Moon over Sandias

The nearly full moon rising above the Sandia Mountains just east of Albuquerque.  The mountains are bathed in radiant reds and oranges during sunset which likely gives rise to their namesake - Sandia is spanish for watermelon.  Under the right conditions the mountain side seems to radiate light - a truly beautiful sight.  Look quick though ... the effect lasts only a few minutes.

click here to Flickr for full size version

Taken in Corrales New Mexico, November 5, 2014
Canon T2i (stock), Canon 200mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM @ f/5.6  
Raw image cropped and mangled Lightroom

First Image, New Digs

I guess this will have to count as my first "astrophoto" from my new home in Corrales, New Mexico.  It's a landscape, it's the (Full! Super-Duper) Moon, but it'll have to count.

Super Moon, New Mexico style

The imaging gear remains packed away in the garage ... I collected my last data sometime in January and then began preparing for the move from California to New Mexico.  Now we are ramping up "Monsoon" season here so I expect any deep sky imaging will have to wait a couple more months.

Until then I'll have to practice some astro-landscape and conventional (read daylight!) images. New Mexico has a never-ending supply of clouds, lightning, mountains, deserts, wonderful people and other interesting things so I'll have plenty to do.

The above is a composite of 3 images.  Dynamic range is just too dang large.  Waited too long to cheat take advantage of a twilight Full Moon shot.  Done in a hurry (reminder to self ... keep camera on tripod ready to shoot 24/7 while in New Mexico).  All three exposures were "off" so much more practice is needed.  Also needed to fire up the (gasp) dreaded PS for some dark art higgledy piggledy.  I admire anyone who has burned devoted a portion of their brain cells to mastering, shudder, PS.

I'm sad for the posterization but that'll teach me to get proper exposures next time.  I wanted to avoid the "pasted-in" moon look and feel OK with how it came out.  It was a remarkable full moon in person and it kind of captures the feel.

By the way ... the brightly light golden building is the Sandia casino.  It's going to be a feature from any pictures taken from my patio ... guess we'll have to get used to it.

 New Mexico Super Moon

Taken in Corrales New Mexico, July 14, 2014
Canon T2i (stock), Canon 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM @ f/4.5Composite: 1/100,  1/25, 2sec exposures @ISO400
Raw images mangled in PS5 and Lightroom
Image Capture with Sequence Generator Pro

Vale of Tears

Yay for new gear!  Don't you just love it when you spend hard earned cash for new gear and it all works wonderfully right out of the box?  So do I.

Wonder if I'll ever experience that.

Anyone who expects to solve problems by throwing around kilo-dollars has yet to experience all that astrophotography has to offer.  I have a story to tell - but it will be another time.  Let's just say I've survived -

"gementes et flentes in hac lacrimarum valle" (mourning and weeping in the valley of tears)*

-my personal Vale of Tears with pretty much all new gear and have come out the other side with a nice deep image of the Veil Nebula (I'm feeling overproud with the use of the homophone).

I've set aside my lovely Canon lenses for a Takahashi FSQ-85 (the baby-Q) and a updated QSI683 camera.  Takahashi optics are the bees-knees but their mechanicals (read focuser) suck.  But as I just said I'll save that tale of woe for another day.  Even with the focal reducer bringing it to a focal length of 337mm its like looking through a soda straw to "us" camera lens folk.  How are you supposed to image anything through these refractor "pea-shooters" anyway?  Now, now,  I'm not complaining ... just saying its an all new way to "frame" the universe.  It'll take some getting used to.  And lots of mosaics ....

After I solved some of the hinted at "mechanicals" I decided on the Veil as a nice first object.  I already had the Ha and OIII filters so all was good there.  Framing experiments soon revealed that I'd have to shoot *two* frames to get the whole thing (is that my beloved 200mm EF-L lens chortling from the camera bag?)  So that just doubled the length of the project.  Next I made some terrible blunders errors in judgement like shooting the OIII all binned 2x2 and the Ha all 1x1.  That made for some hassles latter during processing.  I spread taking the data over some 20 different nights this summer/fall - not all nights were completely devoted to this project but most were.  And yes, the assorted screw-ups had me tossing full nights of data - but dang ... 20 nights!  That's some perseverance full on scratchy hair-shirt monkery!

Veil Nebula in Ha and O(III) 

All-in-all some 40+ hours exposure time.  Mostly in Ha and O(III) but also some RGB exposure for star color.

I know "conventional" bi-color Ha/OIII are red/teal.  I'm sorry but I don't like "teal" and while I know the O(III) line at 501nm is "teal" it's my data and I can make it any color I want.  I decided for blue-ish purple.  An imaging buddy suggested it looks like minerals under short-wave UV.  I like it!  Later I might come back and make it forest green/orange just to be ornery.

I wanted to control the brightest parts of the nebula (near 52 Cygni and also the "eastern" Veil) better than I did but what I really wanted was to bring up the super faint arcs and tendrils on the periphery.  I'm pretty pleased with that.

So, finally another image.  Hopefully it won't take another 6 months for the next!

* from the hymn "Salve Regina".  And no,  I'm not Catholic - it's just that the latin makes me feel smarter.


