Asteroid (1146) Biarmia is a main belt asteroid approximately 31 km diameter at its widest point. It orbits the Sun every 5 years. This asteroid was discovered by Russian astronomer Grigory Neujmin in 1929. It is currently passing through the constellation of Pegasus.
The 3 images used to create the video were 90 second captures during 70 minutes of the asteroids motion. The faintest stars visible were mag 18.2 This is the second asteroid in the set of three used to record astrometric data for submission to the Minor Planet Center in consideration for issuing a Minor Planet observatory code to the Transit Dreams Observatory.
SkyTools screenshot of 1146 Biarmia- Faintest stars mag 18.2
The Asteroid (426) Hippo is a main belt asteroid approximately 127km in diameter at its widest point. It is one of 99 asteroids discovered by French Auguste Honoré Charlois, from Nice, France.
“Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech.”
This asteroid is one of three I’ve chosen to image and perform an astrometric solution on, in order to complete the requirements of the Minor Planet Center, in order to be assigned an observatory code. When accepted by the MPC, this data will signify the accuracy and dependability of my measurements, making it usable to the professional scientific community.
The motion of the asteroid in the video took place over 86 minutes time.
426 Hippo chart created in SkyTools 3
The SkyTools3 chart above shows its position in the constellation of Pegasus at the time of my imaging run. The imaging took place over two days September 15th and 16th UT. The chart and video shows its approximate position on the 16th at 2:26 UT.
Learning to process Astro images, for me, is a cumulative process. When I learn a new technique, I’m anxious to test it out and practice it until I fell I’ve mastered it for my style of processing. I offer 2 images here. The data for these images was captured about 2 years ago. The first image shows my level of knowledge at the time in collecting data and creating an image.
Galaxy M31 in Andromeda
The following image is using the same data, but applying additional skills of masking and filtering the data to draw out more detail and better contrast. I do tend to over sharpen a bit, but that’s part of my style.
Galaxy M31
Now in looking at these images, it’s obvious to me that I need more data to clean up the noise and reveal the true beauty of this object. In comparing these images of M31 with others, they’re obviously not going to be a “Picture of the Day” on anyone’s website but my own.
My message is to keep working with the data as you learn more to improve your skills. It also helps you understand better, how much data you really need to create a top quality image. I know personally the excitement of producing any image as the novice I consider myself to be, leads me to publish my work sooner than it should be.
Would you consider a 23” refractor a good club scope? I would! One of my astronomy clubs, the Roper Mountain Astronomers, holds their monthly meetings at the Roper Mountain Science Center in Greenville, SC. We have a good relationship with the RMSC, supporting the Friday Starry Nights weekly at the Planetarium/observatory. This allows us regular access to the big 23” Clark refractor at the Charles Daniel Observatory. This telescope is the sister to the 24” At Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, and also has notoriety as the telescope mentioned at Princeton University, in the radio drama “War of the Worlds”.
23″ Clark Refractor -image by Andrew Cooke
After our last club meeting, some of us took the opportunity to look through the big scope. Now, the unfortunate part of this story is that this beautiful instrument is not far from the center of the growing city of Greenville, with its accompanying light pollution. That said, we’ve had some wonderful views of the planets and brighter objects in the sky. Its native focal length, around 10,000mm, makes it tough for wide field objects, but compact objects like globular clusters fill the field nicely. On one occasion the telescope operator, club member and RMSC staff, Lee Ott, and I had the pleasure of catching a glimpse of Stephen’s Quintet galaxy cluster high overhead on a moonless night, from within the city.
Last Thursday evening, the highlight object was Saturn. Even with the moon at almost 1st quarter phase Saturn provided a pleasant view in the eyepiece. The five smaller moons that circle close to the planet popped out immediately. The Cassini division was crisp. I was even able to discern the shadow of the rings on the planet’s disk. Even the cloud bands on the disk of the planets showed themselves with the muted colors you see in some of the better planetary images found on the internet, or maybe captured with your own imaging equipment.
Of even greater significance than the views through this scope is the thought of the historical scientific work, and the great astronomers of the past who may have used this instrument to help shape the knowledge of the universe we share today.
If you find yourself in or around Greenville, SC on a Friday night, try to make plans to visit the RMSC. They have two planetarium shows and viewing through the big scope, as well as others on the lawn, provided in support by members of the Roper Mountain Astronomers. Even on cloudy nights Lee offers a tour of the observatory and provides some of the the history behind this great scope.
This beautiful image of the telescope was taken by club member Andrew Cooke.
