Star Clusters

Collecting Messier Objects

My ongoing quest to get Seestar images of all Messier objects took a big step forward recently. Every October seems to include a period of clear sky and mild autumn temperature, a welcome relief from months of steamy, cloudy summer nights. On October 5th there were no clouds, little moonlight, and only a couple temporary neighbor lights to interfere. I captured a good number of Messier star clusters to add to my collection.

Some open clusters are very pretty like M52 in Cassiopeia shown in the first image below, a 5-minute exposure. Note the small bit of red nebulosity at the top. This is the edge of the Bubble Nebula, NGC7635.

Another beautiful cluster in Cassiopeia is M103 shown next in a 3-minute exposure. Star colors here aren't as dramatically evident as I'd like. I don't know how to solve this color problem.

Open cluster M21 in Sagittarius is next. It's located near the beautiful Trifid Nebula, M20, partially visible at the bottom right of the following 3-minute exposure. I find M21's little circular loop of stars very attractive.

Probably the most famous open cluster of all is the Pleiades in the constellation, Taurus. A 20-minute exposure revealed some of the white reflection nebula lit by cluster stars. When I captured the next image the Pleiades happened to be oriented in just the right way to fall almost entirely within Seestar's limited field of view. This was a happy surprise!

Open cluster M34 in Perseus is a bit less striking than the previous clusters as you can see in the next 5-minute exposure.

The Messier catalog contains a couple of oddball members like the asterism M73 in Aquarius shown in the next 2-minute exposure. Perhaps the small group of four stars seemed like a fuzzy object in Messier's telescope? 

There are A LOT of globular clusters in the Messier catalog including a number of small unimpressive ones. If you've seen one of these unimpressive globulars, you've seen them all. So I'm not displaying all the globulars I captured this night, only the next two. First is globular cluster M10 in Ophiuchus. It has a good sized diameter in the following 10-minute exposure.

Globular cluster M30 in Capricornus appears smaller than M10. It has three short lines of stars pointing nearly towards its center. Each stellar line consists of three equally bright stars. These distinctive lines are visible in the next 10-minute exposure when you click on the image to view it at full size.

It took a 30-minute exposure to show inner parts of face-on spiral galaxy M74 in Pisces shown next. 

Finally, I attempted to capture a portion of the Heart Nebula, IC1805, in Cassiopeia. The entire nebula is too large to fit within Seestar's field of view, so I tried to include just the brightest portion. Even so, red nebulosity is barely visible in the next 30-minute exposure. Perhaps more would show up in darker skies and longer exposures.

I learned a valuable lesson during this Seestar session. Anticipating a long night, I used a charger cable and extension cord plugged into Seestar to keep the battery fully charged. I control Seestar from inside my house and was so lulled into indoor comfort I didn't check the cord status as I should have. After some time I noticed battery charge declining instead of remaining steady. When I went outside to see what was wrong I found the charging cord wrapped around Seestar several times like a boa constrictor! Fortunately, Seestar hadn't tipped over, but increasing cable tension had eventually broken the cord's USB connector and pulled it out of Seestar's USB port. I'll never make this mistake again! Seestar completes several complete rotations during a long night finding targets all over the sky. In the future I need to check outside more often.

I've now imaged 60 of the 110 Messier objects. As the October clear period continues I hope to increase the collection and post more images soon.
 

Roaming the Sky

Target Variety

 The sky was cloudless on September 10th and all five neighbors' spotlights were turned off. Although a nearly first quarter Moon hung in the south, clear conditions were too good to pass up. Forecasts predicted two upcoming cloudy weeks along with a brightening Moon, so I was motivated to take my Seestar outside for some imaging. There was no wind, and temperature ranged from the mid to low 60's.

I've decided to try capturing Seestar images of all 110 objects in the Messier catalog, so I began this night with some globular clusters and open clusters in Sagittarius, Scorpius, and Aquarius while the first quarter Moon continued getting lower in the sky. I've found 10-minute exposures work well for all globular images below. Globular cluster M28 had a relatively small apparent size and appeared among a crowded Sagittarius Milky Way star field in the first image below.

Also located in Sagittarius, dramatic globular cluster M55 is almost twice the apparent size of M28 and is nicely portrayed in the next image. 

