M101 Galaxy

M101 is one of my favorite galaxies. I have always dreamed of imaging it one night. This is a fulfillment of that dream. My fascination with M101 was sparked by a Sky & Telescope magazine article about it. I first viewed it in 2006 at Caliraya during my participation on the yearly Messier Marathon. That time, I found myself stuck at the eyepiece drinking the majestic view of the galaxy, briefly forgetting that it was a marathon. I had the opportunity to image it last February at Spring of Life Adventure Camp and boy, was I very glad! This is a re-processed image from that night.

3 minutes X 10 frames

Canon EOS 400D at ISO 800

Megrez 90FD at FL=558mm

21 February 2009

Buso-buso, Antipolo City

M83 Southern Pinwheel Galaxy

This is again a re-processed image from our session last 21 February 2009. I tried adjusting the colors and saturation resulting in a somewhat pale image compared to my initial M83 image. Details are:

3 minutes X 6 frames exposure

Canon EOS 400D at ISO 800

Megrez 90FD at FL 558mm

21 February 2009

Buso-buso, Antipolo City

Horsehead & Flame Nebula

I re-processed the Horsehead & Flame Nebula last night using the newly discovered features of IRIS. The dynamic & asinh strecthing proved to be useful in bringing out faint details. Here, I allowed the bright stars to saturate to coax as much faint details as possible.
Details of the image:
3 minutes X 14 frames exposure
Canon EOS 400D at ISO 800
Megrez 90FD at FL=558mm
Calibration/Stacking=IRIS
Touch-up=Photoshop CS/NeatImage
31 January 2009/Caliraya, Laguna

Caliraya Night

It was a adventurous trek to Caliraya, Laguna last Saturday. I brought along my family to see where I have been going for skygazing. Just last Friday night, my wife and I made a quick stop at Robinsons to buy a tent for our use overnight. We set-up our tent immediately when we arrived with the help of our two kids. Then I started to set-up my scopes. But it was a night of poor weather! My disappointment set in when I realized that it was next to impossible to get decent images with the strong winds and haze prevailing that night. Anyway, I tried to shoot between the clouds and all I got was a measly 16-minute exposure total for the Rosette and only one minute for Lulin! The sky grew worse until it started to drizzle. I thought that it was now time to hit the sack. By around 4 am, we dismantled the tent and scopes and headed home.

Galaxies, a Comet and an Owl

Last Saturday was a fine night! I was able to image plenty of objects mainly due to longer time that the sky was clear. A bit hazy in the early evening, clouds came & went quickly, but overall it was a good night. First object was the Rossette Nebula. This is a huge nebula in Monoceros, almost filling up the entire field of my camera. However, clouds and poor transparency ruined the frames so I thought I will have to try it again later. I immediately slewed my scope towards Sombrero galaxy, but this time I was not able to locate it. Somehow, I got envious of my colleagues who got a go-to system. Next target was my favorite galaxy-M101-the other pinwheel galaxy. Here I made 5 frames. It was a pain to locate a suitable guidestar for the M101. I eventually settled for the star Dubhe which is quite far from the galaxy. As expected, I noticed some star trails on the images. Irving pointed out Comet Lulin on his scope so I tried imaging my second comet. It was large & bright so I had no trouble locating it on my Megrez 90. After that, I returned to Irving's scope and looked at a bright galaxy. I later found out that it was M83, the so-called Southern Pinwheel Galaxy. I hurriedly returned to my scope and began imaging M83. Last to image was the Owl Nebula. I was surprised to find a companion galaxy to the owl. Very impressive. Wow! I wish the future imaging sessions would be this satisfying!

Flaming Horsehead

It's been a while since I last posted. Last Saturday, we went to the Spring of Life campsite to try observing and imaging the heavens. Coming from a children birthday party, I proceeded directly to Irving's place to pick him up with his telescope. We arrived at the site at around 5:30 p.m. Brian and his friend were already there. I quickly set up my scope and tried drift alignment while the moon was still up. First target was the Horsehead & Flame Nebulae. I used 3 min X 14 for the exposures. Finally, I was able to test my autoguiding set-up. It worked very well and I was very satisfied with the performance. When I was about to turn-off the Guidedog, the computer suddenly crashed. Oh boy, was I afraid that I might never recovered the files. It took me a long time to seached the files but found it later on. After that, I point my scope towards M51 Whirlpool Galaxy. However, I found difficulty finding a suitable guidestar. Then the clouds covered the northers sky until we decided to pack-up and head home. It was a good and fulfilling night!

Partial Lunar Eclipse 17.08.08

I woke up at 3am last Sunday, still disoriented and dizzy. Feeling sleepy, I fought my body's yearning to go back to bed in spite of the urgent whispering in my ear to observe the lunar eclipse happening at that moment. I pulled my telescope out of its storage and dusted off my tripod for immediate set-up. I climbed up to my "viewing deck" only to find out that the moon was well hidden from view. I hurriedly set-up in the living room instead and pointed the telescope out of the window facing the southwest. Just while I was setting-up, Irving texted me to ask if I was awoke and said that he was already seeing the umbra. I replied yes and informed him that I was already imaging the event. I took series of images every half minute until the moon set behind my neighbor's roof.

The following day (Monday), I started to experiment with Photoshop. I combined the series of images I took and selected some to form a sequence of the eclipse. Fortunately, I found Photoshop to be intuitive and came up with the posted picture. Hmmm, I felt satisfied with the result. Wished that I could have joined the others at the UP PAGASA Observatory . . .