Astronomy pictures thread

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NGC2264 (The Christmas Tree Cluster/Cone Nebula) last night.

Camera: Canon Rebel T8i (modified)
Telescope: 92mm f/5.5 triplet (Astrotech AT92) with focal reducer
Exposure: 49x300sec (4hr 5min total) at ISO 400
Acquired using BackyardEOS, stacked using DeepSkyStacker, processed using PixInsight, BlurXterminator, NoiseXterminator and StarXterminator
 
Jingle Bells Jingle Bells Jingle all the way... I can't wait for spring.
 
Got the ALPY600 (slit spectroscope) mounted again and working well. Am contributing data to the AAVSO spectroscopy group. More information is know about the stars from Spectroscopy than any other means.

Here is the spectrum of star gamma UMa (Phecda). The dips in the chart are absorption lines corresponding the Hydrogen Balmer series. Care to learn a little about Quantum mechanics?
 

Very cool. Nice work!
 
And a couple more to confirm the calibration is good. If it's not AAVSO will kick them, but they look good to me. The first one is Betelgeuse an M1-type star and the second is Mahasim an A0V star. Both sent to AAVSO.

 
Okay this is the final physics lesson (for today). The visible light from the two stars above shows strength (higher X axis) and distribution (Y axis). This is a colorized visualization of how the spectroscope evaluates the light from distant stars. The shape of the curve (the continuum) demostrates why Betelgeuse appears orange and Mahasim appear white. Think of heated steel, the hotter Mahasim appear white, while the cooler Betelgeuse appears orange to the naked eye.
The x axis represents the entire visual spectrum.
 
Total lunar eclipse tonight/early Friday morning. Hope some of you have clear skies and can be up to take a look.

Will be fighting clouds and wind here but I am not going down without a fight and a lot of coffee since I find it damn hard to stay up late anymore.

Times in CDT, adjust for your time zone or better yet check a site like timeanddate.

Eclipse Stages Worldwide Local Time CDT
Penumbral Eclipse begins Mar 13 at 10:57:28 pm
Partial Eclipse begins Mar 14 at 12:09:40 am
Full Eclipse begins Mar 14 at 1:26:06 am
Maximum Eclipse Mar 14 at 1:58:43 am
Full Eclipse ends Mar 14 at 2:31:26 am
Partial Eclipse ends Mar 14 at 3:47:52 am
Penumbral Eclipse ends Mar 14 at 5:00:09 am
 
I can't wait to go through my data. Made it this far, well past max eclipse.
Might have to tear down in a hurry with cloud cover expected to increase along with precipitation potential.
Plan to keep it going as long as it seems practical.
 
I really lucked out. Clouds weren't much of a problem and though it was very windy everything went smoothly.

A composite:


Max eclipse.


While watching a meteor streaked through my view through my 11x70 binoculars. That was pretty awesome to see. I happened to catch it on video. This was made by stacking the video frames.


When it was time to tear down I was greeted by moon dogs and a lunar halo.
 
Preparing for a little spectroscopy outreach.

This cell phone adapter works - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B093QJBR67 It even comes with a blue-tooth shutter control.

Just thread the StarAnalyser into the eyepiece and go. Of course cloudy skies are predicted for the next several days.

This is power lines a mile away ...

 
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For amusement I decided to try to make sense of the picture before reading your entire post and I was wondering what you were doing with so many high voltage lines for spectroscopy until I read the rest and realized you were testing your system.

Good luck with the outreach.

Kind of amazing what cell phone cameras can do now.

So you weren't setting up to take spectroscopy of Tesla coil streamers if it was too cloudy. Darn.
 
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Newly discovered Comet SWAN25F this morning.



Crop to show detail


A version with the stars and the comet stacked separately

Camera: Canon Rebel T8i (modified)
Telescope: 92mm f/5.5 triplet (Astrotech AT92) with focal reducer
Exposure: 30x30sec (15min total) at ISO 1600
Processed using PixInsight, StarXterminator and NoiseXterminator
 
Great capture and processing Eric. The comet looks like it's about to dive into the sunlight and out of view for us in the northern hemisphere.
 
foolsgold said:
Great capture and processing Eric. The comet looks like it's about to dive into the sunlight and out of view for us in the northern hemisphere.
Click to expand...
Thanks! Yeah that may have been my last chance at this one. Unless it gets ridiculously bright on the other side of the sun I think it'll become a Southern hemisphere object.
 
These bad boys that dive in from above our northern hemisphere aren't around long for us to see.

 
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