The central portion of globular M2 in Aquarius seems burned out in the next image. (Click on images to get an enlarged view.)

The last member of this night's globular collection is M15 in Pegasus shown next. 

Open cluster M23 in Sagittarius features several interesting star chains and patterns in the next 5-minute exposure.

Pretty open cluster M6 in Scorpius, also known as the Butterfly Cluster, contains a couple colorful stars and an arrow-like grouping in the next image. M6 was very close to the horizon. I had to end the exposure after only one minute and 40 seconds because rooftops were beginning to show in the bottom of the image. I cropped rooftops out of this image.

While collecting the previous cluster images I came across dim galaxy NGC6822 with planetary nebula NGC6818 located nearby in the same field of view. This pair in the constellation Sagittarius are shown in the next 20-minute exposure. The galaxy, left of center, is barely visible above background noise. NGC6822, known as Barnard's Galaxy, was discovered in 1884 by Edward Emerson Barnard. It looks very similar to our own Milky Way galaxy's satellite, the Small Magellanic Cloud. Planetary nebula NGC6818, also known as the Little Gem Nebula, is the small blue-green object in the upper right hand corner. This nebula is too small to show any internal structure at Seestar's image scale.

Planetary nebula NGC 6818 in the previous image has an apparent angular diameter of only 22 X 15 arc seconds. Many planetary nebulae are similarly small and show up only as small blue-green circles in Seestar images. For example, NGC7662, the Blue Snowball Nebula in the constellation Andromeda, is about 30 arc seconds in diameter. It's the small blue-green circle near center of the next image, a 5-minute exposure.

Another example is planetary nebula NGC 7009 in Aquarius whose apparent size is about 30 X 25 arc seconds. This planetary is called the Saturn Nebula because its elongated shape in small telescopes slightly resembles Saturn's rings. Only a hint of this structure is visible in the next 5-minute exposure.

On the other hand, some planetary nebulae, like NGC1501 in Camelopardalis shown in the next 8-minute exposure, are large enough for Seestar to reveal internal structure. NGC1501 has a diameter of about 54 arc seconds. You can see the 14.5 magnitude central star when the image is viewed at full size.

My final planetary nebula for the night was the famous Ring Nebula, M57, in Lyra. Its apparent angular size is about 84 X 66 arc seconds, significantly larger than the previous examples above, so a 5-minute exposure reveals the ring shape and hints of red color.

Camelopardalis is an often overlooked northerly constellation recently featured in the October issue of  Sky and Telescope magazine. A suggested target there was open cluster NGC1502 which Seestar captured nicely in the following 5-minute exposure. Enlarge the image to see several close star pairs and a semicircular arc containing nine stars.

NGC281, the Pacman Nebula in Cassiopeia, was also well placed in the northern sky. The following 30-minute exposure taken with light pollution filter in place exhibits the Pacman mouth oriented upward. As usual with all my Seestar emission nebula images I find the red color dull compared to colors exhibited in more expert images.

I ran out of energy at 1:30 am and brought the dew dampened Seestar inside. At this point I've collected 45 out of the 110 Messier objects and look forward to capturing more in future months.

Smoke Clears

Nearly Perfect Conditions

September 2nd was the first night in several weeks without clouds, wildfire smoke, or a bright Moon. It was nice to see dark sky between stars instead of milky whiteness illuminated by moonlight. In addition, the 63 degree temperature was pleasant and wind was calm. Total perfection was too much to hope for, however. Four of my five light polluting neighbors had miraculously turned off all their troublesome spotlights. Only one remaining neighbor, the one next door, left one backyard spotlight on. Even though this annoying spotlight pointed away from my Seestar telescope, it lit almost the entire back of the neighbor's house. The glow of this reflected light ruined sky darkness toward the southern horizon where I had hoped to get images in the constellation Sagittarius.

My first target was a closely spaced galaxy group called Stephan's Quintet located near spiral galaxy NGC7331 in Pegasus. Stephan's Quintet turned out to be too small to show up well in Seestar's image scale, so I tried to center on larger NGC7331 instead and produced the first image below with a 20-minute exposure.

