4-20-2007 Observations

The Milky Way Galaxy

4/20/2007

Moon:

This image of the Moon is the best I got with a bunch of experimenting. It was quite dissatisfying that I could not get an exposure that worked. I think it is just too bright to use with a CCD, but at the time, I was getting concerned I was not going to get any Hubble like images. The Moon finally set and then I was able to "see" deep sky objects.

M82:

This is a drizzle of CYMG raw images. This object is not visible unless you know exactly where to look, as it is extremely faint with the ETX-60AT. It was interesting to see this object, but I was looking for M81 at the time. I couldn't find it, as I was still having issues due to not aligning the telescope correctly. This is an issue with all of the images taken during this time.

The granularity is due to the drizzle of CYMG raw images. At the time, I didn't understand how the CCD chip "viewed" color. Reprocessing of these images will produce significantly better results.

M82 reference image from unknown ground observation (© Meade):

M82 Reference Image:

OK, this is a Hubble shot made with the new fancy multimillion dollar imagers installed by the Space Shuttle a couple years ago. Prior cameras had survived the harshness of space for 15 years, not to mention the advances in technology. Unfortunately, the Shuttle program is coming to a close in 2010, and all flights are dedicated to the Space Station construction (with a few secret military objectives included). A substitute for the Shuttle does not exist and nothing is in the works that has similar capabilities. This is a sad state of affairs, having worked for NASA many years ago - when super glue was invented to attach the heat shield tiles to the Shuttle's fuselage. In my opinion, the Shuttle program was the most successful program for NASA, even with the handful of disasters that have occurred verses the number of successful flights for over 30 years. The advances in technology that have helped our defenses, our intelligence and our everyday lives, NASA has done more than any other organization, governmental or private.

M51:

I'm glad I had the continued to play with the imager. I was challenged by it. It seemed such a simple technology. The image above showed me that I could get an image that looked similar to the reference images I was finding on the internet. I could see the spirals of M51. I still wasn't sure if this was the best that could be attained, but I was this far in, and getting a kinda reasonable result. If this was the best, I would probably not move on to look at buying a better unit.

Once I produced the above image in post processing, it was quite impressive compared to the what I had done on previous nights. The spirals of M51 are not visible with my telescope with the unaided eye and a 9mm eyepiece. The DSI had no trouble showing the spirals of both galaxies in this object.

Granularity is due to drizzling CYMG raw images. I definitely want to reprocess these images.

M51 Reference Image:

Not sure where this image came from.

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