Astrophotography

2022-04-082022-05-03

S/N

A colorful mosaic; an extreme magnification of an image of space at the edge of a galaxy. Two prominent stars, some bright spots that are probably just defects in the sensor, or maybe where a cosmic ray hit and produced a single bright flash. Mostly, this is just visual noise.

Here’s a different version, where the individual pixels have been smoothed:

A prettified instantaneous snapshot of the quantum noise roiling across the sensor. Perhaps if I could make a movie, these would be tiny agitated multicolored ripples. But the two stars would remain, hard reminders of a real world, and the brightness at the right edge would also remain, testifying to that galaxy — M108, I’ve heard — off-screen to the right.

Edit: I’ve since discovered that one of those stars must be an image-processing artifact. So much for reality.

2022-04-02

NGC4244

Another galaxy floating in splendid isolation. According to this Wikipedia article it is part of the M94 group, which is loosely bound to the extent that some members are just “moving with the expansion of the universe”.

Take that, Putin!

2022-04-01

Tadpole Nebula

The “tadpoles” are slightly lower left of center. There are two of them: bright structures rather than the usual dark spots.

2022-03-28

Iris Nebula

I imagine this was a particularly dirty explosion, throwing dark dust clouds and obscuring large patches of a dense starfield. If you look closely, there is a gritty quality to the image.

2022-03-26

Well, the moon.

My telescope isn’t ideal for taking a picture of the moon, but I gave it a shot anyway. Not much processing, though I did try to sharpen it a bit. Kind of a bleak, burned-out cinder look here.

2022-03-242022-04-09

Markarian’s Chain, #2

Correctly framed Markarian'sChain — Markarian’s Chain, complete

I managed to frame it better this time. Here’s an annotated version:

Annotated Markarian's Chain — Annotated Markarian’s Chain

2022-03-20

IC342, an invisible object

IC342 is a large, bright, nearby galaxy that would be “naked to the invisible eye” if it weren’t for the dust in the way.

Here’s a five-minute exposure, with a gratuitous satellite:

Single exposure of IC342 — A single 5-minute exposure of IC342

Do you see a galaxy? Maybe if you squint and sacrifice a pint of Haagen-Dazs?

But curiosity — perhaps more exposures could tease out something?

Here are 41 images like the above, stacked up and combined:

Almost 4 hours on IC342 — 41 5-minute exposures of IC342, stacked and processed

It looks like a galaxy! I should note that these images were taken on a night with excess moonshine, in hazy suburban skies.

Three of the 41 exposures had satellite trails, but they disappeared in the average.

There is an overall red tint to the photo. It’s probably not natural, but rather an artifact of the anti-pollution filter I am using.

2022-03-19

Markarian’s Chain, most of it

Most of Markarian's chain — Markarian’s chain is a group of galaxies in the Virgo Cluster

Markarian's chain annotated — Major galaxies annotated

Massively annotated image — There are many more galaxies that I can’t resolve.

The cluster extends widely past this field of view. Poor framing — if I had tilted the camera I could have included more of it, and the “chain” moniker would have been more obvious.

2022-03-13

The Leo Triplet

Here’s an annotation of a less-processed version:

The dust in NGC3628 is more evident in this version; in fact, details are better throughout. I haven’t quite figured out why.

2022-03-12

NGC2903 first try

I collected all of the sub-images during bright moonlight. Maybe in a week or two, I will post a better rendition. This picture has just a hint of whispy spiral arms at the edges, which I might be able to capture.