Backyard observing with my C8

Last Friday night I imaged for the first time from my backyard with the SBIG camera and did so on my 8" Celestron SCT, another first. Fall weather is definitely setting in. I could feel the moisture in the air and the temperature was much lower earlier in the evening than on other nights I've observed. I put together my setup with the idea that I would finish by around midnight to avoid any risk of dew affecting my optics or my camera.

Doing the setup for the first time with new equipment took awhile longer than usual of course and there was some learning involved. I had to use all three of my eleven pound counter-weights to balance the telescopes and accessories (C8 with the Orion 80mm guide scope attached, ST-402ME, flip-mirror, 30mm eyepiece) properly. I did the polar alignment with just two stars and it seemed to be adequate. What made it difficult was that I hadn't taken time to align my guide scope and C8, which made centering the alignment stars difficult. Using the APO I typically use a reflex sight, but do not yet I have it mounted on the C8 (something I need to do but it isn't trivial). As expected, with the C8's longer focal length I don't have the wider field of view that I have with the 80mm refractor, making finding the stars more difficult. It took longer than it should have, but I got it done.

My targets were to be Jupiter and the Dumbell nebula (which I've imaged with the 80mm refractor). Unfortunately, Jupiter passed behind the trees before I could get my scope set up, leaving me only a narrow window later in the night to capture it as it passed through a narrow gap between two other trees. I moved on to the Dumbell nebula and my alignment was good enough to put it in the scope on the first try, though some centering was necessary. I took a quick 30" monochrome image of it and was struck immediately by the higher level of background noise which I believe is associated with the light pollution in the city. I set up the auto-guiding and took a 120" image and found it to be decent enough to go ahead with an RGB image. Again I limited it to 120" and a version of it is shown above. Focus was good based upon the use of the Bahtinov mask, but this image has the appearance of being a bit out of focus; I believe (hope) that this is just a function of the poor seeing conditions. I am pleased with the fact that I fairly easily found and imaged this object with the 2000mm focal length C8 after being told by more experienced people of how difficult it is. It definitely makes me want to use the C8 more often in the future on the smaller objects. You can go to my earlier posting with the Dumbell through the 80mm refractor to appreciate the difference in the size of the object in the picture.

I did capture Jupiter in the narrow window available to me later that evening. However, as I half expected, it was way too bright for my camera even at the shortest exposure time. When I processed the image later and reduced the brightness I could barely make out the bands in the atmosphere. To try to address this in the future I've ordered a polarizing filter that should allow me to reduce the brightness up to 40%. I can also try to stop-down my aperture. Unfortunately, I apparently have no ability to adjust the gain on the ST-402. I'd like to hear other recommendations if anyone cares to comment.

Unfortunately clouds and rain are moving in and I will not be able to image again for the foreseeable future. I'm still hoping for an opportunity in October on the east side of the mountains.

Orion Captured in Color

I spent last night at the White River Sno-park about 6 miles east of Government camp on Hwy 35. It's just a big parking lot which is almost completely unvisited this time of the year. Of course my goal was to complete the quest that began on Sunday to image M42 in Orion. This time I powered down the computer with about 72% computer battery life remaining (around midnight) and waited for Orion to come up over the eastern hills. I spent my battery's first 28% on the Veil (West) Nebula after having captured the "East" version last Sunday. That image is as yet unprocessed because I spent all of my time so far on M42.

I'm learning something new each time I go out. I learned this time how to use the "auto-grab" feature to capture color images... manually selecting the filter before the "grab". I took exposures at 5", 15", 30", 60", 90" and 120" and found that blooming (over-exposure) of stars was very bad on the blue filter at 120" and bad at 90". When I got back I found that they were also present at 60". After seeing the blooming I spent the rest of the night gathering 30" exposures with RGB and Clear filters, getting about twenty four exposures in all (12 minutes). The challenge now is finding the best way to calibrate, register, stack, and RGB-combine all of them. With the software I have (CCDOps and DeepSkyStacker) it looks like a very difficult task.

