Rosette Nebula 

Caldwell 49, the Rosette Nebula

Lots of stuff went right, lots of stuff went wrong with my attempt at Caldwell 49, the Rosette Nebula. Second time I tried tracking and managed 3-minute subs but I have tons of fixed pattern noise, also known as walking noise, over the image.

My next attempt I will turn over camera control to the laptop through Astro Photography Tools and add dithering to the mix which will help mask that.

Better than I thought I would get  but not so good. Anyway at least I got an image.

Guiding star 

Guide scope )n left ready for a debut.

Had my first successful (well actually any) attempt at guiding. The QHY 55L -II -M and matching mini guide scope worked well, even better when I plugged it into the correct port on the camera.

PHD2 guide scope software guiding my CGEM II mount
after out selecting a star near the Orion Nebula

Out of the gate I was able to run three-minute subs, two minutes longer that anything I've been able to do so far with just tracking on the CGEM II or AVX mounts.

A graph charts the corrections to the mount in right ascension
and declination axes during PHD2 guiding of the Orion Nebula

Had some brief hiccups with clouds and high winds trhat led to some not-so-great seeing which probably gave me the crazy graph on the PHD2 software.

Guiding allowed three-minute subs of the Orion
Nebula with a 430 mm focal length telescope

Down the road will be adding guiding to the Celestron Edge HD 8 but I have to have a focal reducer (already on backorder) before I try to guide theat.

 Suck-sess

Somebody was passing by Rigel...

So that whole thing about astrophotography not being a sprint it's a marathon, sometimes you stumble right out of the starting block.

I was trying to shoot the Witch's Head nebula, a super-cool looking cloud of dust faintly illuminated by the star Rigel in the Orion constellation but the lack of a dark sky, the moon glow, city glow, that stupid street light 30 feet away, my five-hour attempt is for naught. 

All I have to show is this picture of an airplane ruining one of my frames.

Rigel in the Orion constellation. It is the left foot of the

Hunter and is 850 light years from Earth.

I did learn that faint targets are meant for the city lights so I just add this to my data base and wait for the next clear night.

 Next steps: Guiding

I'll be using a QHY Mini Guide Scope with a 

matching QHY 5L-II-M  guide camera

So the next steps is a pretty big one as I tackle guiding. As the Earth rotates the star field moves with our rotation heading from east to west. A computerized mount has tracking to match the rotation and hopefully prevent field rotation, those blurry star trails on long exposures. Tracking is good but it needs help. Enter guiding.

Guiding has a smaller focal length telescope with a digital camera attached to track a guide star, follow it's movement an send that information to the mount to turn the motors to move, guide, the mount accurately and allow for long multi minute exposures.

The QHY Mini Guide Scope package included scope rings and

 a Vixen style mount

Guiding is kind of a double edge sword. Not enough time on the exposure and you can't record enough detail for a good picture. Too long of an exposure in my city leads to the photo being washed because of excessive light pollution.

Anyway I am starting my guiding testing with a QHY Guide Scope and a matching QHY 5L-II-M monochrome guide camera. It is small, lightweight and at 130mm should be more than enough for my Astro-Tech AT 72mm ED II telescope. I am going to weight on a guide scope for the Edge HD 8 as that will take a lot of work and I still need a focal reducer to bring down to a manageable focal length. I'll be running the with PHD2 and will eventually tie in Astro Photography tool to do the imaging and control the PHD2 guiding.

The Mini Guide Scope mounts in an accessory shoe using a 

Vixen style mount

Stay tuned to see how the guide scope works assuming I get some sunshine in the next few weeks.

 The stars so far

NGC 1977 the Running Man nebula (left) and Messier 42,

the Orion Nebula

With a couple of months of astrophotography under my belt I think I'm starting to get the hang of things.

There was definitely a learning curve to the style of photography of long, stacked exposures with a "stretched" method of post processing that I'm still getting used to.

Messier 82 the Cigar Galaxy(left) and Messier 81, Bode's 

Galaxy

I look at other people's photos and I'm in awe of what they have captured and know I have a long way to go.

