Witch Head Nebula and Rigel

This the second time I "caught" the witch. First was that she was unable to fit in the frame. Only her mid-face and protruding chin were shown in the image. But last Sunday, I figured that I could put her and Rigel in just one frame by using the 200 mm lens and the 350D. I made 20 subs of 5 minutes totaling 100 minutes all. Processing as usual was difficult as this was a faint target. Faint nebulosity together with the brilliance of the star Rigel - a processing nightmare. But here she is. . . looking at Rigel. Seemingly amazed at the how the supergiant illuminates the field!

Reminiscing Caliraya

I miss imaging under clear night sky so I reckoned that  re-processing the image of the southern jewel, Eta Carinae Nebulae would somehow alleviate my melancholy. I tried to bring out the stars colors and some fine details that were not prominent in the last image. And I had fun coming back to the old processing techniques that were almost forgotten. Looking forward to another astro-imaging season!

Venus Transit 2012

A Planet Transiting the Sun - so what? It's just a round speck of dark object crossing the disk of the sun. I can't help myself getting amused by all the commotion surrounding this rare phenomenon. I later learned that this event is so rare that the next one will not happen anymore in my lifetime. Hmmm... interesting. I must have been carried away by my astro friends' enthusiam that on the last minute, I decided to take a day off from work to view and perhaps take a picture of this "very rare celestial event". Weather forecast was not very promising-it was already June so I cannot blame myself when I chose to just stay home and observe there. I set up my scope at our roofdeck, fitted the solar filter and wait for Venus to enter the sun's disk. I had difficulty focusing as it was very cloudy and the sun barely penetrated the thick haze. I fired shots at the appointed time of ingress and continued firing every two or three minutes thereafter. Most of the time it was very cloudy but I stayed. There was a moment when I took a peek at the eyepiece and saw that round speck hovering over the sun's disk among the sunspots. At that instant, something gripped me. I was watching live with my very own eyes the celestial dance of the second planet from the sun. It was really  a very small dot against a huge ball of burning gas. Somehow I also felt a bit small. So small and insignificant as a I watched Venus against the backdrop of a brilliant Sun. Then I realized I was not just watching Venus, I was actually watching myself. It's me on Earth-a similar sized planet. Whew, there must be something in the heat of the Sun that made me think in an unusual way. Eventually, heavy clouds covered the spectacle and I started to dismantle my setup.

A Planet Transiting the Sun - so what? It's just a round speck of dark object crossing the disk of the sun. Yes, but I was able to see myself in the perspective of the infinite Universe! Seemed my sunburns  were worth it!

Partial Annular Eclipse 21 May 2012

I was very busy these past days and haven't got real time to update this blog. It's just tonight that I'm able to rest my weary back against a padded chair.

May 21, 2012 - Eclipse Day. It was a partial annular eclipse for us in the Philippines and the already eclipsed sun rose in the eastern sky. I prepared my DSLR and coupled the 70 - 300 mm lens, climbed up on the roofdeck and waited for the sun. Anxious that I might have missed the sun behind the tall houses blocking the eastern side, I went to the farthest side of the deck and hoped that it will rise through the narrow gap between the structures. Clock struck 5:30 am, time for sunrise, but no sun could be viewed from where I was. Oh-oh, I missed it. But hey, I saw a familiar orange radiant gleaming behind the clouds. And yes, there it was-the yellow-reddish sun rising behind dark clouds. I was ecstatic to see that it rose between the two tall coconut trees producing a very nice frame for an unusual crescent sunrise. I clicked away with varying exposures and chose the most pleasant one. Yes.......got it!

Eta Carinae Nebula

I was so excited to go back again to Caliraya with my family. And the weather last Saturday was promising that I imagined myself imaging the southern skies with a wide grin on my face. Hopes were high when we arrived at Caliraya Lake with the blue sky mirrored at the waters. "This could be it," I said to myself, as I gazed over the southern sky, somehow imagining the Great Eta Carina Nebulae just hovering above the mountaintops. I hurriedly set-up my gears and prepared for a good night of southern sky imaging. Darkness fell and soon my scope was aimed at the Eta Carinae Nebulae. That was the first time I used the Megrez 90 and Zenithstar80 tandem for dual camera imaging, which saved me a lot of time in image acquisition. But of course all good things must come to end as my batteries were eventually gets depleted. I was able to shoot a good 45 minutes of images before the batteries drained out. As usual, I did a quick processing to see how the nebula looks like. Hmm... not bad.... not bad at all....

California Nebula during Easter

This work-break allowed me to finally process and add color data to my previous H-alpha only NGC1499. The H-alpha subs were taken two years ago and they were among the first lights of my H-alpha filter. The color subs were taken in Buso-buso during the Christmas break-New Year's Eve in fact. Early in processing, I was getting errors during registration of the images as the H-alpha and color subs were of different scales and orientation-taken with 558mm F.L. Megrez 90 and 200mm F.L. lens respectively. After three attempts, I stopped, went outside for fresh air and had snacks. I went back in front of the computer and tried again. It took me five attempts before I got it right-it seemed. Talk about processing! Usually its harder than image acquisition.

Crescent Nebula

The Full Moon beamed that clear night as I reminisced my time under starry skies. How I wished I was there at a dark hill with only starlight illuminating the sky! I reckoned that the closest to this astro-tripping was to do some exercises in image-processing. so, I brought out my previous capture files and decided to do some redux on the Crescent Nebula. I remembered that I acquired the subs at home and at Buso-buso. I again quickly did processing and compared the result with the previous I had. Well, slight improvement but an improvement nonetheless, enough to quench this astro-thirst at the moment.