Bradford Woods Views of the Milky Way with Canon T5i

This weekend I was co-hosting a Peer Educator retreat for our health and wellness peer educators at Bradford Woods in Martinsville, IN. Bradford Woods is close to the Link Observatory, and I knew it would have better skies than my house in Noblesville, so I brought my camera along.

We had a campfire at night and I could see through the trees that the stars were crystal clear and that it was going to be a great night for stargazing.

When I put the fire out and stepped out into a clearing, I could immediately see the faint veil of the Milky Way. You know it's a great sky when you don't even recognize constellations because there are too many stars!

Canon T5i on fixed tripod, stack of 29 light frames at ISO 6400, f/4.5, 18mm, 10 sec
Total exposure time 4 min 8 sec

Same image as above with the Summer Triangle and Cygnus

The clearing I was standing in was amazing, it blocked out all of the parking lot lights, and all of the lights from the cabins in the park were blocked by the tall trees. One drawback to the trees, however, is that I had no view of the horizon - and missed out on the brightest areas of the Milky Way. The region within the Summer Triangle is nice, and recognizable, but not the brightest bit by far.

Canon T5i on fixed tripod, stack of 95 light frames at ISO 3200, f/4.5, 18mm, 10 sec
Total exposure time 14 min 41 sec

Facing the other direction, and at ISO 3200, I didn't get much nebulosity in the Milky Way, but I did catch our neighbor galaxy Andromeda - which at 18mm looks like a large blurry star.

Cassiopeia and Andromeda rising over the treetops
Canon T5i on fixed tripod, single frame ISO 3200, 18mm, f/4.5, 10 sec

I'll end by saying it's a good sign when the trees in the foreground are actually black at night. I'm so used to seeing houses and orange trees in the neighborhood. Even at ISO 3200, these trees make true silhouettes against the night sky. Very cool!

Nice Perseid Meteor Capture and Perseid Candidate Analysis

I knew the Perseid meteor shower was coming up, but frankly because of the recent Supermoon I wasn't giving it much thought. On August 12 I was taking Katie out in the middle of the night and inspecting my recently planted linden tree to see if it was improving. While I was looking up I noticed a quick meteor flash high in the sky to the north.

The next night, the night of August 13, I looked at my Scope Nights app to see if it would be clear - but the icon was red so I mentally planned on not going out that night. It wasn't until I took Katie out again that night that I noticed the sky was perfectly clear with a bright moon high to the south. I looked at the app again and noticed that the forecast was for clear skies but that the icon was red because of the moonlight.

In any case, I decided that a clear sky to the north (which happened to be the best direction for observing the Perseids) was worth a shot setting my camera out to try to capture something. I set my camera up on the back patio so it hopefully wouldn't get stolen (we're building a fence soon).

I woke up in a hurry for work, but eagerly put my memory card into my computer and began sifting through the 555 photos. I found a handful of meteor candidates, and two very clear very bright meteor streaks!

Close crop from larger image, T5i, ISO 800, 18mm, f/4, 15 sec, contrast in Photoshop

2 frames aligned, T5i, ISO 800, 18mm, f/4, 15 sec, contrast in Photoshop

These two bright meteors have a javelin shape and irregular colors, they did not have trails on the frames before or after (ruling out many satellites), and the best evidence is that they are pointing to the anticipated radiant point. These are the real thing! Because they happened in two consecutive frames, we know they lit up within 30 seconds of each other - this makes them great tools for backtracking to the radiant point.

Single frame with T5i, ISO 800, 18mm, f/4, 15 sec, contrast in Photoshop

Now let's look at a candidate Perseid meteor - a faint streak of light that we're not so sure about. It could be a satellite, or another meteor unrelated to the Perseids. How can we find out? First, I look to see if there are any lines in the frames before or after. If this 15 second exposure is of a satellite, there should be a continuation of the path in the adjacent frames - but there isn't. Ok, it might be a meteor, but is it a Perseid? Let's look at the paths.

3 frames aligned, T5i, ISO 800, 18mm, f/4, 15 sec, contrast in Photoshop

Here's the candidate overlayed onto the confirmed meteor photo. Notice how the paths of the two bright meteors meet right where we expected the radiant to be. This candidate appears to be originating from the same point - so it's very possible that this is also a faint Perseid.

Single frame with T5i, ISO 800, 18mm, f/4, 15 sec, contrast in Photoshop

Now what about this little guy? A faint streak in the sky with no trails in the frames before or after. Sounds like a meteor - but is it a Perseid? It is certainly in Perseus, but the angle of the origin is a little off. It should look like it's flying out of the radiant point, but instead it looks more like it's cutting across Perseus. I'm not sure sure about this one - It's in the right general orientation but not quite.

