August Seestar

Summer Celestial Scenes From My Backyard

Although cloudless sky was a little hazy on August 16th, none of my neighbors had turned on glaring spotlights. It seemed like a good opportunity to use Seestar, even if conditions were imperfect.

In spite of haziness, I was able to capture a nice mosaic image of galaxy NGC6946 and open cluster NGC6939 together in the same field of view. These objects in the constellation Cepheus are separated by only 39 arc minutes (0.65 degrees). The following image is a 45-minute exposure with detail good enough to be viewed at full size. The star cluster, only about 5,900 light years away, is a member of our own Milky Way galaxy. On the other hand, galaxy NGC6946, about 22 million light years away, is far beyond the Milky Way. These objects just happen to be nearly along the same line of sight from our point of view.

I next tried to image nebulosity in Sagittarius. After engaging the light pollution filter I could only manage the following 30-minute exposure before increasing haziness made the sky milky white. At that point it was time to quit this August 16th session.

There are at least four named nebulae in the next picture. The most prominent red emission nebula just above center is IC1284. The dim red glow just to the upper right of IC1284 is another emission nebula, IC1283. The silvery white glow surrounding two stars in the center is reflection nebula NGC6595. Enlarge the image to see the faint presence of a tiny dark nebula within NGC6595's white glow. Another small white reflection nebula, NGC6589, is located to the upper right of NGC6595. Diffuse red Milky Way glow spreads across the bottom of the frame. As always, I'm disappointed by the dull red color produced by Seestar.  

A new Moon and clear sky beckoned on August 22nd. I began by targeting the Cave Nebula, Caldwell 9, in Cepheus using mosaic mode and the light pollution filter. Although I was able to get a 70-minute exposure, the nebula seemed dim. It might have been better to try the Cave Nebula alone without mosaic mode. The dark cave entrance does show up, but surrounding nebulosity is very faint.

Mosaic mode allows a field of view large enough to include the entire Andromeda Galaxy, M31, in Pegasus. My previous images of M31 included only segments which I unsuccessfully tried to blend together in a panorama. Mosaic mode allowed the whole galaxy to appear at once in the following 68-minute exposure. During this exposure a powerful neighbor light was suddenly turned on. I rushed inside to get a card table which can be set up to block the glaring light from hitting Seestar. Looks like the offending light didn't ruin this image of M31 and its two satellite galaxies.

Clear sky lasted well after midnight. I plugged a power cord into Seestar to recharge the nearly depleted battery and moved to a new target, the Pelican Nebula, IC5070, in Cygnus. The pelican's head and long beak extend diagonally downward from right to left in the following 60-minute exposure with light pollution filter. Bright blue star 57 Cygni sits to the left of the pelican's upper beak. Another bright star, 56 Cygni, is on the pelican's right side. The dull red nebula color is, again, disappointing.

With a few hours remaining before dawn I took a few images of planets Neptune and Uranus. A future post will describe the surprising details I saw!