The Sun on May 28, 2022

The Sun promises to be quiet this Holiday weekend as none of the active areas on the disk has the potential to produce solar flares.

The Sun on May 27, 2022

 As AR 3014 exits the solar disk, the chances of any flaring form the current spots is very low. Today's sun remains active, however, and this panorama shows some impressive prominences.

The Sun on May 26, 2022

 I captured this panorama through brief gaps in the cloud cover today.  I didn't have time to tune the etalons in the scope for the best detail and contrast, but the images provide a useful record of solar activity today. ARs 3014 and 3017 have the potential for M-Class flares, but they are disapperaring over the Sun's limb. None of the other Active Regions seem to have the potential to flare.

NGC 4302 and Others.

 

My horizon for many objects limits the amount of time I have to image an object as it passes from the high trees to the east to the house roofline on the west. After I’ve subtracted time spent dithering ( a significant amount, if you’re using short exposures like I do) and removed frames made unusable by passing clouds, satellites, alien spaceships and astral-traveling Tibetan monks, the final integration may only have captured 50%-60% of the time I was actually at the scope. In this case, I managed to get 43 minutes of usable data from my captures. Clouds were the main culprit and these images were captured through holes in about 70% cloud cover. My goal was to capture NGC 4302, which I did; but there were a number of other interesting objects in the captured field. The first image shows the full field as captured by the RASA/DS10C. The second is a crop of NGC 4302 and NGC 4298. The third image shows a crop of NGC 4524—a beautiful spiral. The fourth image is an annotated image of some of the objects in the field. I’ve noticed several that astrometry.net did not seem to identify; perhaps they were too faint.

AR 3014 on May 20, 2022

AR 3014 has emitted some M-Class flares, but its unstable magnetic field means that, as it grows, the threat of X-Class flares increases. This inverted image shows the complexity of the interplay of a number of seething magnetic fields in this spot. Knots and bridges of plasma swirl in the lines of force, giving an idea of the incredible power of our closest star. I've also included a full disk panorama. All pix taken with a 40mm PST-DS and DS2.3+ camera.

Messier 100

Messier 100 is one of the brightest and largest galaxies in the Virgo Cluster. M100 is a spiral, starburst galaxy with the highest levels of formation ocurring in the galaxy's center. This image is a mere 12 minutes of integration time due to clouds (104 x 7s with no binning or gain). The spiral form of the galaxy is defined, but detail in the spiral arms is missing. The cropped image also shows NGC 4312, an edge-on spiral, close by in the sky. The astrometric image shows targets I am going to try for next at the left edge, NGC 4302 and NGC 4298, a spectacular galactic pairing.

The Sun on May 19, 2022

Sunspot AR 3014 is seething with activity. It has already produced some M-Class flares and it's unstable magnetic field may produce X-Class flares in the future. Today's whole disk image shows AR 3014 left of center. I have also posted an image of a looping flare on the Sun's rim.This picture neatly demontrates the looping nature of the force lines in the Sun's magnetic field. The hot plasma erupting from the photosphere is channeled away from and back to the Sun's "surface." All images from 40mm PST-DS and Mallincam DS 2.3+.

Markarian's Chain

 Markarian's Chain is a galactic “archipelago” that forms part of the Virgo Cluster. Messier 84 and 86 were discovered by Charles Messier, and the remainder were discovered by William Herschel. The chain is named for Benjamin Markarian, an astrophysicist who discovered their common motion. I’ve posted two images. The first is the result of only 14 minutes of integration (7 second subs at zero gain and no binning) with the DS10C+L-Pro filter and RASA 8. I used this image for the astrometry annotation. The second image is a 70 minute integration (same settings as above), but a smaller field due to the meridian flip that occurred after 14 minutes. The NINA imaging software does not work well with the CEM 70 on meridian flips and it causes problems by moving the scope in random directions after the flip. I thought I had prevented this issue, but NINA is persistent and managed to move the scope a small amount after the flip. It also disabled PhD2 and dithering, so this second image has some walking noise as a consequence. I find it interesting that the actual gain in picture quality for 70 minutes vs 14 is quite small (click and zoom), although this may not be the case for larger targets.

Here is the 14 minute integration:

Here is the 70 minute integration:

Here is the astrometry image:

The Sun May 18, 2022

 AR 3014 poses a threat for M-Class flares as it continues to evolve. Below are some images of active regions on the Sun, as well as a while disk mosaic. All images were taken with the PST-DS and Mallincam SLP camera.

