Quick Pics

Spur of the Moment Images

As I've mentioned before, one of the best things about the Seestar 50 is how quickly it can be carried outside and set up for imaging. On March 29th the sky was unexpectedly clear and all my neighbors' lights were off. I made a spur of the moment decision to hop outside and get some pictures. The first target was galaxy M64 in the constellation Coma Berenices. This galaxy is called the "Black Eye Galaxy" because a dark dust lane is prominent near the galactic center. After some initial focusing difficulty I was able to capture M64 in the following 40-minute exposure.

Many of my Seestar galaxy images don't seem to show much improvement after the first 20 or 30 minutes of exposure. The 40-minute exposure of M64 above worked fairly well for my suburban sky conditions. An even shorter 20-minute exposure did a good job on the "Leo Triple" shown next below. These three galaxies happened to be well positioned to fit within Seestar's rectangular field of view.

Edge-on galaxy NGC 3628 is at top left, spiral galaxy M65 is on the right edge, and spiral galaxy M66 is at bottom center.

Continuing with relatively short exposures, I moved next to globular cluster M3 in the constellation Canes Venatici. This globular showed well in the following 15-minute exposure.

Galaxies in the Coma Galaxy Cluster were very dim and small. They were not showing up well in my next attempt, so I decided to delete the image I had been accumulating and move to another target. Giant globular cluster M13 was an obvious choice nearby. Unfortunately, Seestar's battery was beginning to run low, so I did the shortest exposure of the night - a 12-minute exposure of M13 shown next.

With battery level well below 20 percent I was too tired to dig out an extension cord for real time recharging. So I shut down and quit for the night.

About two weeks later, on April 15th, another opportunity for quick imaging arose. The Sun was covered with a bunch of modest sunspots. It only took about 15 minutes to set up, grab a 90-second video, and bring the telescope inside again. There were at least 22 sunspot umbras, large and small, spread across the Sun this day which you can see on the imperfect image below. Enlarging the image by clicking on it will help in the sunspot count.

In the absence of a permanent observatory the Seestar is hard to beat for convenience and ease of use! 
 
  
 
 

Huge Sunspot Group

Poor Seeing

Sunspot group 3615 had grown to enormous size a few days before March 24th. I took my Seestar to a nearby field to see if it would properly operate far outside local wifi Internet range. Things worked well, and I captured the following solar image on March 24th.

Giant sunspot group 3615 is slightly right of center. The image above was made by stacking the best 100 frames from a 1,000-frame video. During 90 seconds of video recording strong wind gusts rocked Seestar causing the live display to shake. In spite of this, there were at least 100 decently steady video frames available to produce an acceptable picture.

Visible above are seven sunspots arranged along two diagonal lines. On the upper diagonal line, from right to left, are sunspots 3621 (small), 3614, 3619, and tiny spot 3622. On the lower diagonal line, from right to left, are sunspots 3615, 3617, and tiny spot 3620. (Click on the image to view the smaller sunspots on an enlarged disc.)

Although wind diminished significantly the next day on March 25th, troublesome gusts still buffeted my equipment from time to time. By afternoon temperature had risen into the low 50's and no clouds were present. I hauled out my dedicated hydrogen-alpha solar telescope for the first time since last November. When everything was finally ready for video capture the live laptop screen view was disappointing. Seeing was particularly bad causing the displayed image to waver like crazy. It was hard to focus precisely. Nevertheless, I did manage to get some reasonable pictures by stacking 400 frames from 4,000-frame videos. The next image shows big sunspot 3615 along with companion sunspot 3617 in the upper left.

The diagonal line connecting the two sunspots is tilted up to the left instead of down to the left as it is on the full disc image above. The orange full disc Seestar image shows 3615 in the photosphere. The hydrogen-alpha image immediately above shows 3615 higher up in the chromosphere above the photosphere. Poor seeing made small details fuzzy.

The next two-panel mosaic shows a wider view including sunspots 3614 and 3619 in the upper frame.

A slightly wider view is shown in the next 7-panel mosaic which includes two smaller sunspots near the left edge.

Atmospheric turbulence made prominence imaging impossible. The solar limb looked like a wavy rope when I decided to quit!

Soldiers From the Past

Military History Through the Ages 2024

I've attended this huge reenactor exhibit at the Jamestown Settlement Museum several times over the past few years and always find something new and interesting each time. This year I found three Polish reenactor groups I'd never noticed before. First, and historically oldest, was Sobieski's Vanguard from 1683.

