY 8:14 PM. iPhone on a tripod. Processed in Snapseed on my iPhone.

So that's probably it for now ...

The comet is getting dimmer and there are other targets I'll want to capture with the limited clear skies we get. Now that it gets darker earlier, we might go after the comet at the observatory at the beginning of an imaging session. We'll see. Chasing this comet was so much fun!! So many great experiences! Can't wat for the next one. 

Clear Skies!

Ernie

NGC 7331, The Deerlick Group from the Beaver Meadow Observatory (BMO)

 NGC7331 and The Fleas ...

Monday October 7th was our club's imaging group, the Tuesday Night imagers, imaging session for the week at the club's observatory. I was unable to join in person as I had a work meeting, but joined via Zoom once my work meeting was over. The evening started out cloudy, so we worked on getting flats and worked on some processing in PixInsight. It cleared after 9 pm so we slewed the club's 14" Celestron Edge HD to NGC 7331 per a member's suggestion. We managed to collect 21 subs at 300 seconds each for 1.75 hours total exposure. This is my processing of the data.

NGC 7331, The Deerlick Group captured on 10/7 at the BMO

Processing:

All pre and post processing was performed in PixInsight. Pre-Processing: All subs were visually inspected with Blink and subs with issues were removed. All light Frames, Flats, Darks and Dark flats were loaded into WBPP. Linear Post Processing: Background extraction was performed with Auto DBE Script from Seti Astro followed by BXT (correct only). SPCC was used for Color Calibration followed by a full application of BXT. The Stars were removed using StarXT. Starless Linear: Noise was reduced with NXT. The image was made non-linear with HT. Starless Non-linear Post Processing: HDRMultiScaleTransform was used to compress the core of NGC 7331 (mask was used). Saturation and intensity were increased with CT. LHE was applied at 3 Kernel sizes. Unsharp mask was applied and MMT was used to increase sharpness. Exponential Transformation was used to increase intensity. Stars Linear: The Stars image was made non-linear with Seti Astro's Star Stretch script. Stars Non-Linear: Saturation was increased with CT. Starless: Intensity, and contrast were adjusted with various applications of CT. The Stars and Starless images were combined with Pixel Math to produce the final image. 

What is it?

The NGC 7331 Group is a "visual" grouping of galaxies in the constellation Pegasus. It is also known as the Deerlick Group. The large spiral galaxy is NGC 7331 and the four other galaxies that make up the group are NGC 7335, NGC 7336, NGC 7337, & NGC 7340. The four smaller galaxies are also referred to as The Fleas. NGC 7331 is a foreground galaxy; the Fleas are much farther away (see "How far is it?" below).

An annotated image of NGC 7331.

How Big is it?

NGC 7331 has a size of 9.3 x 3.8 arcminutes (1 degree is 60 arcminutes) on the night sky. It is about 127,800 light years in diameter (similar in size to our Milky Way Galaxy).

NGC 7335 has an apparent size of 1.3 x 0.5 arcminutes and is about 113,000 light-years in diameter.

NGC 7336 has an apparent size of 0.6 x 0.5 arcminutes and is about 76,800 light-years in diameter.

NGC 7337 has an apparent size of 1.0 x 0.8 arcminutes and is about 95,400 light-years in diameter.

NGC 7340 has an apparent size of 0.9 x 0.6 arcminutes and is about 78,800 light-years in diameter.

How Far is it?

NGC 7331 is located about 47 million light-years (ly) from Earth.

NGC 7335 is located about 310 million light-years (ly) from Earth.

NGC 7336 is located about 430 million light-years (ly) from Earth.

NGC 7337 is located about 320 million light-years (ly) from Earth.

NGC 7340 is located about 310 million light-years (ly) from Earth.

How to find it?

The NGC 7331 Group is located in the constellation Pegasus as shown by the small red square in the Finder Chart below. Dark skies and large aperture are helpful in viewing this group.

A finder chart for NGC 7331

Image Details:

Capture Date: 10/7/2024

Location: North Java, NY (Buffalo Astronomical Association's Beaver Meadow Observatory)

Telescope: Celestron 14" Edge HD w/0.7x Reducer

Camera: OGMA AP26CC

Filter: OGMA 2" UV/IR Cut

Mount: Astro Physics AP1200 Mount

Exposure: 21 exposures at 300 sec / Gain 100 / Offset 100 / -10° C each for a total exposure of 1.75 hours.

Software: NINA, PHD2, and PixInsight

Clear Skies!

Ernie

The Cocoon Nebula from the BMO

 An emission nebula, dark nebula, reflection nebula and a star cluster walk into a bar ...

