[AZ-Observing] Re: Abell 85 - An Image and Observing Report
- From: "Bernard Miller" <bgmiller011@xxxxxxx>
- To: <az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2012 17:53:33 -0700
Alan,
I love the photos of the Milkyway. Very nice indeed. Thanks for sharing.
Bernard
-----Original Message-----
From: az-observing-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:az-observing-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Alan Strauss
Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2012 3:01 PM
To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [AZ-Observing] Re: Abell 85 - An Image and Observing Report
Nice report Mike- I thought I would share my report from those offensively
dark skies as well...
In between all the visual treats, I had a chance to practice taking some
wide-field images of the Milky Way with my newish DSLR. Considering that my
lens is not that fast (f/3.5) I am fairly happy with the results. I also
attempted to capture a picture of the Gegenschein...these can be seen on my
blog at:
http://lostpleiadobservatory.blogspot.com/2012/10/seeing-light-in-dark.html
Clear skies-
Alan
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Wiles" <mikewilesaz@xxxxxxxxx>
To: AZ-Observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Monday, October 15, 2012 10:59:15 AM
Subject: [AZ-Observing] Abell 85 - An Image and Observing Report
Hello all,
I missed seeing a lot of old friends at the All Arizona Stary Party this
weekend but I found myself unable to resist an invitation to observe from
the offensively dark skies of Portal, Arizona and thus made the trip south
and west for a weekend of festivities. Much like the rest of the state,
high winds plagued our observing early on Friday but settled down around
midnight. Saturday night was astoundingly good. Transparency on both
nights was the kind of stuff that astronomy dreams are made of. Stepping
out of the travel trailer after checking up on my imaging run, I found the
gegenschein to be almost annoyingly bright. At no point during the night
was it possible to look at the zodiac and not see the zodiacal band. While
waiting for the wind to die down on Friday night the group of us tested the
limiting visual magnitude from the site. While other observers were able
to see down to magnitude 7.6, I was "only" able to see down to magnitude
6.8. Clearly this is validation that my decision to buy a CCD camera was a
good one. With such incredible skies the general plan for the weekend was
the pursuit of the visual observing trophy objects - most all of which were
successful.
Prior to the trip I had been working for several weeks on the data
collection for my latest image of Abell 85. I completed it a few weeks ago
and threw it out to the group of veteran observers as the "challenge
object" for the weekend. Chris Hanrahan made easy work of it in his 20"
Obsession early on Saturday night. We were able to observe the bright
portion of the annulus in the lower right portion of the image. I would
describe the ring as a portion of the background that was less dark than
elsewhere. An extremely difficult object for my skill level - but a
confirmed observation nonetheless. The group went on to log observations of
the central star in M57, Simeis 147, 14th magnitude comet C/2012 J1
(Catalina), and multiple obscure globular clusters in M31. While observing
Comet Hergenrother, other observers in the group also were able to spot
14th magnitude NGC 7777 in a 63mm Zeiss refractor. I attempted to see it
for myself and I'm able to confirm that all of them have better eyesight
than I do. As I told the group - next month's challenge object is going to
be something difficult - like Voyager 1.
Finally, I'd like offer up my latest completed image for comment and
criticism. Abell 85 (also known as CTB1) is a supernova remnant in
Cassiopeia that was originally classified as a planetary nebula. It's not
far from M52 and very large (35' in diameter). The image below represents
my attempt to capture it with a 5" refractor and and SBIG ST-8300 CCD
camera. I used 10.5 hours of hydrogen alpha data as the luminance channel
from my Goodyear, AZ backyard and then supplemented with 2.25 hours of RGB
color data for the stars that I captured at Fredericksen Meadow last
month. The image is a total of 12.75 hours of exposure time over perhaps
six nights. I hope that you enjoy it - and perhaps some of you will use it
as a finder to attempt Abell 85 visually as well.
http://www.astrobin.com/full/21039/?mod=none
Thanks,
Mike
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