Messier 45, the Pleiades Open Cluster

I've been practicing on a handful of easy targets, the Orion Nebula, the Pleiades Open Star Cluster, so I could practice on star alignment, learning how to use the goto mounts and figuring on the telescope optical tube assemblies.  I have been branching out with some smaller galaxies lately and trying for some of the smaller target like the Whirlpool galaxy. A lot of the emission nebulas will have to wait until I have a dedicated astronomy camera.

Messier 51, the Whirlpool Galaxy

Weather has put a damper on things lately as clouds settle in in the evening and shut down any photography attempts. The good thing there is it has given me a chance to practice with some new hardware and software and get ready for the next opportunity under the stars.

NGC2024, the Flame Nebula (at left) and Barnard 33,the

Horsehead Nebula

 Gearing up

Celestron Edge HD8 on a CGEM II mount

As the COVID-19 pandemic gripped the nation people who had to shelter in place indoors turned their eyes skyward. Astronomy and astrophotography saw a massive resurgence with retailer's shelves emptied of telescopes and their dedicated accessories. This is where I entered the picture.

Late summer I had lost my father after a short illness and I didn't have the heart to continue, at least for the time being, with the hobby that we had shared for nearly 30 years. So I looked for something new amid the shelter in place.

I had always had an interest in astronomy since a class I took in junior college and the school's planetarium. I had always wanted a telescope and I had photographed every lunar eclipse, partial solar eclipse and comet I could find. But I never took the step into the world of deep sky astronomy until now.

My first piece of astrophotography equipment was the Sky Watcher Pro star tracker.

With a payload of 11 pounds this is really meant for attaching a DSLR with lens for some wide-field photography although light weight refractors also work well on it but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Sky Watcher Pro with a Canon 70D
 and 24mm to 70mm zoom attached

So for a few months I waited for nightfall and carried my tripod and star tracker to the backyard for a an evening of picture taking. Lining up the targets proved to by a little frustrating as I was introduced to the world of "star hopping." Looking back it taught me to appreciate the night sky and always have my phone handy with my Sky Guide app at the ready. Trial and error and I was rewarded with views of the Andromeda Galaxy, the Pleiades Open Cluster and the Orion Nebula. I was hooked.

Way back in October I had put an order in for my first telescope. After hours of reading reviews and watching video tutorials and reports I settled on a Celestron Edge HD8 mounted on a matching Celestron CGEM II computerized "goto" mount. It was more hardware than a beginner needs but my plan was to future proof my purchase and not need an upgrade.

The pandemic played havoc with supplies and as the months slipped by and the backorder notice taunting me I decided to get a smaller telescope and mount with he prospect of nit getting the Edge 8 and the CGEMII mount no earlier that early summer looming large.

People had been recommending beginners get a short focal length refractor so I decided why not and ordered an Astro-Tech AT72mm EDII with a Celestron Advanced VX mount.

Astro-Tech AT72mm EDII on a Celestron AVX mount

So you have to realize buying the telescopes is just half the battle. Time to accessorize.

Polar alignment is such much easier with QHY PoleMaster. Throw in a red dot finder for each optical tube assembly (OTA) camera T-ring adapters, a wireless intervalometer to control the shutter release (thankfully I already had that in my camera arsenal), bahnitov masks for each OTA, red light flashlights, cables, a dedicated power supply, the list just seems to keep going.

As I write this I am getting ready for another night of imaging some distant galaxy, a smudge in my camera's screen . Not sure what my pictures will look like but it is just the fun of looking up to see something that most never do. and I think I have enough tools to get started.

To the Stars

The Andromeda Galaxy

On hikes I always made it a point to stop and take a look behind me to see where I've been. Now it's time to stop and take a look up and see history of where we came from.

Astronomers have always been described as historians. They look to the stars and view the light of stars that shone millions of years ago and has finally reached us.

I have joined the ranks of the amateur astronomer, although I like to think my description is closer to recreational astronomer. With a new telescope, a camera and enough accessories to be dangerous I have started a new endeavor, astrophotography. Being a professional photographer aside I am a rank  beginner, a newbie in this world of long exposures, dark frames, bias frames and modded cameras of astrophotography but I look forward to the learning experience ahead.