Bi-color Veil

FSQ-85
QSI683, -25C
Astrodon Ha (3A), OIII (3A), RGB filters
RGB (15x2min) x2 frames bin1x1 3hrs total
Eastern Veil Frame Ha (36x15min) bin 1x1, OIII (30x15min) bin 2x2  16.5hrs total
Western Veil Frame Ha(50x15min) bin 1x1, OIII (46x15min) bin 2x2  24hrs total
AP900 Mount
Image Capture with Sequence Generator Pro
calibration, registration and post-processed in PixInsight

Taken at:  Bumpass Hell, Mt Lassen, California
                 South San Jose, California
                 Montebello Open Space Preserve, California
                 Lake San Antonio, California
Taken on: July 19,20
                August 11,15,16,18,22,24,26,27,31
                September 5,6,7,8
                October 2,3,4,5,6

Butterfly, Crescent, and Bubble

Here is my first go at a bicolor image.  It is the same field as the previous post ... I wanted both the Butterfly and the Crescent nebulas (Cygnus) in the same field.  Oh ... and this time I didn't forget my narrowband filters. Don't give me any grief about not posting this image for 7 months.  Life happens.

I chose to experiment with a more "orange" palette.  I'm sure with some more work I could figure out how to make the OIII regions (notable around the Crescent) more obvious.  Next time.

Butterfly and Crescent and ...

Now if you blow up the part of the image next to the crescent (200%) one can just barely see the Soap Bubble Nebula.   In the red box.  Arrow pointing at it.  I'll give you a moment.

See it?  Faint little guy.  It is notable since it was discovered by a amateur astrophotographer in 2007.  Now that we know where to look anybody can image it though I thought it was pretty neat to pull it out with a lil ol' 200mm Canon lens.  

... Soap Bubble

Butterfly, Crescent, and Bubble

Taken at Lake San Antonio, CA  Sept. 12-14, 2012
QSI583, Canon EF 200mm f/2.8L
Ha (3nm): 24x10min bin 1x1 @f/2.8
OIII (3nm): 24x10min bin2x2 @f/2.8
Total exposure time 8hrs
AP900 Mount
calibration, registration and post-processed in PixInsight

Intermediate View

The Lassen trip resulted in one CCD image - the area around Sadr, the "center" star of the northern cross.  I knew before I started that this wouldn't be the finished product (are astro images ever truly "finished"?).  You see I forgot the wheel with my narrowband filters at home. So I wasn't able to shoot any Ha (Hydrogen alpha) which would have really made these dust clouds pop.  So I imaged with Luminance and Red, Blue, Green filters only.  At least I have a head start on the color channels for the next dark moon cycle.

In a couple weeks I'll be on another multiday dark sky outing when I can really do this field some justice.  Stay tuned!



Intermediate Image

Taken at Lassen National Park, CA  August 17-19, 2012
QSI583, Canon EF 200mm f/2.8L
Luminance: 12x5min bin 1x1 @f/2.8 & 12x5min bin 1x1 @f/4  2hrs total
Red:  12x5min Green: 1 2x5min  Blue: 12x5min  all bin 2x2
Total exposure time 5hrs
AP900 Mount
calibration, registration and post-processed in PixInsight

Observers at the Edge

Here's an image of my posse at the recent trip to Lassen Natl. Park.  Beset by smoke and clouds for days we were treated to an exceptional sky on our last night.  From this vantage point in the parking lot it looked like we were perched at the edge of the earth - looking out into the vastness of space.  The Milky Way had that sugary texture one sees in very dark skies.  Inky dark lanes run throughout.  So remarkable to us and yet only a few generations past were skies like this commonplace for most peoples on earth.

The "teapot" pouring star clouds right down the barrel of that Schmidt-Cassegrain

Two observers using the large Schmidt-Cass (one at scope, the other hidden at right using charts).  One imager huddled over laptop with his refractor illuminated by the glow of red LEDs.  My gear is hidden in the background but you can see my laptop silhouetted against the horizon.

We often have to remind each other to take our eyes off our equipment and just - look.  All too rare and never enough time to let the experience soak in.  That's why we have to go out and do it again.  And again.

Observers at the Edge

Taken at Bumpass Hell parking lot, Lassen Natl. Park,   August 18, 2012
Canon T2i (stock), Canon EF-L 24 mm @f2.0
Manfroto Tripod (stationary), set inches off the ground
Composite of two frames, one focused on stars, one on foreground

Each exposure 10s @ ISO 3200

vignetting and lens correction in Lightroom 4
Composited in Photoshop

final adjustments and noise reduction in Pixinsight

Star Fire

A dark sky outing with friends to Lassen National Park in Northern California was hampered by two large forest fires in the area.  For multiple nights we dodged smoke and clouds for a glimpse through to some of the darkest skies California has to offer.  Finally on Saturday night, August 18, the smoke and clouds had abated and we drove up to the Bumpass Hell parking lot full of anticipation for a night of imaging and observing.

As we entered the Park an ominous white cloud billowed high in the West.  A new fire had started from a lightning strike only a few hours earlier.  As darkness fell the eerie glow would presage the dangerous fire that it would become over the next 48hrs.

The conjunction of Mars, Saturn and Spica (lower left) in the fiery glow of the Ponderosa Fire.  

Click on either image for a larger version where you can toggle the annotation.

The Ponderosa fire is still burning - nearing 25,000 acres with up to 50 homes and structures burned.  Evacuation warnings have gone out to the little town of Mineral where we stayed.

The fire glow over the ridge died down with the coming of night and we enjoyed a nearly perfect night of observing.  It was a very narrow window as I am sure the smoke from this fire has darkened the skies over Lassen again.

Star Fire

Taken at Bumpass Hell parking lot, Lassen Natl. Park,   August 18, 2012
Canon T2i (stock), Canon EF24 mm f1.8
Manfroto Tripod (stationary)
Mosaic of 4 frames, each 8 sec exposures @ ISO1600

no dark or flat subtraction
vignetting and lens correction in Lightroom 4
frame stitching in PTGui Pro

final adjustments and noise reduction in Pixinsight