This group, in period garb, displayed the unique feathered armor worn by Polish Winged Hussars under King Jan III Sobieski during their victory over Ottoman Turk forces during the 1683 siege of Vienna.

One of the reenactors posed next to chain mail armor worn by the infantry while other reenactors sat in the tent behind.

Moving forward through history by more than two centuries, another group portrayed Polish soldiers in World War II.

The slogan on this displayed poster (according to Google Translate) says, "To Arms! Together and united we will overcome the enemy."

Another large poster described actions of the reenactor's unit in WWII. (Click on images to enlarge.)

I noticed the Polish word, Ulhan, in the title on the left poster top. Google Translate says it means, "12th Podolian Lancer Regiment". This evokes a memory of my great grandfather, Jan Ostrokolowicz, who I know only from this late 1800's picture. According to writing on the photo, he poses in the uniform of the Polish Ulhani "Organization".

Perhaps the reenactors were portraying the same regiment my great grandfather served in about 50 years earlier than 1939.

Another group portrayed heroic Polish fighters shortly after World War II. Their sign says Brygada Smierci, or Death Brigade. This underground partisan brigade fought against communist takeover of Poland, but were ultimately defeated. The unit originated and operated around Vilnius in Lithuania which explains the image of Our Lady of the Gate of Dawn displayed on the flag at the reenactor site. This icon from the 1600's was mounted above the Vilnius city gate and was believed to have miraculous power against enemies.

A final group that captured my interest was the 2nd Coldstream Guards from 1882 whose display of authentic British Victorian aristocratic life was palpable.

The officer's mess, called the Djin Club, illustrated upper class military camp lifestyle. In particular, check out the elaborate table setting by enlarging the last of the following three pictures.

Looks like officers lived quite comfortably during this campaign! The next two pictures show an officer's tent with contents that seem to be delivered into the present by a time machine! One of the reeanactors showed me how all the tent contents could be folded up into small portable rectangular packages. Many of these wooden cases had beautiful inlaid brass decorations. Enlarge the second image to see what the time machine delivered.

Here is the officer's mess "kit".

I imagined a good number of servants or ordinary soldiers were required to pack up and transport all the equipment needed to keep officers comfortable. When I asked the reeanactor how ordinary soldiers lived he told me one smaller round tent nearby might house 12 or more soldiers who would sleep on the ground with bodies arranged like spokes radiating from the center tent pole. No fancy beds, tables, dining clubs, or sweets for them, apparently. So it was great to be an aristocraic upper class officer in this military unit, but not so great to be an ordinary soldier. 
 

 

Looking North

Another Beautiful Night

A waxing crescent Moon graced the early evening sky on March 13th. I was curious to see if my Seestar telescope could capture earthshine on the Moon. It did. After raising gain high enough, the lit crescent was overexposed while dim earthshine appeared on the rest of the Moon as you can see in the single snapshot below.

I returned gain to a default value and recorded a 90-second AVI video of the crescent. Then I stacked and wavelet sharpened the best 100 video frames from the approximately 1,000-frame video to produce the following image of the properly exposed crescent.

Although it was interesting to see how well Seestar performed with lunar imaging, image quality was far below what I can achieve with larger telescopes.

It was then time to turn the telescope north and try long exposures of two galaxies. Face-on spiral galaxy M101 in Ursa Major is shown in the next image, a 90-minute exposure.

It was disappointing to see how even a 90-minute exposure was insufficient to raise faint details above background noise. Maybe my somewhat light polluted suburban sky is just too bright.

Then I moved to the other side of the Big Dipper's handle to find galaxy M106 in the constellation Canes Venatici. In the 60-minute exposure that follows a faint halo extending on either side of the brighter swirling center is barely visible above background noise.

In the same field of view as M106 above you can see a 13th magnitude galaxy, NGC4248, in the upper left corner.

Tonight's last target was globular Cluster M5 in the constellation Serpens. This globular showed up very well in the 15-minute exposure shown below.

March 13th was an unusually fine night with all five light polluting neighbor spotlights miraculously off.
 

Comet!

Galaxies and Glitches

On March 10th bright comet 12P/Pons-Brooks was located in the constellation Andromeda. By the time the sky darkened about an hour after sunset the comet's altitude above the western horizon was getting lower. Unfortunately, the comet wasn't visible from my usual back yard observing site because my house blocked the view. So my granddaughter and I moved the Seestar telescope to my front porch. We crouched down behind a bush which shielded us from both a streetlight and a strong wind. We were astounded to see how well the comet's image built up during three trial exposures. The best image, shown below, was produced by a 7-minute exposure which shows the bright green head and some of the tail.

