Panstarrs C/2011 L4 and more

We had a great time at the Mineola Nature Preserve on 03/13/2013 looking for PanStarrs C/2011 L4 (Magnitude 1).  While we were waiting I did get a shot of the moon 1 day after New (so a fingernail to be sure).  Once it darkened up I tried my luck with the Double Cluster in Perseus, Horsehead Nebula in Orion and Andromeda's Galaxy

Fingernail Moon

PanStarrs C/2011 L4 in the twilight sky

Double Cluster in Perseus

Flame Nebula (left) and Horsehead (right) in Orion

My first attempt at Andromeda's Galaxy

Jupiter at Jon Watkins' House

Jon Watkins was nice enough to have the club out to his house again and this year we pretty much focused (get it) on Jupiter.  I looked up when the red spot would transit and luckily got some shots of it while it was in view.  I made a looping animation to show the movement and moons and then did some color saturation and contrast on the image I liked the best to show off the bright colors.

Shooting rig - C8 with a Meade flip mirror and Canon EOS T3 (12.2mp) - I was using EOS Capture to control the camera and record from the live view feed w/ a 5x zoom.  That gives me (according to Jerry Lodriguss) a pretty much 1:1 pixel density so I'm getting as good a shot as I can get.  I didn't crop at all so what you see is exactly what I got.

Looping animation of 18 frames - some are a little darker, but it's a neat effect.  If you look closely at the top of the image you can see two of the moons moving in different directions (one is close and the other is far so you can see how they orbit).

Still frame of the first good shot.  I bumped up the color saturation and contrast to make the colors more visible, but other than that I was just glad to get a decent shot of the red spot.  Sure I'd like to have used a barlow lens, but I'm glad to at least get the opportunity and have some fun learning my rig.

Jupiter and Uranus

So far I'm feeling pretty good with the C8.  I've gotten the collimation to a point where I'm reasonably happy with it.  It's no refractor, but I'm probably spoiled now that I've gotten a taste of the clear stuff (even if it is a little purple-y).  That being said I'm in love with my new flip mirror setup.  It's well worth the money especially now that I've worked out the focus and can get reasonably close before flipping over to the camera.  I'm sure I'll eventually get a guider, but for the time being I'm enjoying the process of learning to image planets without one.  Turns out I only get about 2 min per shot of Jupiter before the planet rotation causes the features to blur.

Jupiter on a loop - I have about 7 decent frames and it's looping

back and forth so you can see some of the details.

Here it is with some levels applied to bump up the contrast.

You can't see the moons now, but the planet looks better.

Uranus - it's small and blue, but you can tell it's a planet.

Harrison's first star party

Harrison showing his star chart to his public

My son Harrison is a cub scout, but even if he wasn't he'd want to participate in a star party (even if just because I'm into it).  Tonight we brought his 70mm scope, I equipped him with a 25mm eyepiece and turned him loose.  We'd practiced aiming at the house and his red dot was sighted in (fairly well) so I told him to show the kids the moon.

We had about 200 - 300 people and at least 100 kids who absolutely had to be in his line.  He talked and showed and was an ambassador of the sky for hours.  He explained to them that the red light would preserve their night vision and showed them how to use star charts and identify the bright stars.  He kept his scope pointed (manually) at the moon and when people said they couldn't see anything he took care of it graciously.

I could not have been prouder of my Junior Astronomer son.  Kids loved talking to him (in their language) and were really excited to have a person their size who was on the staff. :)

First Light (in the daytime) with Solar Filter

Here's my first attempt at using a Solar Filter.  I purchased a glass one from Orion and even though it's really a snug fit I'm not worried that it'll fall off.

First Light - Celestron C8 OTA

We went to Dallas and I had the pleasure of visiting my first telescope shop - The Observatory.  I had the opportunity to talk to the manager and get some tips on my next scope.  He advised me that I could go up to a C8 with my mount (CG5) and still do photography.

So... my next stop was to check retail ($1200 - ouch) and start trolling the classifieds (CloudyNights.com) and dreaming of a new scope.  I didn't want another huge one so the C8 seemed like the natural choice.  I found one and ordered it (at a very good price) and tonight I had the first chance to use it.

To explain to the layperson new equipment is the bane of astronomers everywhere.  It almost always is succeeded by weeks of bad weather, etc.  For some reason I was able to get it out and try it the second night of having it (unheard of).  That being said let me explain the situation... poor seeing, full moon and new equipment.  I wasn't going to be taking great shots anyway, so I might as well start the learning process of a new piece of equipment so I don't waste a really good night learning my way around it.

I spent about 4 hours working on it getting my feet wet and trying to get a little success (Ring Nebula).

• Finder - the scope didn't come with a finder, but I had an extra red dot in the shed so that wasn't a big deal - still had to align it and the battery isn't awesome so probably need a new battery and possibly later on a nicer finder.  Still... the price is right and it gets the job done.  With my 70 I've not even been using a finder.
• Collimation - Fun fun - I forgot that part of owning a reflector (of any sort) is collimating it.  After spending some time working on it and using my Hotech laser collimator I went to the Interwebs and watched a tutorial on how to laser collimate an SCT.  The irony is to do it you have to have done a star collimation first anyway and marked the spot the laser points to.  So in effect the laser doesn't get you aligned, just gets you back to whatever you originally were.  Still... after trying two different times I achieved a level of collimation I'm not miserable about.  I'm sure I'll get better at it, but for now I'm not worried that I bought a lemon.
• Mount Alignment - Polar alignment of the mount is crucial and after some mucking about and recalibrating I finally reached a decent alignment for taking some shots.  It didn't help that the moon was whitewashing the entire sky, but like I previously mentioned this was supposed to be a dry run anyway.

M51 Whirlpool Galaxy and M57 Ring Nebula

I took these last night from my light polluted front yard with a streetlight beaming in my face.  I didn't get to use the darks I took since apparently JPEGS are too artifact-y to do pixel by pixel noise replacement.

M51 - Whirlpool Galaxy - made up of about 60 1 min subs at ISO 1600 stacked using Deep Sky Stacker (and then adjusted with Photoshop)

M57 - the Ring Nebula - same setup as above, but about 75 subs (all in one whack using my automatic shutter remote once I figured out how to make it work properly).