The Sun on May 17, 2022

 AR 3014 has pride of place in the first image, captured with PST-DS 40 mm and a Mallincam Skyraider SLP camera. 450 frames were stacked from an original capture of 1000. AR 3014 has a complex magnetic field and is likely to produce flares. This image shows those complex, looping fields quite well. The second image, a full disk panorama, was captured with a Mallincam DS 2.3+ camera (3 stacked images, stitched in Affinity Photo).

A Cosmic Black Eye

Messier 64, the Black Eye Galaxy (aka, the Sleeping Beauty Galaxy and the Evil Eye Galaxy), has a distinctive band of dark gas and dust obscuring its bright nucleus. The stars and gas in the inner region of this galaxy are rotating in the opposite direction to the gas in the outer region. This is most likely the result of a merger with a satellite galaxy in the distant past. The zone where these counter-rotating regions collide is a region of intense star formation. This image is heavily cropped. I was only able to capture about 25 minutes of data with a bright moon close to the imaged area. Taken with the RASA 8, DS10C and L-Pro filter. The final image is a stack of 217 x 7s at zero gain and no binning.

The Galaxies of Coma Berenices.

 

Now that the Coma Berenices galaxies are finally clearing my trees at around 9:30 pm Eastern, I’m able to start imaging them. Last night, I thought I would try NGC 4911. I didn’t check to see the angular diameter, so I was surprised that all I could see in the stacked image were (apparent) stars. The surprise was how many of these stars were galaxies. NGC 4911 is towards the center of the image. It is very small, and its structure can be just about seen on high zoom. I’ve also included an annotated image of the field and you can see just how many galaxies were captured in the wide FOV of the RASA (click and zoom for more detail). I estimate the limiting magnitude on this image is about 21. Not exactly Hubble Deep Field (which reached 32!), but not bad for 559 x 7s integrations on the DS 10C (no gain, no binning) with L-Pro filter and a bright moon relatively close by. (BTW, that’s a total integration time of about 65 minutes).

A Flaring Sun--May 11, 2022

 Today’s Sun: AR 3006, which has a beta-gamma-delta magnetic field, has been producing X-Class flares (the most powerful flares the sun produces). The first image shows the whole solar disk captured as a three-panel panorama with the PST-DS scope. About 10 minutes after this capture. I noticed that AR 3006 seemed to be flaring with a burst of intensity on the central white spot being the event I first noticed. The second picture is a crop of this event; the two white spots indicate where the flaring seemed to be most intense. Within 10 minutes, it had disappeared and AR 3006 reverted to its pre-flare appearance.

The Sun on May 10, 2022

 ARs 3006 and 3007 enjoy pride of place in this inverted panorama, taken with the PST 40mm DS and a Mallincam DS 2,3+. The image is composed of 4 images of the best 250 frames from the original 500 captured for each image. Images were stacked in Registax and tweaked in Affinity Photo and Topaz Denoise. AR 3006 is capable of producing M-Class flares, although 3007 looks suspiciously bright. I've also added a full disk, none inverted image to this post.

The Sun on May 5, 2022--AR 3004 Continues Flaring!

 AR 3004 continues to grow and flare. It has produced 15 C-class flares and 3 M-class flares in the last 24 hours. Not surprisingly, today’s image shows this continued flaring. The spot continues to grow and is likely to also produce X-class flares (the most powerful solar flares) at some point.

The Sun on May 5, 2022. Flare!

 AR 3004 is flaring with M-Class flares. In today's image, the flaring region can be seen clearly close to the center of the disk.

Leo Triplet Astrometry

 It's amazing how many objects were in the original imaged field of this group of galaxies.  The annotated image is below. I uploaded it original size so you can scroll around and see all the other galaxies captured. Some are very faint. IC 2715 is mag. 21.5!

The Leo Triplet

 

I managed to get about an hour of data last night on the Leo triplet (also known as the M66 Group). This stacked image consists of 480 x 7s images with the RASA 8, DS10C (no gain or binning) and L-Pro filter. Conditions were hazy with very tenuous, high cloud, but the effects on imaging were minimal. This image is cropped about 50% from the original. The M66 Group consists of 3 galaxies: M65, M66, and NGC 3627. All are spiral galaxies.

NGC 3746--A Puzzling Spiral Galaxy

 NGC 3746 is a very large (in size, not in angular diameter as seen from Earth) spiral galaxy. It has some puzzling characteristics. The inner core is some 2-3x10^11 solar masses in size. The outer regions, some 41 kiloparsecs in diameter, are moving at velocities that are incompatible with circular motion. The research suggests that this outer region may be in a state of rapid evolution. Below is a heavily cropped image of the galaxy and an annotated image of the wider field captured.