I did just find out that I can easily fix the blooming artifacts using a utility in CCDOps and this has enabled me to produce the image above from the single 120" exposure. Sorry... no RG colorblind version yet. Had I know they would have been this easy to fix I would have taken more of them. Given that I have six times more data than what is contained in the image above, I believe I should be able to improve the image significantly with more work... but it won't be any time soon. I think this is why most imagers talk about image processing being their "winter project".

Wind and the moon are returning, so last night was my last night imaging with the 80mm refractor for at least another month. If the weather ends up being good, I'll go to SkyView Acres in October. I may try to set up my 8" SCT in the back yard (moon or no moon) if the weather permits, just to start debugging that setup and appreciating the difficulties associated with a longer focal length scope.

Orion the Hunted

I just returned today from a new observation site (for me) called Skyview Acres near Goldendale, WA. It is a piece of land owned by a Washington astronomy buff who bought it with the intent of using it to host star parties. I just went for one night (Sunday), however people were there from Thursday through Sunday nights. Sunday, as I had suspected, turned out to be the best night for observing/imaging with almost no wind, no significant dew and very clear, dark skies.

My main objective was to use my new color capability to image M42 in the constellation Orion (The Hunter). Unfortunately, with Orion coming up only after 1am and not getting reasonably high in the sky until about 2:30am, I ended up draining most of my battery life before 2:30am. I felt I was getting some very good images and was on a roll that was hard to stop. I powered down with about 18% battery life remaining, which I thought was enough, however shortly after I started imaging the computer automatically powered down and interrupted the imaging after the exposure with the green filter (leaving the blue not done). It was only a 30 second exposure, but I got a tantalizing taste of what Orion can be like on my camera. Despite my not taking the time to carefully center it, I got lucky and it was very well centered (amazing because it nearly fills the field of view). The red filter exposure is shown here with the contrast range increased to show detail in the outer boundaries (saturating detail in the core). Amazing! I've got to get back to this and this time save my battery power!

Okay, now for those good images I was speaking of... at the top, after M42, is the Pelican nebula followed by a blue version for the red-green color-blind people of the world (like my two brothers). Following this are (likewise paired with blue versions) by the Veil Nebula (East), and then the Bubble Nebula. I used the new Bahtinov focus mask to establish my focus up-front, and I thought it was doing pretty well until I got home and saw the Bubble Nebula image... which seems to be a bit out of focus. I had rechecked the focus later in the night with the Bahtinov (before M42) and it looked good, so I don't really know what went wrong. Pelican and Veil are both pretty good.

I also imaged Pleaides, M78 (also in Orion), and M1 (the Crab Nebula), but those did not seem worth publishing here. Crab doesn't have a lot of color, but has a lot of detail that is worth going back and imaging with longer exposures. Pleaides is just tough because it is so bright. M78 also requires more time than I gave it.

The Skyview Acres site worked out very well and I'm looking forward to possibly going back in October. It is NOT a quiet site. There were two donkeys that brayed intermittently through the night. I can't describe the sound well here but I can say that it would have been a bit spooky if I hadn't known that they were donkeys and if it wasn't at the same time so funny! There were also dogs barking, coyotes yapping and howling, bird sounds, guns being fired in the distance, car noises in the distance, and in the morning a lot of noise with neighbors getting up and tending to chores. There was one bright yard light in the distance but it was very tolerable for people imaging (all three of us there were imaging). There was a lot of wildlife... I mentioned the coyotes, but there were a lot of deer walking through the meadows in both the evening and the morning after. I also saw a flock of six wild turkeys and a bunch of bluebirds (seldom seen here in the west side of the mountains).

Both of the other guys there had pickups towing trailers. I had the back of the Honda Civic to sleep in and no, I didn't get any sleep, despite trying after the computer battery died. I got home on a caffeine tablet and haven't yet gone to bed. I already thinking about how I might be able to get out and take another shot at Orion tomorrow night!

Color!