The Muscleman Cluster: Stock 2 Open Cluster in Cassiopeia

I had no idea what Stock 2 meant when I read it on the December observing list. When I looked for it on Stellarium it wasn't there, so I did a Google image search and found some observing sketches of a cluster near the Double Cluster. Following the arc of stars coming off of NGC 869 I started to see what was described as a stick figure with arms up next to its head flexing. People see different things in the asterism, but since I enjoy weightlifting, I'm going to support the name "Muscleman Cluster" coined by John Davis (as told by Phil Harrington).

Stock 2 sounded like a strange name at first. It's actually part of a catalog of open clusters and Stock 2 is the second object out of 24 in that catalog named after Jürgen Stock.

The Double Cluster with line of pointer stars makes Stock 2 relatively easy to find if you go looking for it.

It's also called the Strong Man or Muscleman Cluster because it resembles a stick figure in the double bicep flex bodybuilding pose.

Here is my interpretation of the Muscleman Cluster asterism, with a little trapezoid for the bodybuilder's banana hammock.

An outline of the bodybuilder in the Muscleman Cluster.

Stock 2 appears in my copy of Sky & Telescope's Pocket Sky Atlas

Homemade Star Charts: Andromeda, Perseus, and Cassiopeia

I really enjoy making star charts from my own photos. It helps me learn the constellations, their position relative to each other, and a little about their features. As I look up each constellation (usually in Wikipedia or Stellarium), I find which stars are the brightest, which have names, and a little about interesting deep sky objects or double stars nearby.

Single frame at 18mm, f/4.5, ISO 1600, 15 sec

First up, the constellation Andromeda, which was directly overhead late last week. I've seen the constellation drawn with as few as 4 stars and as many as 16. The version I chose to draw was the most complex, and is the one depicted in the IAU/Sky&Telescope chart on the Wikipedia page. The constellation contains Messier object 31, also known as the Great Andromeda Nebula or simply the Andromeda Galaxy. I photographed the Andromeda Galaxy last winter, and I hope to improve on my effort in the near future.

Single frame at 18mm, f/4.5, ISO 800, 15 sec

When I see Perseus, I see what looks like a dove or some kind of bird flying to the left. I guess it is supposed to be Perseus carrying the head of Medusa. Algol, the second brightest star in Perseus, is also known as The Demon's Head (how wicked is that!) and represents the eye of Medusa. This is becoming one of my favorite constellations, it's relatively easy to spot as a sweeping arch pointing to Pleiades.

8 subs, 5 darks, 10 bias, each at ISO 800, f/5.6, 15 sec, 45mm

Cassiopeia is a very interesting piece of sky. Situated along the Milky Way, it's full of star clusters. Because of this, I gave Cassiopeia the special treatment with a stack of images rather than just a single frame. I'm definitely going to be back at a higher power to check out some detail in a few of these objects. I'm also realizing that there are a bunch of NGC objects available to me through my little camera that I've been counting out. I've been focusing on Messier objects, but these NGC's (especially the double cluster) deserve some more attention.

Comet PanSTARRS buzzes the Andromeda Galaxy

Last month I posted my plan to photograph C/2011 L4 (PanSTARRS) as it approached the Andromeda Galaxy (M31). I was successful, but never got around to blogging about it, so here goes! On April 2, 2013 I went to Slippery Elm Trail at dusk to wait until the comet and galaxy were visible low in the NW sky.

I had all but given up on Andromeda for the season, because the view to the west from my apartment is blocked below 40º or so. This far into Spring, Andromeda is well behind the building by sunset, and so low in the sky by the time it gets dark that taking detailed deep sky images with my camera probably wouldn't yield anything beyond a fuzzy blob. However, paired with a comet, a fuzzy blob would be a welcome target!

180 subs, 30 dark, 30 bias; subs at 1.6 sec, ISO 1600, f/5.0, 190mm

I used bright stars in Cassiopeia and Andromeda to star hop to the approximate location. Once I knew I was in the area, I used the same technique from the last time I spotted Andromeda or PanSTARRS - and that is to take 10 second exposures and see what blobs appear. Then, once you have the images framed well, take exposures more appropriate for stacking (in my case, 1.6 sec at 190mm).

One of my "finder frames" to help me zero in on my targets, 10 sec, ISO 1600, 190mm

Here is a wide field shot to show just how low M31 ended up at the end of my night. With all the atmospheric distortion and light pollution, it's a wonder I was able to see the darn thing!

Background image is a single exposure at ISO 1600, 13 sec, 18mm