Double cluster between Cassiopeia and Perseus

When I was planning out my photo of Comet PanSTARRS within 2° of the Andromeda Galaxy I found this great double cluster between Cassiopeia and Perseus. The top left cluster is NGC 884 and the bottom right is NGC 869 (they are both toward the center of the image). According to Stellarium, they are both magnitude 4.0 and about 0º30'00" in size.

68 subs, 10 dark, 10 bias; subs at ISO 1600, f/5.6, 300mm, 1.3 sec

About half of my images came out blurry or with a little trail, so I should probably run this through DSS again and omit a higher percentage of the bad frames. The brightest 'star' in the center is supposed to be two individual stars and not a horizontal smear.

In any case! The stack does deliver a bounty of stars in two distinct clusters, which makes this a very cool target.

Adding 112 subs to my Orion stack

In February I stacked a series of 168 subs, 30 darks, and 30 bias frames to create my best attempt at the Orion Nebula (M42). Now, with Orion getting lower and lower in the sky, I wanted to try adding to the stack before the constellation dips below the horizon. Unless I get an exceptionally clear night, this is probably going to be my last Orion attempt of the season.

I added another 112 subs to my stack (no additional dark or bias frames) for a total of 280 subs. Because I noticed quite a few were trailing or out of focus, I kept only the best 70% for a total of 196 subs - which I believe is around 4 min 21 sec total exposure time.

This new set was shot using the same ISO and magnification, but at 1.3 sec rather than 1.6 sec. Deep Sky Stacker gave me a warning message, but handled the difference in exposure times remarkably well.

196 frames at ISO 1600, 300mm, f/5.6, 1.3 and 1.6 s frames

This is a fairly quick pass at processing, I'm a little rusty since I almost never do deep sky stuff! Not much in the way of color, but the dust cloud is large and clearly visible. I also captured a whiff of the Running Man Nebula about 1/2 degree above the Orion Nebula. The running man is actually a combination of 3 objects (NGC 1973, NGC 1975 and NGC 1977) separated by some dark space in roughly the shape of a person. In my image you can only see a little blob of gray.

Waning 48% Moon from April 3, 2013

I grabbed this waning quarter moon between some clouds at 6:00am to round out my waning moon phase photos. I'm not sure why I shot both my waning phases a little darker than my waxing phases. I kinda like the darker moon, it looks more like a stone and less like a spotlight.

Stack of 43 frames, each ISO 100, f/5.6, 1/400 sec, 300mm

Shooting star in the Big Dipper April 2, 2013

What is THIS? While I was shooting at Slippery Elm Trail last night, I set up my point and shoot to take some photos to stack into star trails later. I had 83 frames total, and I didn't see this object until I got home to upload my photos.

At first I thought it was an iridium flare, but it's not listed in the heavens-above.com predictions for my area. Plus, it looks like there are a total of 3 streaks of light simultaneously. My guess would be it's a meteor split into one big chunk and two little ones!

Update 4/8/2013: After further analysis, and some expert eyes over at Reddit, it has been determined that the 3 lights in the sky were, in fact, a trio of Naval Ocean Surveillance System (NOSS) satellites. I had no idea satellites flew in formation, and flew this close together! It still looks odd though - still more like an iridium flare than the slow crawl of the NOSS formation.

9:10pm facing NE, ISO 800, 15 sec, taken with Canon Powershot A3100IS

83 frames stacked in StarStaX, the odd angle of the shooting star stands out

Help from Redditors to identify the NOSS formation

Adding to my Waning Moon Collection

Since I made my waxing moon composite, I realized I was missing a lot of the waning phases in my moon collection. It probably has something to do with the fact that after the full moon, the moon rises later and later at night and into the early morning (at least recently). It could also be that the full moon is sort of the climax after watching the moon grow, and afterward it's less impressive to watch it slowly shrink.

In any case, here is a 70% waning gibbous from 5:45 this morning!

Stack of 48 frames, each at 1/400 sec, ISO 100, 300mm, f/5.6