Being quite happy with my SBIG ST-402 camera in monochrome... and not liking several aspects of using the Nikon D40... I decided to order a color wheel for the ST-402 so that it can take RGB color images. Last night I tried it out at Larch Mountain and captured the image you see above of M27, the "Dumbell Nebula" (planetary nebula). Right now my image processing skills and software are not up-to-snuff, but I did what I could (what was obvious) with what I have and this was the result. There are couple of stars that saturated and flared and there is slight off-set in the red image (corrected as best I could in CCDOPS). The focus is not too bad, but should get better in the future, as I've ordered a Bahtinov focus mask, which is known to be quick and effective in establishing sharp focus. The image posted is only a combination of three images red, green and blue each 30 seconds in exposure. I a couple of other done the same way that I'll be processing and potentially stacking with each other. I did use guiding but used shorter duration exposures due to the wind being a bit of an issue (some fairly strong gusts).

Since the moon was coming up around 10pm, I didn't have much time. My priority was M27 and I'm pretty happy with my first color image on the ST-402. I did use some extra time to shoot the Veil Nebula (East) and the one brighter comet that is up now (2006-Christie/Aql). The Veil was a learning experience because it takes a longer exposure that most just to see that it is there, which makes framing the image more difficult. If I had had time I would have rotated the camera for the first time to improve framing since the Veil is long and skinny and needed to be horizontal (but was vertical in my view). Being faint, I needed more exposures that what I had time for. So... I'll come back to the Veil in the future.

The comet did not have a significant tail, so wasn't real exciting. I'll post it here once I finish the processing on it. Just out of curiosity, I did one set of RGB exposures, but don't expect to see anything much. I took seven monochrome exposures of 30" each. It was on this comet that my guiding started failing on me. I suspect it was due to either 1) shabby polar alignment (since it happened right away when I went to this new object, which was farther south), 2) poorer signal-to-noise ratio on the guide star due to the increasing moonlight... though perhaps both were at play.

The night was pretty peaceful with only a few other people up there. Two cars and a motorcycle were there when I first came and the two cars left, but a few more cars came after dark, making me wonder what the heck they would be doing up there. Two drove into the parking lot (fortunately not while I was taking light-exposures), one driving all the way down to the end and back and the other kindly turning around as soon as he saw me (an astronomer perhaps?). The only other annoyance were the planes routinely coming over, though I don't think they ended up having any effect on my images.

I wonder how many days we'll have left in September to do some decent astronomy. The prime time is Sept. 16th to 25th with no moon, but the near term shows some clouds moving in. If they go away sometime later next week I may just head out again for another imaging session, so stay tuned.

The Fearful Cry Out

Last week, when President Obama declared his intentions to give a “back to school” talk to American children, there was an outcry from some conservatives who felt that he was trying to “indoctrinate” their children with his political views. This was a week before they even new the detail of what he was to talk about. They called the speech “politically motivated”. Many declared that they would keep their children home from school because they shouldn’t have to listen to the speech.

While they looked like fools at the start, they look even more the part now after the speech has been made and the reality was that was not a political speech but rather one to inspire the children to stay in school and to work hard at it. Of course that is the way the Obama administration was describing the speech from the beginning. However, now the Republicans can claim (and some are claiming it) that Obama changed the speech because of the objections raised. Of course it can’t be proven that they are wrong and those who believe it was all political and indoctrination will go on believing it because that is what they want to believe.

I’m not sure if the republicans are “being political” about this or whether it is just that the very conservative representatives of the party who are just as intellectually handicapped as the people who elected them. These people are certainly not opposed to the principle of indoctrination because they use it themselves on their children… not just to infuse them with their politics but also to infuse them with their extreme form of religion. I wonder how many of those complaining did not even have their children in public schools, but instead home-school… the long-time refuge for the fearful.