This is the best comet image I've ever captured! The next evening on March 11th I tried a longer exposure to reveal more of the dim tail. During a 14-minute exposure the comet moved appreciably relative to stars causing the head to smear out. So the 7-minute exposure above turned out to be best.

Only a brief observing window existed between the time when the sky became dark and the time when the comet set behind a rooftop across the street from my porch. After the comet dropped out of sight each night I took a couple quick images of M31, the Andromeda Galaxy, just out of curiosity. On March 10th I pointed toward the galaxy's center and captured the following 7-minute exposure.

The Andromeda Galaxy is too big to fit within Seestar's field of view. In the image above dark dust lanes are visible. Also, M32, a small companion elliptical galaxy, appears as a fuzzy bright object on the left edge. The following night I aimed slightly below the galaxy's center and took a longer 20-minute exposure to produce the next image.

Some dim details in the galaxy's outer regions are beginning to show in the previous image. I'll have to wait a few months for Andromeda to get higher in the sky before trying for longer exposures. The galaxy's altitude ranged between 21 and 17 degrees for the images above.

Up until March 10th my Seestar had operated flawlessly. For some mysterious reason it would not start up on March 10th when I initially pushed the power button! What the hell?? After several repeated unsuccessful attempts I went to get a screwdriver to open the battery compartment. While I was away my granddaughter pressed the small reset button on the bottom. Apparently, the reset fixed the immediate startup problem because Seestar powered on normally afterward. But now another glitch appeared. The Seestar app on my Android tablet seemed to have trouble connecting to Seestar's internal wifi. The app would say connection had been achieved, but then it contradicted itself when I closed the connection dialog windows. When the dialog windows were closed, the app said it needed to connect with Seestar. This had never happened before! After several connection attempts the app finally acknowledged an established connection, but why in the world would it start misbehaving like this? I always hold the tablet very close to Seestar while connecting, so distance isn't a problem. Fortunately, once a stable connection was made Seestar seemed to operate normally for the remainder of these observing sessions. 

After capturing M31 on March 11th I eventually moved the telescope from the front porch to it's usual backyard observing position. Anticipating interference from neighbors' spotlights, I installed a newly acquired lens hood and erected some light-blocking barriers around the telescope. As the night progressed it turned out to be one of those rare occasions when no spotlights glared, so precautions were unnecessary. The first image acquired was the following 60-minute exposure of galaxy M51, the "Whirlpool Galaxy". I was surprised to find this 60-minute exposure not much better than a previous 25-minute exposure taken on March 7th. It made me wonder if longer exposures were worth the effort.  

Edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 4565, the "Needle Galaxy", in the constellation Comas Berenices was my next target. It showed up nicely in the following 30-minute exposure. A small 14th magnitude galaxy, NGC 4562, sits at the end of a curved string of 5 stars to the right of the brighter galaxy. The separation between the two is about 13.3 arc minutes.

Although I previously captured globular cluster M53 alone on March 7th, I wanted to see if I could include a nearby dim globular cluster together with M53 in the same field of view. The next image is a 30-minute exposure with bright M53 at the top and diffuse NGC 5053 at the bottom. They are separated by 57.7 arc minutes.

My final target for the night was planetary nebula Abell 21, also known as the "Medusa Nebula". I installed the light pollution filter for this object and took the 60-minute exposure shown next. Stars look slightly out of focus. Perhaps I should have engaged the autofocus before starting the exposure. As I've found in other nebular Seestar images, the red color looks disappointingly dull compared to images produced by experts.

Observing conditions on March 11th were near perfect - no Moon, no clouds, and all neighbor lights were off. But I'm getting nervous about the increasing number of glitches occurring in Seestar operation.
 

Dodging Clouds

Dodging Lights

Contradicting a cloudy forecast, large sky areas were clear on the evening of March 7th. I quickly set up my Seestar to take advantage of moonless conditions. One clear area included the constellation Cancer where two bright open star clusters reside. The Seestar seems to capture these star cluster types better than other celestial targets, so I pointed the small telescope there to begin.

Open star cluster M44, the "Beehive Cluster", is often recommended for observers with binoculars. The Seestar image of M44 shown next captures the pretty collection of stars with only a 3-minute exposure.

