Summer Triangle

Cygnus, Lyra, Aquila, Milky Way

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Vega, Altair, and Deneb make up the summer triangle asterism, from the constellations Lyra The Lyre, Aquila The Eagle, and Cygnus The Swan. Also visible here are Vulpecula The Fox, Sagitta The Arrow, Delphinus The Dolphin, Equuleus The Foal, and parts of Draco and Hercules. And of course the Cygnus arm of our Milky Way Galaxy.

This is my first long exposure output from my new motorized barn-door tracker, fourteen- three minute exposures stacked. Plagued by atmospheric haze, thin fog and noise from the high ambient temperature I had a difficult time processing this image.


Image Data  
Optics: Tamron 17-50mm  set at 17mm f/4

Camera: Canon EOS X5 DSLR (unmodified)

Mount: Motorized barn-door tracker

Exposure: 14 X 180seconds at ISO 800 RAW

Calibration: Stacking,Flats,and Bias in DeepSkyStacker by Luc Coiffier

Processing: Gradient removal in Iris by Christian Buil, levels, curves, color in PS

Location: Montalban, Rizal, Philippines

Date Time: April 22, 2012. 2:55-3:41pm PHT

Conditions: Hazy sky

Constellation Portraits Ursa Major Big Dipper Group

Ursa Major, Big Dipper Group

Probably the most well known and easiest to recognize asterism in the northern hemisphere.Most people will at least have heard the name big dipper,and there is no ambiguity about the name and the appearance of this one. Stars from left to right are Dubhe, Merak, Phekda or Phad, Megrez, Alioth, Mizar/Alcor(the horse and rider), and Alkaid. Interestingly they do seem to be a real star cluster, moving in the same general direction and at about 75 light years away from us.Unlike most other constellations which are just chance alignment. Dubhe and Merak are useful as they point the way north to Polaris the North star.


Image Data

Optics: Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8  set at 35mm f/2.8

Camera: Canon EOS X5 DSLR (unmodified)

Mount: Fixed Tripod

Exposure: 25 X 5seconds at ISO 1600 RAW

Calibration: Stacking,Flats,and Bias in DeepSkyStacker by Luc Coiffier

Processing: Gradient removal in Iris by Christian Buil, levels, curves, color in PS

Location: Quezon City, Philippines

Date Time: February 21, 2012. 11:00-11:03pm PHT

Conditions: 28C, 80RH, cloudless clear sky

Constellation Portraits Leo Major

Leo Major and Mars

Mars the big red star at bottom right passing thru Leo Major, the war lion! Eleven days before the 2012 Mars opposition. First image with the Tamron lens set at 35mm, seems to have more chromatic aberration and coma but less astigmatism than when set at 50mm.


Image Data

Optics: Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8  set at 35mm f/2.8

Camera: Canon EOS X5 DSLR (unmodified)

Mount: Fixed Tripod

Exposure: 31 X 5seconds at ISO 1600 RAW

Calibration: Stacking,Flats,and Bias in DeepSkyStacker by Luc Coiffier

Processing: Gradient removal in Iris by Christian Buil, levels, curves, color in PS

Location: Quezon City, Philippines

Date Time: February 21, 2012. 10:45-10:50pm PHT

Conditions: 28C, 80RH, cloudless clear sky

Constellation Portraits Cancer

Cancer and M44/ Beehive Cluster/ Praesepe

Cancer is one of those faint, and obscure constellations, at least to me anyway. The ancient people must have had an amazing imagination to see a crab here.The open cluster M44 the Beehive Cluster also known as Praesepe is seen here in the middle. It's one of the best astronomical objects to view in binoculars.The smaller and fainter M67 can also be seen here to the right.


