Returning to the Stars

[Tripoli]

Actually, I'm really just resuming my amateur astronomy hobby after a +40 year hiatus. But while "Returning to the Stars" is a bit of a "bait and switch" subject line, it sounds so much better than "I'm resuming a youthful hobby as an old man."  This is a test shot of the M31 galaxy I took last night from my remote telescope:

[Sir Slash]

That's very impressive Trip. I can remember my older brother always outside at night with his telescope when I was a kid, lining-up stars and planets for me to look at. That is a great hobby.

[Jarhead0331]

That's great. I hope you'll share pictures regularly.

[Tripoli]

That's great. I hope you'll share pictures regularly.

I will.  I really like astrophotography.  I haven't done a lot in the past 40 years due to time and light pollution everywhere I live.  However, computer and the internet now allow for remote telescopes to be run from your home. An organization called Starfront (https://starfront.space/) has an observatory in west Texas, away from light pollution.  They rent sites for your telescope, and have wifi set up so you can control them.  I just shipped a telescope, camera and various bits of gear to them, they set it up, and I'm now able to do astronomy again.

[Jarhead0331]

That's great. I hope you'll share pictures regularly.

I will.  I really like astrophotography.  I haven't done a lot in the past 40 years due to time and light pollution everywhere I live.  However, computer and the internet now allow for remote telescopes to be run from your home. An organization called Starfront (https://starfront.space/) has an observatory in west Texas, away from light pollution.  They rent sites for your telescope, and have wifi set up so you can control them.  I just shipped a telescope, camera and various bits of gear to them, they set it up, and I'm now able to do astronomy again.

That's amazing...and pretty ingenious.

[DesertFox]

PLEASE PLEASE share any good pics here!!  I used to have a sweet Orion dobsonian telescope and I loved looking at the sky through it but of course I stupidly left it outside in the rain uncovered a few times and ....   

That is a GREAT pic for your first one!!! 

[Tripoli]

PLEASE PLEASE share any good pics here!!  I used to have a sweet Orion dobsonian telescope and I loved looking at the sky through it but of course I stupidly left it outside in the rain uncovered a few times and ....   

That is a GREAT pic for your first one!!! 

Thanks.  I was really pleased with it, especially given the moon was about 70% full at the time, so it drowned out some of the detail.  I tried shooting last night, but high clouds and smoke from a fire in Mexico prevented me from taking any photos. Next reasonable photo opportunity looks like it will be on the 18th

[Tripoli]

The results of last night's shooting were pretty good.  I had about 3 hours of no moon. Still trying to figure out this new-fangled astronomy equipment.  Here is the Heart Nebula (IC 1805)n done with five 1000 second images stacked, no other processing:



And here is M33, five 300 second images stacked, no other processing




Here is M3, a Globular cluster of stars. Twenty stacked images of 120 seconds each:



Finally, here is M101, five stacked 1000 second  images.  I applied a little bit of contrast here:

[Sir Slash]

Damn, that's impressive Trip. It sounds like an awful lot of effort. Yay or nay?

[Tripoli]

Damn, that's impressive Trip. It sounds like an awful lot of effort. Yay or nay?

Hmm.  Not really sure how to answer that.  There is a learning curve, but IMHO, it is a rewarding learning curve.  Some things (tax law, for instance) take a lot of effort to learn, but you don't get a sense of accomplishment as you advance your skills in the field. Astronomy is different.  Speaking for myself, (and while trying not to stray into R&P territory) as I see more of the universe and its wonders,  I am struck with wonder and draw closer to God.  Its a bit like when you visit a place like this:



It is not just a beautiful place, but the visit becomes a spiritual experience.  Astrophotography is a bit like that.  I can never actually visit the places I photograph in astrophotography, but seeing these images and understanding that each of those dots is a star, or a galaxy like our own, or seeing the beauty of a nebula, or seeing an image like this:



and realizing that there are 10,000 galaxies in it, and that this frame consists of an area of the sky so small you can cover it up with a 1mm square piece of paper held at arm's length (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Ultra-Deep_Field)

To summarize, being able to experience these places, whether it be the mountains in real life, or a nebula through photography, not merely an appreciation of beauty, but a spiritual experience.  This makes the effort in learning how to take these photos worthwhile.

[Tripoli]

I know it sounds stupid, but I'm becoming really impressed with the changes in amateur astronomy equipment and computer processing in 40 years.  Below is a detail of the first image I took of the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) (the image I did in the first post of this thread).  A single exposure of 1000 seconds in moonlight with a 3" refractor. The detail is of a nebula/gaseous region of M31. 