What they are afraid of is actually what most people would call a “good education”… one which would encourage children to use their minds freely and fully to understand the world around them and to apply that knowledge to leading a better life. They don’t want their kids to have ideas of their own (at least when they conflict with those of their parents) and they want their children to be fearful and obedient. They are masters at controlling their children with fear and censorship to mold them into good, upstanding, bible thumping, all-American, “my country right or wrong”, kind of people. The people that are speaking out fear intelligent and educated people because intelligence and education undermine dogmas.

While I don’t doubt that most of these people genuinely feel that they are doing what is best for their children, I feel that in many cases they are not. Most conservatives will passionately defend the concept of individual freedom and yet at the same time they will shackle their children’s minds with dogma, censorship, and various forms of manipulation. Truly free people are free to gain experience of their own and decide from that experience what is worthy of belief. Good, supportive parents promote broad life experience and the uninhibited exploration of a range of ideas. It is through this process that you raise a child who lives a life custom-fit with his/her unique personality and abilities... a path more likely to lead to their happiness. Whatever such people choose to believe in the realm of politics or religion I’m fine with. What the machines of fundamentalism and the new republicans are turning out today are not free individuals… they are robots chanting the same mantra and continuing the same politics driven by fear.

Trout Lake - Aug. 26

Per plan, I went to Trout Lake last night for more imaging. I was all by myself in the Flat Top Sno-park parking lot... except for the bees (and some birds) and whatever may have been creeping around in the surrounding trees. I stayed until 1:30am, finally driven out by the cold and being tired (worked out the previous morning). The trip was worth it though, in that I did get auto-guiding working and got some new images.

The first image (top) is a 1x5' exposure of the Sunflower galaxy. This is the first time I've ever viewed it. I definitely want to come back to this one to get longer exposures and see more of the detail I'm starting to pick up around the edges. It also looks very nice in color based upon other images I've seen.

The next image is again new object for me... M106. On this one I only did a 45" unguided exposure on this one because I was having trouble finding a guide star. At the time it didn't look very interesting either, but after processing it at home I reduced the brightness and saw the 'bars' on it... different from any other I've seen yet. Maybe a better approach on this one is a combination of shorter exposures. Definitely an interesting object.

The next image is M101, which I imaged at OSP, but didn't get much data on. What I saw sparked my interest though, so I went back for more with auto-guiding. This image is a combination of 1x45"+1x300"+1x600" for a total of close to 16 minutes. While again I think focus could be better, I'm fairly happy with this one.

The next image, M94, is another new one that is a 1x5' exposure. At this exposure time, what I see is pretty bland, but there are hints of more in the outskirts of the galaxy. I will confirm this on reference photos and may go back to it.

The last image is a total of 35 minutes of M31 (Andromeda Galaxy)... a 5x5'+1x10' combination. Note some of the brighter stars have flaring at the top and bottom... one of the disadvantages of longer exposures. Another disadvantage is that you are more likely to have defects (i.e. cosmic ray events, planes, satellites, etc.) affecting the frame and you lose more data if you throw it out. There image processing tools to get rid of the flaring but I haven't gotten there yet. These shots came out with very dark backgrounds from the beginning in all of the subframes. I'm not sure if it was because the object was higher in the sky (better 'seeing') or not. Note that the dark dust in the outer reaches of the galaxy are very well defined.

I considered moving on to using my Nikon D40, but, as I've said, I was cold and tired and my computer battery was also getting a bit low. I'll devote my next dark sky session to the D40... though who knows when that will be! Any more warmer weather coming? In the meantime, I think I'm going to start seeing what I can do in my backyard with both the APO and the C8.

New version of M33

Here's a new version of M33 that combines my full set of 30" and 45" exposures for about 23 minutes total.

In preparation for improving my auto-guiding, I've ordered new rings for the 80mm guide scope that will allow me to move the telescope and center the guide star. I've also downloaded the latest version of PHD software (my old one was version 1.7 and they are now on version 1.10 with many improvements). Finally, I believe the key is using a "Mount" setting of "On Camera". We'll see how this all works out Wednesday night.