I should have taken more time to move NGC7331to the left because I might have captured tiny Stephan's Quintet in the same field of view. Nevertheless, there are at least six tiny dim fuzzy galaxies in the same image with NGC7331 which you can see labeled in the next image. (Click on the image to enlarge details.)

Next, I moved to the Helix Nebula, NGC7293, in Aquarius. This colorful planetary nebula showed up nicely in a 20-minute exposure with Seestar's nebular filter engaged. The colors seem kind of dull, however.

At this point Sagittarius was beginning to dip closer to the horizon, so I quickly tried to image some targets there. First, I took a 5-minute exposure of open star cluster M18 whose unimpressive portrait fills the next image's center. 

I also found open cluster M25 to be unspectacular as you can see in the next 5-minute exposure.

The previous two images required special processing to remove a glow in one corner coming from the spotlight reflection on my neighbor's house. With Sagittarius sinking I tried one more target, globular cluster M22. M22 looked nice in the following 10-minute exposure.

It was time to swing north from Sagittarius to Andromeda which had now risen high enough to put giant galaxy M31 in a good position for imaging. Since M31 is too large to fit entirely within Seestar's limited field of view, I hoped to create a mosaic by assembling three neighboring galaxy sections together into one complete image. Next are three separate 20-minute exposures moving across the galaxy in steps.

Unfortunately, Photoshop could not successfully merge all three previous images. Apparently, there was too much image rotation during the hour long period while exposures were taken. Also, inexplicably, the color of the first image in the series above did not match colors of the next two. I had partial success, however. Photoshop did manage to patch together the second pair of sections to produce the following nice two-panel mosaic.

M31's dark dust lanes show nicely in the previous mosaic. The two companion galaxies M110 (top) and bright compact M32 near the right edge also fit within the field of view.

At this point, more than four hours beyond my normal bedtime, fatigue was increasing. My final target was the Western Veil Nebula, NGC6960, in Cygnus. This segment of the larger Veil Nebula supernova remnant showed up well in the following 20-minute exposure made with the nebular filter engaged.

Now I ran out of gas! I quit imaging at 2:30 am and staggered off to bed. In the future I'd like to capture more separate pieces of the Veil Nebula. I'm also thinking of taking Seestar images of all objects in the Messier Catalog.

Hazy Summer Night

Light Pollution

Late in the evening of July 27th a cold front temporarily cleared away cloudy skies that had lasted continuously for the past two months. Moonlight was not a problem, but hazy conditions from wildfire smoke and neighborhood light pollution made observing conditions less than ideal. Almost no stars were visible below 40 degrees altitude. Nevertheless, I set up my Seestar to see what was possible. Initially, I planned to try capturing some targets in Sagittarius which had risen reasonably high in the south. Unfortunately, one of my neighbors has a back yard located to the south directly beneath Sagittarius. The neighbor's yard was completely lit by a set of party lights adding to the light pollution.

My first target was the Omega Nebula, M17, in Sagittarius. With Seestar's light pollution filter engaged I managed to get the following image after 5 minutes of effective exposure.

I say 5 minutes of effective exposure because the image above is the result of stacking 30 ten-second exposures. It took much longer than 5 minutes to obtain these 30 exposures, however, because Seestar kept rejecting  bad exposures caused by poor tracking. After roughly 30 minutes watching exposure after exposure rejected, I gave up and settled for the 30 accumulated good exposures. As usual I'm disappointed in the color Seestar produces for emission nebulae. I can't seem to reproduce the bright red I see in pictures made by experts.

Next I moved to open cluster M7, also in Sagittarius. The same tracking problems happened with M7, but 5 minutes of exposure was enough to show this pretty star cluster nicely as you can see in the next image.

Tracking problems for the Sagittarius targets were quite discouraging, so I moved higher in the sky near Cygnus to look for the Dumbbell Nebula, M27. Inexplicably, tracking was much better for this target! I was able to get a 30-minute effective exposure of this beautiful planetary nebula without using the light pollution filter. Unlike M17's disappointing colors, M27's colors in the next image are displayed very nicely!