Maybe they don't walk into a bar, but this combination of deep space objects is common for stellar nurseries such as the Cocoon Nebula. Monday August 26th was forecast to be a clear night and our club's observatory director decided to hold our Tuesday night Imagers session that night. I was unable to attend in person, but did join in via Zoom. We decided to image the Cocoon Nebula, a target that we recently imaged using a Dual Narrowband filter. We were a little disappointed in the result. One of our members pointed out that this target contains significant reflection nebulosity, dark nebula, and faint background dust and might be better suited for no filter, to better captures these broadband elements. Conditions were pretty good and the 47% illuminated Moon was not an issue as it rose just before midnight. We would be done imaging for the night by then. We captured 22 usable subs at 300 seconds each. This is my process of the data.

The Cocoon Nebula (IC 5146) from the BMO on 8/26/2024

Processing:

All pre and post processing was performed in PixInsight. Pre-Processing: All subs were visually inspected with Blink and subs with issues were removed. All light Frames, Flats, Darks and Dark flats were loaded into WBPP. Linear Post Processing: Background extraction was performed with Auto DBE Script from Seti Astro followed by BXT (correct only). SPCC was used for Color Calibration followed by a full application of BXT. Noise was reduced with NXT. The image was made non-linear with HT. Non-linear Post Processing: Stars were removed with StarXT. Stars: Saturation was increased with CT. Starless: Intensity, and contrast were adjusted with various applications of CT. Saturation was increased with CT. LHE was applied at 3 Kernel sizes. Unsharp mask was applied and MMT was used to increase sharpness. The DSE script was used to enhance dark nebula regions. The Stars and Starless images were combined with Pixel Math to produce the final image. I processed several versions. One version was dark and the other was very bright. I ended up blending both together with Pixel Math to get this final version.

What is it?

IC 5146, more commonly known as the Cocoon Nebula, is an emission nebula located in the constellation of Cygnus. Like other stellar nurseries, the Cocoon contains emission nebula, reflection nebula, dark nebula, and a star cluster. 

An annotated image of IC 5146, The Cocoon Nebula

How Big is it?

IC 5146 has a size of 12 arcminutes (1 degree is 60 arcminutes) on the night sky. It is about 15 light years in diameter.

How Far is it?

IC 5146 is located about 4,000 light-years (ly) from Earth in the constellation Cygnus.

How to find it?

IC 5146 is located between Cygnus and Lacerta, near the open cluster M39. A nebula filter like a UHC or a H-beta filter would likely help visual observers.

Finder chart for IC 5146, The Cocoon Nebula

Image Details:

Capture Date: 08/26/2024

Location: North Java, NY (Buffalo Astronomical Association's Beaver Meadow Observatory)

Telescope: Celestron 14" Edge HD w/0.7x Reducer

Camera: OGMA AP26CC

Filter: OGMA 2" Antlia Alp-T

Mount: Astro Physics AP1200 Mount

Exposure: 22 exposures at 300 sec / Gain 100 / Offset 100 / -10° C each for a total exposure of 1.83 hours.

Software: NINA, PHD2, and PixInsight

Clear Skies!

Ernie

M51 from The BMO

 Second night out with the club's new camera ...

We hosted a local girl scout troop at our club's observatory on Saturday 5/18. The troop worked on their Space Science badge in between the clouds. We were able to cover every aspect of the badge, including visual observing, astrophotography, and spectra. Unsurprisingly, the skies completely cleared at the end of the program. We got to show the girl scouts M51 on the club's Celestron 14" Edge HD with our new OGMA AP26CC camera. We live stacked the galaxy in SharpCap for about 10 minutes. 

After the troop left, the observatory director and I stayed and imaged M51 for about an hour or so. We had only cooled the camera to 0 degrees Celsius as the observatory was very warm that day and we had not planned on imaging. This gave us some issues when processing the image. We were worried that there was an issue with the camera. The M3 image from a few days earlier was taken at -10 degrees Celsius and did not exhibit any issues. An image taken after M51 was also taken with the camera cooled to -10 degrees Celsius, again no issues. We managed to gather 13 subs at 3 minutes each for a total of 39 minutes of exposure. Here's the result.

M51 from the BMO

Processing:

All pre and post processing was performed in PixInsight. Pre-Processing: All subs were visually inspected with Blink and subs with issues were removed. All light Frames, Flats, Darks and Dark flats were loaded into WBPP. Linear Post Processing: Background extraction was performed with GraXpert followed by BXT (correct only). SPCC was used for Color Calibration followed by a full application of BXT. Noise was reduced with NXT. The image was made non-linear with HT. Non-linear Post Processing: Stars were removed with StarXT. Stars: Saturation was increased with CT. Starless: Saturation was increased with CT. LHE was applied at 3 Kernel sizes. Unsharp mask was applied and MMT was used to increase sharpness. The Stars and Starless images were combined with Pixel Math to produce the final image.

What is it?

Messier 51 (M51) is also known as the Whirlpool Galaxy. It is actually a pair of galaxies gravitationally interacting, M51 and the smaller NGC 5195. Recent simulations suggest that NGC 5195 actually passed through M51 500 to 600 million years ago, causing M51's distinctive spiral structure.

Annotated image of M51

How Big is it?