 Image Data

Optics: Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8  set at 50mm f/2.8

Camera: Canon EOS X5 DSLR (unmodified)
Mount: Fixed Tripod

Exposure: 25 X 4seconds at ISO 1600 RAW

Calibration: Stacking, Darks, Flats,and Bias in DeepSkyStacker by Luc Coiffier

Processing: Gradient removal in Iris by Christian Buil, levels, curves, color in PS

Location: Quezon City, Philippines

Date Time: February 21, 2012. 10:14-10:18pm PHT

Conditions: 28C, 80RH, cloudless clear sky

Constellation Portraits Gemini

Gemini

click image

The twins Castor and Pollux are the two bright stars on top(left and right stars respectively). Along with Taurus are part of the twelve Zodiac constellations, these are the constellations that are in the line of site of the ecliptic. The ecliptic is the plane of Earths orbit around the sun, from our point of view on Earth it is the apparent path the sun and the planets trace as they wander among the stars. Its like an imaginary road that the Sun and the Planets use to move around. Open cluster M35 can be seen here near the left foot of Pollux. About 2 degrees to the left of Propus the orange star on the bottom right.


Image Data

Optics: Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8  set at 50mm f/2.8

Camera: Canon EOS X5 DSLR (unmodified)
Mount: Fixed Tripod

Exposure: 30 X 4sec at ISO 1600 RAW

Calibration: Darks, Flats,and Bias in DeepSkyStacker by Luc Coiffier

Processing: Gradient removal in Iris by Christian Buil, levels, curves, color in PS

Location: Quezon City, Philippines

Date Time: February 21, 2012. 9:58-10:01pm PHT

Conditions: 28C, 80RH, cloudless clear sky

Arch In The Sky

Last night was a clear and transparent sky, when i looked up to the west I saw this pattern, an alignment of stars  Canopus, Sirius, Betelgeuse, Aldebaran, the Moon, Jupiter, and Venus(from left to right). You can see the light pollution coming from flood/nuke lights of a building construction site.

I decided to try a composite image, of a sequence as the grouping sets. took an exposure every 5 minutes for over 3 hours. The middle image was processed with every other frame removed. Which one do you think looks better?

Also made a very short, crappy time-lapse movie,Crappy time-lapse

Image Data

Optics: Sigma 8-16mm set at 8mm f/4.5

Camera: Canon EOS X5 DSLR (unmodified)
Mount: Fixed Tripod

Exposure: 40 x  15sec at ISO 400 RAW

Calibration: None

Processing: stacking and levels in PS

Location: Quezon City, Philippines

Date Time: February 29, 2012. 8:02-811:16pm PHT

Conditions: 26.5C, 78RH, clear sky

Constellation Portraits Auriga

Auriga

click image

Auriga the charioteer, the brightest star on the right is Capella, I was not able to fit the top most star Delta Aurigae into the 50mm's field of view. I have not observed Auriga much in the past, in fact the first time I've seen open clusters M36, M37, and M38 was when I looked at the RAW files for this image in the monitor.

I'm very new to Astro-imaging and I'm starting to see it's a bit different to visual observing. You don't get the instant emotion when you see a celestial object for the fist time, in real time with your eyes against the eyepiece. When I'm observing visually my brain process what my eyes see just as when I look at an image on the monitor, but we have other senses. When I see something for the first time I'm taking in the image, but also the feel and smell of the air at the time, the cool breeze, the mosquitoes queuing to feed on me.The satisfaction when I locate an object or not. And the sense of depth looking thru the eyepiece.

Imaging on the other hand enables us to see things that we would other wise not be able to see visually. And perhaps just as important, give us tremendous efficiency and flexibility to view and analyze the data any time after the fact. We can go back to see and compare it as many times as we'd like. I guess this is also the reasons why professional astronomer embraced astrophotography in lieu of visual observations during the turn of the previous  century. And there's also an addicting feeling you get when you see a successful image coming to life on the monitor,

Image Data

Optics: Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8  set at 50mm f/2.8

Camera: Canon EOS X5 DSLR (unmodified)
Mount: Fixed Tripod

Exposure: 33 X 4sec at ISO 1600 RAW

Calibration: Darks, Flats,and Bias in DeepSkyStacker by Luc Coiffier

Processing: Gradient removal in Iris by Christian Buil, levels, curves, color in PS

Location: Quezon City, Philippines

Date Time: February 21, 2012. 7:51-7:57pm PHT

Conditions: Cloudless clear sky