After midnight I was running out of energy. Since tracking seemed improved in the Cygnus sky area, I decided to try one last target there - the Eastern Veil Nebula, NGC6992. The entire Veil Nebula is a shock wave from the supernova explosion of a massive star about 10,000 to 20,000 years ago. It is a large, roughly circular supernova remnant about 3 degrees in diameter, much too large to fit within Seestar's field of view. The entire nebula is so big that its brighter segments have separate names. The Eastern Veil Nebula shown next is one of the brighter segments. I was amazed to see it show up in the following 15-minute exposure made with the light pollution filter engaged.

Once again, I'm disappointed in how colors are displayed. It's also possible the lens may have been fogging with dew because I hadn't turned on the lens heater. This object is a good candidate for a longer unfiltered exposure on another night with better sky conditions.

I enjoyed using Seestar again after two months of impossible observing conditions.

Sunspot Array

Hazy Sky

After more than three months of cloudy skies, uncomfortably high temperatures, and other obstacles a brief observing window opened for a few hours on the morning of July 28th. A cold front had passed through dropping the temperature to a comfortable 75 degrees. Humidity had decreased, and only temporary puffs of light breeze swept my observing site. The sky was milky white, however, from wildfire smoke, especially in the east where the Sun was gaining altitude. The following satellite image shows smoky conditions over my southeastern Virginia location.

Because observing windows are so rare these days I decided to set up my solar telescope in spite of the haze. Haze caused slight dimming and diminished contrast in the images below.

There were no particularly photogenic prominences this day, so I concentrated on capturing numerous sunspots spread across the disk. The following nine-panel mosaic shows the sunspot distribution and various filaments across the Sun.

A bright zigzag white solar flare was in progress to the left of the central sunspot group. These sunspot groups were active recently emitting several flares. The nine individual panels of the previous mosaic were made by stacking the best 400 individual frames from 4,000-frame videos.

The next two-panel mosaic was constructed by stacking the best 200 individual frames from 10,000-frame videos. By the time I captured the 10,000-frame videos seeing had improved, so sunspots are displaying good detail.

Next, are closeups of individual sunspot groups. First, sunspots 3762 to 3768 are showing magnetic arches on the left side.

The white zigzag flare seen in the first disk mosaic above had faded by the time the image above was recorded.

Finally, sunspots 3764 to 3767 include a few scattered white hot spots, including one that seems to be emerging from an umbra.

Click on images to enlarge and reveal fine detail.

The hazy observing window lasted only a few hours on July 28th. Then it was back to the usual summer clouds and heat. Due to recent complications in my life I was beginning to wonder if I would ever use my solar telescope again. It was nice to use the equipment once more.

Civil War Reenactment

Fort Pocahontas

While biking on the Virginia Capital Trail I noticed signs just beyond the 15-mile marker at Sturgeon Point Road for Fort Pocahontas. I followed the signs off the trail once out of curiosity and eventually came to a closed gate where there was nothing to see but another sign. Last year I discovered that Fort Pocahontas is the site for a large annual Civil War battle reenactment in early June. We eventually drove over one day last year to see the reenactment, but we arrived in late afternoon when all activities had ended. This year we planned better and arrived in the morning with time to explore and see everything.

The fort is located on beautiful forested land on the James River well separated from modern buildings. It sits on a relatively high piece of ground above a deep water landing once known as Wilson's Wharf. After navigating winding gravel roads we came to a parking area and paid a modest admission fee. Then we were free to roam around on foot into an 1864 world.

Hundreds of reeanactors had arrived to recreate the Civil War battle known as "The Action at Wilson's Wharf" on May 24th, 1864. (More about the battle below.) As we walked onto the site reenactors were gathering for group photos. The Confederate cavalry were impressive lined up together. The Confederate infantry and families all came together in their motley collection of clothing.

On a different field Union troops, all in standard uniforms, also lined up for photos and gun practice. When they all fired rifles simultaneously it was quite a loud show!

There are actually a surprising number of surviving Civil War earthworks scattered around my home in Virginia. For hundreds of years Fort Pocahontas' earthworks were well preserved by overgrowing vines. This allowed restoration to original appearance. One section of the restored fort is shown in the next three pictures. 

Additional barriers like this abatis discouraged infantry assaults.