This object has an size of 13.7 x 11.7 arcminutes (1 degree is 60 arcminutes) on the night sky. It is 111.6 thousand light-years (ly) in diameter.

How Far is it?

It is located about 28 million light-years (ly) from Earth in the constellation Canes Venatici.

How to find it?

This object is visible in small telescopes and binoculars, and like M3, is best viewed in a large Dobsonian like our club's 20" obsession. Even though M51 is in Canes Venatici, it is found using the Big Dipper asterism in Ursa Major. M51 can be found just of the end of the Big Dipper's handle as indicated in the finder chart below.

Finder chart for M51

Image Details:

Capture Date: 05/18/2024

Location: North Java, NY (Buffalo Astronomical Association's Beaver Meadow Observatory)

Telescope: Celestron 14" Edge HD w/0.7x Reducer

Camera: OGMA AP26CC

Filter: OGMA 2" UV/IR Cut

Mount: Astro Physics AP1200 Mount

Exposure: 13 exposures at 180 sec / Gain 100 / Offset 10 / 0° C each for a total exposure of 39 minutes.

Software: NINA, PHD2, and PixInsight

Clear Skies!

Ernie

First Light with the New Camera at the Beaver Meadow Observatory

 And so it begins ...

Our astronomy club recently purchased a new camera for our club's observatory. Our existing line up of cameras were fantastic pieces of equipment but are older technology. The latest CMOS cameras offer higher sensitivity, lower noise, and faster download speeds. We purchased an OGMA AP26CC. OGMA is a new brand of camera. OGMA is located in North Carolina (sales, distribution, & customer support) and the cameras are made in China by Touptek. The AP26CC is based on the SONY IMX571 sensor used in many popular astronomy cameras like the ZWO ASI2600MCPro, QHY268, & Player One Poseidon. we decided to go with the OGMA as it cost a few hundred dollars less, US based support, and the package of accessories it comes with. Note: The AR window is not a UV/IR cut filter like the ZWO camera. However, the OGMA comes with a UV/IR filter and filter holder.

Thursday 5/16 was our imaging group's Tuesday Night session. Clear skies but a bright Moon. Perfect for trying out new gear. I got to the observatory after work, but as is the case this time of year, had to leave. It doesn't get dark enough to image until well after 9 pm. Difficult to stay on a work night. I went home and joined in via Zoom. The team decided to go after M3. This bright globular cluster should have no problem punching through the light pollution from the Moon. We didn't have any issues with connecting the camera to the club's Celestron 14" Edge HD. We used the default backspacing of 55 mm from the Focal Reducer and the results look spot on. No issues connecting to NINA. We used the recommended settings on the online manual for the camera on OGMA's website.

We captured 30 subs but were only able to stack 23 subs. WBPP in PixInsight rejected 7 exposures for some reason. This seems to be a fairly common occurrence when working with long focal length data. Here is the result. 

1st light with the club's new camera. M3 from the BMO.

Processing:

All pre and post processing was performed in PixInsight. Pre-Processing: All subs were visually inspected with Blink and subs with issues were removed. All light Frames, Flats, Darks and Dark flats were loaded into WBPP. Linear Post Processing: Background extraction was performed with GraXpert followed by BXT (correct only). SPCC was used for Color Calibration followed by a full application of BXT. Noise was reduced with NXT. The image was made non-linear with HT. Non-linear Post Processing: Stars were removed with StarXT. Stars: Saturation was increased with CT. Starless: No processing of the starless image was performed. The only reason I removed the stars was to prevent color in the background when increasing saturation of the stars. The Stars and Starless images were combined with Pixel Math to produce the final image.

What is it?

Messier 3 or M3 is a very bright globular cluster in the constellation Canes Venatici. M3 contains about 500,000 stars. This cluster is roughly 8 billion years old.

An annotated image of M3.

How Big is it?

This object has an apparent diameter of 18.0 arcminutes (1 degree is 60 arcminutes) on the night sky. It is 180 light-years (ly) in diameter.

How Far is it?

It is located about 33,900 light-years (ly) from Earth in the constellation Canes Venatici.

How to find it?

This object is visible in small telescopes and binoculars but is best viewed in a large Dobsonian like our club's 20" obsession.  I like to draw an imaginary line between Arcturus and Cor Coroli (the star next to the "s" in Canes Venatici in the finder chart below. I also use the constellation Com Berenices to "triangulate" M3. 

A finder chart for M3.

Image Details:

Capture Date: 05/16/2024

Location: North Java, NY (Buffalo Astronomical Association's Beaver Meadow Observatory)

Telescope: Celestron 14" Edge HD w/0.7x Reducer

Camera: OGMA AP26CC

Filter: OGMA 2" UV/IR Cut

Mount: Astro Physics AP1200 Mount

Exposure: 23 exposures at 120 sec / Gain 100 / Offset 10 / -10° C each for a total exposure of 46 minutes.

Software: NINA, PHD2, and PixInsight

Clear Skies!

Ernie