It has been a strange month, starting out cloudy a lot of the time, then rain, now cold. It is cold enough at night to take a lot of the fun out of being outside doing astro. I’m still doing it though. A couple more nights to go then the moon will take over for a while.
I’ve put in parts of three nights doing Thor’s Helmet, again. This time with the C8. I did some pretty fancy processing to make it look this good. I’m starting to think I need new software rather than a new camera!Same with M78. My favorite nebula showing interstellar dust clouds and reflection nebulas, in the constellation Orion. This is the Headphone Nebula, officially Jones-Emberson 1, a very faint planetary nebula in the constellation Lynx. I have wanted to try this one for a long time. Last winter I planned on it but could not even find it, it is far too dim to see in the scope and even long exposures are barely enough to show it. I figured out where it is this winter. At the center is a very blue white dwarf star, leftover from the shedding of the outer layers of gas from the dying star. The Flame Nebula, actually a part of the Horsehead Nebula complex. With the C8 this is about all of the Horsehead Nebula that will fit in the frame. The huge bright star is Alnitak. Alnitak is a blue supergiant with two companion stars, all three appear as one. I took an afternoon hike on Black Mountain and while coming down a steep arroyo I discovered this Desert Bighorn skull. This is certainly the largest ram specimen I’ve seen around here. I’m going to check on the legalities of possessing something like this and if it is OK, I will go back and salvage it.
2 replies on “January Astro”
What did you find out about taking the bighorn skull?
As far as I can determine, I would be OK picking it up. It is still up there, it is a long hike and it is heavy!
2 replies on “January Astro”
What did you find out about taking the bighorn skull?
As far as I can determine, I would be OK picking it up. It is still up there, it is a long hike and it is heavy!