M67, the second prominent open cluster in Cancer, is familiar to me from my variable star monitoring days at Randolph College's Winfree Observatory. M67 contains a sequence of standard stars used to calibrate photometric measurements. Within M67 is a closely spaced group of stars resembling a tiny dipper with handle. Can you see the small 9-star dipper-like feature just right of center in the next image, a 6-minute exposure? (Click on the image to enlarge.)

Moving away from Cancer, I continued to search for targets in cloud-free regions. Next was a pair of dim galaxies in neighboring constellation Leo. In the next image Galaxy NGC 3507 is the 11th magnitude spiral galaxy on the left, and NGC 3501 is a dimmer 13.6 magnitude edge-on spiral galaxy about 12.6 arc minutes to the right of NGC 3507. A 62-minute exposure was needed to show this dim pair.

It's hard to predict how troublesome neighbors' outdoor spotlights will be for astrophotography on any given night. March 7th was not a good night because four out of five possible offending spotlights were randomly turning on and off during my observing session. These lights shine directly on my telescopes. The Seestar is so close to the ground that I can block some glaring light by erecting barriers around the telescope, but it's a constant battle.

Next, I moved north where clouds approaching from the west had not yet covered Ursa Major. My exposure of the famous "Whirlpool Galaxy", M51, was cut short because clouds did eventually move closer. The next image shows the resulting 25-minute exposure. I hope to try a longer exposure in the future.

Hazy clouds began appearing across most of the sky as I moved to one remaining clear area in Coma Berenices where globular cluster M53 looked like a promising target. Clouds began to interfere even here in this last clear area, so I was forced to settle for the 15-minute exposure shown in the next image.

Because the Seestar is so easy to use and set up I managed to get five decent images this night in spite of dodging clouds and lights.

 

 
  

Gaining Experience

Seestar Limitations

Although it was clear on February 19th, an unfortunate 83-percent illuminated gibbous Moon significantly brightened the sky. Because cloudy conditions were forecast for many future days I took this opportunity to use my new Seestar automated telescope in spite of natural lunar light pollution.

The Horsehead and Flame Nebulas were well placed near the meridian. I employed a light pollution filter and captured a stacked image equivalent to a 92-minute single exposure. The resulting imperfect image was framed nicely as you can see below.

At some point during the 92-minute exposure a neighbor's spotlight was turned on and glared directly onto the telescope from the side. The combined effect of moonlight and spotlight left a diagonal brightness band running from upper left to lower right across the image. Clearly, it makes no sense to attempt long exposures of dim nebulae on moonlit nights! Thus ends lesson number one. It would also help to have an extended lens hood to block some surrounding neighborhood light. I've ordered a lens hood for the Seestar.

Even though moonlight brightened the sky, clouds remained absent. I thought bright stars might be more appropriate targets. I was curious to see how certain red stars would show up in Seestar images. The next disappointing image is a 5-minute exposure of the pulsating semi-regular variable star, Y Canum Venaticorum, also known as "La Superba". It is supposed to be one of the reddest stars in the sky, but,  as you can see, it looks more yellowish/orange than red.

Actually, only the outer halo of the star is yellow/orange in the picture above. The central part is overexposed into a white color because red, green, and blue pixels all have the same overexposed maximum value. This was lesson number two: try shorter exposures to reveal more color in bright stars. I'd like to try capturing other red stars by trying shorter exposures and trying dimmer candidates than "La Superba".

Cloudy days drearily persisted until a very brief one hour window opened in late afternoon on February 25th. An enormous sunspot had been growing on the Sun, and I was hoping to get at least one image. I quickly set up the Seestar and managed to record one decent 90-second AVI video clip of the Sun before it dropped below a neighbor's roof. The next image is a stack of 100 frames from a 1,080 frame video.   

Giant sunspot 3590 is above center. It produced several powerful solar flares in the days before this picture was taken. It would have been a great target for my dedicated hydrogen-alpha solar telescope, but clouds made imaging impossible. Five smaller sunspots can also be seen. Arranged diagonally down in order from top to bottom on the left are sunspots 3595, 3594, 3592, and 3591. Sunspot 3586 is about to rotate out of sight near the limb on the upper right.

A Seestar software update provided new magnification options for solar imaging. I tried recording a video using the new 2X magnification, but found the final processed image disappointing. There was no increase in detail, just a slightly bigger overall image. The default 1X magnification gave a more pleasing image. So final lesson number three was to ignore magnifications higher than the 1X default. Now I'm settling in for another extended period of clouds.