Hazy Sky

Warm Weather

The sky was cloudless on the warm evening of May 12th. I set Seestar to equatorial mode and began imaging galaxy M104 in Virgo at about 9:22 EDT. The 83-minute exposure shown below is a definite improvement over a previous 30-minute exposure made two years ago. This image was made by stacking 498 useable 10-second subframes. During the exposure only 4 subframes were rejected. Equatorial mode makes this small rejection rate possible.

Clouds remained absent while the constellation Cygnus rose in the northeast. I decided to aim Seestar at IC1318, the Gamma Cygni Nebula. This nebula is part of a collection of nebulae too large to entirely fit into Seestar's field of view. Using mosaic mode, I was able to capture only part of the larger whole. IC1318 is also called the Butterfly Nebula. I captured only one of the wings. The next picture is a 215-minute exposure (3 hours 35 minutes). It consists of 1290 useable 10-second subframes with only 6 rejected frames. The sky had become milky white at this point, so it was time to end the session. Results would have been better under more transparent skies.

No clouds were present on May 18th, but the sky was hazy again. I used this less-than-ideal observing opportunity to make a 2-hour mosaic mode exposure of planetary nebula M97 together with galaxy M108 in Ursa Major. 720 10-second subframes were used. Only 6 subframes were rejected. The next image is an improvement over a 60-minute exposure made a year ago. If you enlarge the image to full size, a hint of red color shows up on the lower rim of M97. M97 and all the stars are foreground objects in our own galaxy. M97 is 1,700 light years away. Galaxy M108 is 32 million light years away beyond our galaxy.

The next target on May 18th was nebula IC1396 in Cepheus. I made a filtered 162-minute mosaic mode exposure in the hazy sky. The resulting image was very faint except for the famous "Elephant Trunk" nebula which was off center on the very edge of the field. I need to try this again with clearer skies and better centering. It might be a long wait before clear moonless non-hazy conditions return.