Below is the same region, done using the same telescope, but with a stacked, 31 image series of photos (210 min total exposure)  of the same region taken with no moon.  Aside from stacking, there is no other processing in these images.



 The detail is impressive, and is similar to that being taken by considerably bigger research observatories in the 1970's. For instance, here is a photographic negative done by the Kitts Peak 24" telescope of the same region of M31 in 1974.  It is a bit difficult to compare, since it is a B&W negative, but it appears to be of similar quality to what I did over a couple of hours with something that would fit in a backpack.


If anyone is interested, here is the full image I've taken thus far.  I'm going to try to get 8 hours of total exposure before I process it.

[Tripoli]

 Just to confirm and illustrate the advancement that computers have made in imaging: I just did a  little experiment/illustration of how much technology has impacted astronomy.  The attached image on the Right is a photo from Kitts Peak (KPO) in October 1973, using the 8 meter (315 inch) telescope, with a single  25 minute exposure.  The image is a B&W photo negative. See https://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/ANDROMEDA_Atlas/frames.html   The left is my image of the same area, taken in late December 2024 of M31 with 10 hours of data, no moon, no clean up using a Apertura 75Q Refractor (3" diameter).  In very rough terms, the KPO telescope has 11,025 times the light gathering capacity as my telescope.  However, since I imaged for 10 hours, vice 25 minutes, the light captured by the KPO telescope in the two images below is  11025/((600min/25min)), or 459.375 times greater the light captured by my telescope.

The image below is a side by side comparison.  My image is on the left, and the 1973 KPO image is on the right.  Aside from rotating, removing the color and creating a photo negative for comparative purposes, I did not enhance my image at all. While the stars in the KPO image are sharper, it appears my image captured all the stars that KPO did, and my dust lanes in my image may be more distinct.   This illustrates the incredible advance in imaging technology, in particular digital processing, over the past 50 years.  As someone who was doing this kind of thing in the late 70's, I can't tell you how gobsmacking this comparison is.  I'm also attaching the master image that I took my crop from.





Edit: for those who like the photos, here is the Orion Nebula, with about one hour of total exposure time:

[Tripoli]

Here's the California Nebula (NGC 1499), an emission nebula. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Nebula



This is a 58x300 second  (4.8 hours total exposure) stack of images that I'm currently working on.  I'm going to take some photos using some filters to see if I can get some more definition of the nebula

[Tripoli]

This is the image I'm currently working on.  It is the Rosetta Nebula (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosette_Nebula), taken using a combination of Hydrogen alpha, OIII and SII filters.  Total imaging time is 10 hours.

[Tripoli]

This is an image of the Seagull nebula, SH2-296.  I took this image using some filters to bring out the ionized gases.  The red in the nebula is ionized sulfur, the green is ionized hydrogen, and the blue is ionized oxygen. As you can see with the mixing of colors, the nebula is mostly hydrogen and oxygen, with a little bit of sulfur in the "head" of the nebula.

The main components of the Seagull are three large clouds of gas, the most distinctive being Sharpless 2-296, which forms the "wings". Spanning about 100 light-years from one wingtip to the other, Sh2-296 displays glowing material and dark dust lanes weaving amid bright stars. It is a beautiful example of an emission nebula, in this case an HII region, indicating active formation of new stars, which can be seen peppering this image.  The complex of gas and dust that forms the head of the seagull glows brightly in the sky due to the strong ultraviolet radiation coming mostly from one brilliant young star — HD 53367  — that can be spotted in the center of the image and could be taken to be the seagull's eye. The eye is the brightest and hottest region in the nebula, with newborn stars born about 1.5 million years ago.

The radiation from the young stars causes the surrounding hydrogen gas to glow with a rich red colour and become an HII region . Light from the hot blue-white stars is also scattered off the tiny dust particles in the nebula to create a contrasting blue haze in some parts of the picture.  https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1913/

In the photo above, you may notice the prominent bluish arc slightly below and to the right of the center of the image. This is a bow shock from the star FN Canis Majoris. This is a massive binary star (if you zoom in, you can see its companion star) with the larger star estimated as ranging from 19 to 36 times the mass of the Sun, and luminosity estimates of 122,079 to 690,000 times the Sun's luminosity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FN_Canis_Majoris