More OSP pictures

Here is a second batch of pictures from OSP. Generally, these used fewer exposures than the others, but they're not too bad. All are again using the 80mm APO refractor and the SBIG ST-402 camera. The first picture is of the Lagoon nebula, done as a stack of 4x30" + 1x45" exposures. This one would be much more fascinating in color (as most nebulae are). Next is the Ring Nebula (M57) done as 5x5". The originals show the dark center of the ring overwhelmed by the light of the ring itself such that I saw a solid white blob. This brightness was toned down in image processing but the result is still not very satisfying, due to the small size of the object. I had posted a Nikon picture of this earlier and it was more exciting if for no other reason than that it was blue.

The next picture is M101, exposed as 2x30". Despite the few exposures, it came out pretty nice! Next is M51, the Whirlpool galaxy. This one was a 6x30" exposure. If you look in the upper right corner you can see another very small galaxy that is called "IC 4263". The size of this object is 1.7x0.4 arc-minutes and there is a +13.8mag star superimposed over it. Next are two globular clusters, M13 and M22, both of which are single 30" exposures.

I hope to get out again over the next week to see if I can have some success with auto-guiding. If I can, I should be able to provide some much better images.

Back from the Oregon Star Party

I just got back today from the Oregon Star Party at Indian Trail Springs in the Ochoco mountains of Central Oregon. I spent two nights there and imaged with my 80mm APO refractor on both nights using both my Nikon D40 and my new SBIG ST-402 camera. I didn't not use my Celestron 8" SCT at all (at the recommendation of an experienced imager who said I'd be wasting the dark skies due to it's long focal length). Unfortunately, I was unable to use auto-guiding again, but I think I know what I have to do now to make it work. Still, with the SBIG, I was able to make some progress towards better images even using exposure times up to only 45 seconds. For some objects, I took twenty to thirty 30" exposures and am now using software (DeepSkyStacker) to stack them up.

So... the pictures above represent some of my better results and my first attempt at image processing on them. At the top is the best picture I took with the Nikon D40, of the Orion Nebula. I don't think the focus is perfect in this shot and it is only a single 55.1" exposure using ISO1600 (noise reduction 'on'). I'm amazed at how much I can see in this and am anxious to go back to it with a color wheel on my ST-402 (still need to buy one) and take very long exposures. This has always been one of my favorite deep sky objects.

The rest of the photos were taken on my ST-402 for which monochrome is currently the only option. The first (below Orion) is Bode's galaxy (M81), one that I have never seen through one of my telescopes before (not for lack of trying). This is a stack of six exposures of one minute each. Below that is the Helix nebula, again one that I have never observed through my scopes (though probably could have in this case). This is a very large (or close) planetary nebula. It's a 10x30" exposure. Below the Helix is a 23x30" shot of the Andromeda galaxy (M31). Below Andromeda is the Pinwheel galaxy in Triangulum... a 20x30" exposure. This is one of only three spiral galaxies in our local group (the others being our Milky Way and Andromeda). Finally, the last photo is of M3, the globular cluster that I had previously posted a picture of from my Nikon, along with a reference photo from the web. As you can see, this new photo is much more comparable to the reference photo!

These images, though a huge improvement for me, are still not very good when compared to what experienced imagers generate. What I need to improve on is 1) Use auto-guiding for longer exposures, 2) Optimize focus (always tough), and 3)become a better image processor.

I'm still a struggling beginner, but I think I've finally come far enough to feel a little satisfaction and a lot of motivation to continue. The cost of the equipment I used for the photos above (not including my Nikon, which I previously owned) was about $4600. All of this equipment is considered 'entry level'... the $1200 Orion Sirius mount (though it wins high praise for it's capability), the $1600 SBIG ST-402 (used only as a guide camera by many imagers), and the $700 Orion 80mm EON refractor. Besides these items, the other equipment was an assortment of adapters and the power station for remote sites. More serious amateurs use cameras costing closer to $5000 and some use more expensive mounts and telescopes. Finer equipment can probably buy the ability to do location, centering and guiding with higher precision and probably makes the use of longer focal length (more magnification and therefore level of detail) easier. At this point I think I'm going to be like many amateurs and just use my inexpensive equipment and embrace the challenge of getting the most out of it through refined technique and tweaks to the equipment. There are amateurs (some local ones!) who are even going beyond imaging and using photometry to gather data on variable stars and known planets orbiting other suns (easy targets like "hot Jupiters" with two day orbital periods). This is a good hobby!

