The moon is going away and I spent three nights on one dark nebula. I also decided to get out the C8 and try for some planets. It takes awhile to switch systems, so I will probably be using the C8 for a while longer. I’ve always wanted to try imaging a small nebula at prime focus, which in this case is 2032mm, versus 500mm with the Canon lens. That will be a challenge. Planetary is a different story, imaging at over 5000mm but using video and stacking video frames. At those kinds of focal lengths everything is finicky!
This is the first time I have successfully imaged the planet Uranus. I’ve tried before but could never find it in the field of view. It really isn’t worth spending much time on, just a small blue disc in the darkness. However, despite how it looks, it is very challenging, equivalent to imaging an object with a diameter of two inches at 2.5 miles distance. The inset shows the size of Earth compared to Uranus. At an average distance of 1.7 billion miles from Earth, it seems like a long way out there. It took Voyager 2 ten years to get there. In the larger scheme of things in the universe, it isn’t much. This dark nebula contains Sh2-239, a region of star formation glowing in a cloud of cosmic dust, part of the Taurus Molecular Cloud. This region is 450 light years out there, the bright portion in the center spans about three light years. Seeing was very good on this night, and I got one of the most detailed images of Jupiter I’ve ever taken. This is the result of stacking about 8000 video frames. Some call this the boring side of Jupiter (without the Great Red Spot), but a recent event makes it more interesting. Spaceweather.com reported two gigantic (larger than Earth) thunderstorms on Jupiter, in the southern equatorial belt. The remains of the tracks of these storms can be seen in my image, in the upper left of the planet. Read about the storms HERE.
Nothing very exciting has happened around here. The weather has been very nice, not cold at night and warm days. About all I’ve been doing is birding and taking photos. Now the full moon is past and I will be starting to do some astro again, clouds permitting.
One evening I found this Vermilion Flycatcher on a perch, so I parked the truck fairly close with the setting sun behind me, and pretty soon it came back! Always nice to get a good shot of birds like this. Within minutes, it was replaced by this Loggerhead Shrike!Western Bluebirds coming to water at Highway Tank. An Ash-throated Flycatcher in nice light. This is the first one I’ve seen since arriving in Ajo. And here is the first Gray Flycatcher I’ve seen since getting here. Here is what could have been a great bird except I can’t tell what species it is. I found this bird at the golf course one afternoon. Tropical Kingbird and Couch’s Kingbird are nearly identical except for their calls and songs. This bird never vocalized so remains Tropical/Couch’s Kingbird. I guess either way it is a new species for the year. Tropical Kingbirds are usually gone from Arizona by fall and would have been a life bird for me. This time of year, according to Arizona birders, Couch’s Kingbird is more likely but still very rare. I’ve seen Couch’s Kingbirds in Texas. Three of us looked for this bird the following morning but could never find it again. These two Killdeer at Highway Tank made an interesting mirror image in the water. A Sonoran Toad in December? Yes, here it is. According to all the literature, Sonoran Toads spend the winter in underground burrows. Apparently this one decided to stay in the water. I’ve seen two of these at Highway Tank and another that came out of the water and died on the bank. I’m not sure what is going on here.
Finally, after over a week of cloudy nights (and just before the new moon), it has been clear every night. Unfortunately, I wasted a lot of that time trying to image a very faint (as in impossibly faint) nebula. I thought that with the nebula booster filter I could do it, but I think I have met my match. I could spend more time on it, but there is no guarantee the results will be any better. What I need is a faster (focal ratio) scope, that’s not likely to happen.
Here it is, Sh2-224, also known as the Rice Hat Nebula. It is a supernova remnant, very faint, in the constellation Auriga. The first night I tried it I found that I had not centered it due to the fact that I cannot see it in my images. I tried to get it centered by looking at star patterns in Stellarium. After that I spent 4 nights shooting this and this is all I can pull out of the stacked images. There are some fine images of this nebula on the internet, typical exposure times are around 40 hours or more, which is more than I’m willing to do. This one was much easier, the Shrimp Nebula, Sh2-188, a dim planetary nebula in Cassiopeia, about 8,000 light years away. I’ve never done this one before and am happy with how it came out. It is small and with the 500 f4 had to be cropped quite a bit but the image held up well. Here’s one I haven’t tried for a couple of years, the Great Andromeda Galaxy. I think the colors came out well for a change. Another old favorite, M45, the Pleiades or Seven Sisters. It is fun to get good results instead of the tedious collecting of data from faint nebula that may not even produce anything. Another bright and easy nebula, the California Nebula. I used the nebula booster filter for this one. And now some birds, here is a Loggerhead Shrike taking a bath. I’ve never photographed one doing this before. The Red-breasted Sapsucker is still here. I find it interesting that it is drilling holes vertically instead of horizontal, like most sapsuckers seem to. Maybe the vertical holes eventually fill in to look horizontal. That seems to be happening at the bottom of the image. An Inca Dove at Bud Walker Park.
