Tuesday, February 16, 2010

AAPOD for February 17, 2010

It's always a thrill when one of my astro images gets recognition, so when I got an e-mail this evening telling my that my rendition of the Christmas Tree Cluster & Cone Nebula region was selected as the Amateur Astronomy Picture Of the Day (AAPOD), I was very happy!
AAPOD is hosted at the Astronomy.FM website, which is an outstanding source of astronomy information.  One of the unique features of this site is their "AFM Radio", which broadcasts various astronomy-themed audio programs over the internet.  It's free and there are a lot of topics covered.
I took this image back in October, 2009 using an ST-10XME camera.  I later targeted this same region with a wider-field camera.  Both versions, along with acquisition details, can be viewed on my Xanadu Observatory website by clicking here.
I suppose that published images feed my ego a bit.  It takes an awful lot of work to set up the equipment properly, plan an observing run, acquire the data, and process it to obtain a visually pleasing result, so when an image is published it provides affirmation that someone believes I've done a good job - and who doesn't appreciate an occasional pat on the back?  There's no paycheck, so it's a labor of love - that's what makes it Amateur.
I learned from my mother, who is a wildlife artist, to appreciate the beauty and glory of nature.  When I work on an astroimage, I'm hoping to capture just a bit of that, and sharing it with others makes it even more meaningful.  Similarly, I love to view astroimages taken by others.  One of my first astronomy books was "New Handbook of the Heavens", a worn-covered discard from the Hilton Central School District's library, but a true treasure trove to me.  Published in 1941, the photo on page 198 of the "Andromeda Nebula" from Mt. Wilson awakened the dreamer in me that still exists today.  (Of course we now know this object as the Andromeda Galaxy, not Nebula, and instead of the 800,000 light-year distance per the book, it's believed to be about 2.5 million light-years away).
(Note - AAPOD is not to be confused with APOD, the Astronomy Picture Of the Day site that often has landscape and professional telescope images).

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Grand Opening of the Chiricahua Astronomy Complex


Last night was the first star party at the Tucson Amateur Astronomy Association's new Chiricahua Astronomy Complex.
We've been eagerly waiting for this night for several years, beginning with a test visit that several of us made on a warm summer's night a few years ago.  It's been a long haul - Cochise County has placed many restrictions on the club during the acquisition and development of the property.  I won't go into details here (there are enough to fill a small book!), but the County just granted approval for us to actually allow events to occur on the site this past week.
So far we only have basic facilities - parking lot, electricity, bathroom, etc. - but we have the beginnings of a fantastic club observing site.  Long range plans include full observatories and pads to set up telescopes.
I was too tired to take all of my imaging gear out, so instead I just brought a visual instrument, my 15" Dobsonian.  My buddy Larry drove down with me in my "AZTRNMY" pickup, and we hauled his 18" Dob along as well.  The photo above shows our scopes getting ready for work, and there were many other scopes set up all around us.  There were 24  people there (I think), and the excitement level was high.
The sky was very clear, and my Sky Quality Meter gave nice dark readings of 21.68 magnitudes per square arcsecond by early evening.  The Zodiacal Light was prominent for a while after sunset - this is a faint glow along the ecliptic that results from sunlight reflecting off of dust in space, and is generally only visible from very dark sites.  Later in the evening I measured 21.81 on the meter, which is about as dark as I've ever been able to get anywhere.  There are some lights along the distant horizon but they really didn't affect the observing.
My friend and imaging mentor Dean brought his ccd equipment and started off his session with a quick one of Messier 34, an open cluster in Perseus.  Click here to see his image, which was taken in honor of The Perseus Group, the 4 members who donated the parcel of land to the club.
I spent my time visually observing and socializing with friends.  One of the great things about a star party is sharing the night sky and outdoors with wonderful people, and last night was no exception.  I viewed numerous objects through a variety of scopes and eyepieces.  Mars was a favorite target, with the polar ice cap as well as dark surface markings clearly visible.  The Orion Nebula, M42, was another object whose photons graced the surfaces of many mirrors last night.  One of the more unusual visual objects that I observed last night was the Horsehead Nebula.  Although that is a popular imaging target (in fact I have many hours of unprocessed ccd data on it), it's rare in the eyepiece.  I used my H-Beta filter on the 15" and several of us enjoyed the view.  There were a lot of other nebulae, galaxies, star clusters, etc. that we viewed, along with plenty of laughter and swapping of stories.
Seeing was very good, with a steady sky making it easy to pick out details in the objects we observed.  All in all it was a great night and I can't wait for more to come!