What makes the Action at Wilson's Wharf particularly significant is the presence of thousands of African-American Union troops defending the fort. It was the first major battle to test these troops, and they performed admirably. A direct descendant of one of these heroic soldiers gave a talk before the battle reenactment began, and several other direct descendants attended in the audience. These soldiers were represented by some of the reenactors shown below in the Union camp.

We strolled through the Union campground. Aside from an occasional unobtrusive porta-potty, we might have seen similar scenes in 1864.

Within the camp an expert recreated authentic 1864 meals and cooking.

I previously mentioned how the site was located on a high bluff along the James River. The next picture shows reenactors who chose a particularly scenic campsite looking out over the James.

A few medical tents distributed among the campgrounds displayed amputated limbs and gruesome period medical instruments.

After leaving the Union camp I came upon the Binford House shown in the next picture below. If I understand the situation correctly, this house stands on the grounds of an original 1700's house owned by the Kennon family. Later, the Wilson farm was established in 1835 and had a house at this location. The Wilson house burned down in 1876. The Binford house in the picture below was moved to the present location in 2000 and renovated. The Binford house, from Southhampton County, VA, is a 1700's house similar to the Wilson house.

Folks who owned land along the James River long ago knew how to pick beautiful spots for houses. There was a lovely river view from the Binford house backyard! A museum within the house was open for inspection, but there wasn't enough time to visit before the battle reenactment was scheduled to start.

Not far from the Binford house on the approach to the Confederate camp two merchants set up their 1864 establishments.

Amusing signs described goods and services.

The Confederate camp seemed a bit less attractive than the Union camp. Each campsite looked less well equipped as if the occupants were less wealthy than their Union counterparts.

One tent belonged to two ladies who mended and washed clothes. They asked if I would like my clothes washed and offered half price on my "half pants" because I was wearing shorts! As I chuckled about the shorts description I turned around to a startling sight. The following character suddenly appeared before me as if he had dropped out of nowhere from a time machine.

This particular reeanactor was portraying Delegate Robert Eden Scott, a Virginia House of Delegates member representing Fauquier County. He lived from April 23, 1808 to May 3, 1862, so he actually died before the 1864 battle reenactment. He was a slave owner who attended the Virginia Secession Convention of 1861 where he ultimately voted to support secession and stood on the wrong side of history. He died at his farm in 1862 where he was killed by Union deserters.

Confederate cavalry horses were kept within the Confederate camp.

The battle reenactment was scheduled to begin at 1:00 pm. We made our way to a large tent where spectators were safely confined a short distance away from the battlefield action. There we heard some informative talks about the land, the soldiers, and the history of this particular battle. A direct descendant of President John Tyler described how his father purchased the land to prevent its development and arranged for the renovation. An African-American Union soldier reeanactor told us more about the African-American troops who fought bravely in the battle.

When the battle reeanactment actually began a knowledgeable woman narrated battle events as they took place. In 1864 about 1,000 Union soldiers withstood the attack of about 2,500 Confederate troops and held the fort. The Confederates, led by Major General Fitzhugh Lee, a nephew of Robert E. Lee, eventually withdrew and gave up. When Fitzhugh Lee demanded the fort's surrender, the fort commander, Brigadier General Edward Wild, replied "Present my compliments to General Fitz Lee and tell him to go to hell."

The battle reeanactment featured a few hundred participants, many fewer than the thousands in the 1864 clash. Loud rifle and artillery fire assaulted our ears as participants maneuvered around the battlefield. Clouds of smelly gunpowder smoke drifted around. When Confederate cavalry formed together and charged with drawn swords it was quite impressive! It was frightening to imagine being a foot soldier in the path of so many charging horses. Unfortunately, I have very few still photos of the battle because I recorded mostly videos to include sounds and action. The next image below doesn't really capture the full cavalry group aligned for the charge.

Two other battle images show at least a large portion of the battlefield with troops spread out and gunsmoke in the air. They also show three girls in brightly colored dresses who played the role of "ice angels". These young women behind the lines would bring cold water to soldiers, especially wounded ones.

I'm so glad we made the effort to see this event. It was an interesting way to spend a few hours on a beautiful sunny day.