My Paramount MX+ mount was ordered specifically to be installed in the Transit Dreams Observatory, once I complete it’s construction. Since I decided to wait for the summer heat to break before continuing on building the observatory, the mount has been sitting here on the floor in my house. I decided to set it up in my telescope room in the house to check out its operation and learn to use The SkyX.
It wouldn’t be safe to mount it on the steel pier I bought without bolting the pier to the concrete floor. But, that wouldn’t go over to well with the wife, so I designed an alternate means to check it out.
MX+ Adapter plate
I have a Celestron CGE Pro tripod I picked up from my club in NY, and made an adapter to mount the MX+ on it. I glued two pieces of ¾” plywood together, and mounted T-nuts to match the hole pattern of the MX+. I then drilled and counter-bored a hole in the center of my adapter to bolt it to the tripod, while allowing the base plate of the mount to lie flat upon it. I used 3/8”x24 cap screws with nylon washers so I could attach the mount to the plate without marring the finish. I mounted the 5” refractor and balanced the mount with cameras, etc. attached. (see equipment)
I practiced homing the mount, slewing to objects, setting up my meridian delay position, and setting up the park position for the scope. I also learned my way around The SkyX, setting up my menu bar buttons and learning how to create observing lists, and set up equipment configurations. I also worked with the camera add-on, creating my dark library for photography, and checked out the manual operation of my Moonlight focuser.
This past week was the first time the weather allowed me an opportunity to get it out under the stars, check out its performance, and start the learning curve of making everything work together. I was hopeful of learning the process of aligning the mount, sorting out T-point, and working with the camera add-on.
My first order of business was aligning the mount to the pole. Since I did not buy the $2000 tripod I did not have as much flexibility in aligning the azimuth of the mount. I did my usual routine of using a smart phone compass for initial set up. I was close, but not close enough. The MX+ has adjustability, but it’s limited. While doing the rough polar alignment routine, I found that the pole was just beyond the azimuth adjustment capability of the mount. I ended up rotating the loaded tripod a few degrees to make it work. Of course, I had to re-level the mount. I expected the T-point routine to be more complicated, but after a couple of rounds, I got the hang of it,(thanks to Richard Wright and his YouTube videos). I had setup my camera equipment configurations ahead of time, so I was able to use the camera to solve the fields. Some haze and passing clouds interfered with some of the model points, but I found by increasing the exposure length to 16 seconds, most of the plate solves were successful.
I ran a 12 point model, followed the recommended adjustments and then did a 25 star pointing model and adjusted again. I’m not sure if I needed to do anything further after mechanically adjusting the mount, but I found my slews put the object in the field of view of the camera, and the closed loop slew feature solved the image, and moved the mount to put the object dead center in the field.
The camera add-on that came with The SkyX will take some getting used to. In the past, the bulk of my Astro-imaging was done with a Canon DSLR and a software capture program known as BYEOS (Backyard EOS). It was relatively easy to use. When I got my new ccd camera I started working with Maximdl. It’s more complicated, but is full of useful features. The SkyX camera add-on is not a complex as maxim, but it doesn’t appear to share the same features either, especially with multiple images and filters. Maybe it’s just the layout of the program I need to get used to.
My goal for the software end of this adventure is to be able to get what I need image wise, without the complexity of having 4-5 different software packages work together without hiccups. If I can get that out of the camera add-on it would be great.
Another part of the learning curve is the motorized focuser and @Focus2 software within the SkyX. I was going through the features trying to figure out the software when it took over and started taking pictures and adjusting focus.The end result looked pretty good, but I have no idea how it started (I must have clicked something somewhere). This one will take more research.
M 39_600sec_uncalibrated
I was able to capture basic images with the program without issue. I took some test shots of various objects, and some showed a small amount of trailing while others produced rounder stars. The image of M39 is an uncalibrated 10 minute sub frame with the luminance filter in place on the Atik One 6.0 camera. The field is 45’ x 36’ in size @ .98 arc sec/pix. This was the best unguided shot.
My one serious issue with the software was my inability to get it to guide. Each attempt brought an error message and a failure to calibrate. I have to do more investigating to resolve the issue. It’s probably somewhere in the parameter setup. I did skip the calibration and it did guide for a short while before the errors started building. I retreated to my old method, using PHD2 and guiding on-camera instead of Direct Guide on the mount with the SkyX add-on. I got it to calibrate and guide beautifully without issue.
I did manage to get some images of comet C/2015 F4 Jacques, and created a short video of its motion over the period of an hour.
It was a good first light for the equipment, and I’m sure I’ll get all of “my” issues straightened out. Many of my issues revolve around trying to tackle multiple learning curves at the same time. New mount and software, my first ccd camera, image capture software, motorized focuser, etc.