Another picture from Trout Lake

Here's one more picture... one that I almost threw out after looking at it on my computer. In fact, I had deleted it, but when looking at the pictures on my camera, I saw a planetary nebula! The brightness on the computer was not high enough to see it. This is the Ring Nebula, the last one I photographed, and was about 36" of exposure on my Nikon at 1600 ISO with noise reduction 'on'. Notice the slight star trails, betraying my less than perfect polar alignment. But hey, I'm happy with it as my first picture of a planetary nebula. This looks very much like a blue halo I saw near Polaris last year. What I've learned is that such things can be caused by dust particles in the optics. In this case, I know it's real because 1) The ring nebula is what I was trying to photograph and 2) the star patterns near it check out with what my SkyTools 3 program shows.

Catching up

In these last few months I have begun two new projects and continued my persistent efforts to become better at astro-photography. I'm doing some math tutoring this summer, testing the waters to see if I would want to continue doing tutoring as a business. I am also learning Visual C# programming and used the tutoring to motivate my first project, a "mental math" trainer for potential students who need help with basic arithmetic. No, I'm not giving up on retirement! I'm just trying to continue learning and expand my possibilities for productivity.

I'm not sure I enjoy tutoring yet and probably won't until I learn how turn around some kids who (for whatever reason) hate math and have had their self-confidence shaken by their previous experiences with it. It is probably not possible to rescue all of them, but I feel far too many are being let down by public schools and some can be turned around. Even if I don't like doing the job of turning them around, some success could motivate me to do more of it just because it can be so positively impactful on people's lives. I already know that I enjoy programming and C# gives me another tool that can turn ideas into something worthwhile.

Astro-photography (or "astro-imaging" as I'm starting to prefer calling it) is continuing to lure me in. It is quite easy to spend a lot of money doing it, however it's becoming clearer every day (especially after this weekend) that it can be done well for far less than some people spend on it. I've started down the path of upgrading equipment, but have already made some mistakes in the process and wasted money. I have solved some basic problems though, in that I have improved significantly the quality of the "mount" and camera. This helps me with two of what seem to be the three key elements of astro-imaging... 1) minimizing the effects of objects motion through the sky, 2) minimizing the corruption of images through what you do to capture the photons, and 3) getting as much out of the incoming photons as possible to create an accurate representation of what the object is. The mount helps with item #1 and the camera helps mostly with #3. Item three could probably be improved the most by improving my telescope... though that is probably the toughest thing to do wisely (and why it's happening last for me, if it happens at all).

My new mount is an Orion Sirius EQ-G that cost about $1300 and my new camera is an SBIG ST-402 that cost about $1600. While both are a step up, they are still considered 'lower end' equipment. With upgrades such as this there are always new adapters and other small items necessary to make them work well. This last weekend I was unable to test out my camera (due to one of those adapters still being in the mail) but was able to start learning how to use the new mount with my Nikon D40.

The event was a "star party" at Flattop sno-park near Trout Lake, Washington. The best "seeing" was later in the night after early clouds and haze had cleared and I was unable to take full advantage of it because my Nikon battery died. Most of the value of the evening was in the learning I was able to do, with major help coming from my neighbor at the party (Neal), who has been doing A-I for five years already, has the same mount I have, and has produced some outstanding results. Because he has the same mount I have, he was able to help me understand and overcome my first major problem, which was that the mount did not have the most up-to-date firmware and had a bug which caused the mount to go to the wrong position in the sky. He kindly took time out from his own work to download the latest firmware into my equipment. Major save!

Once I had the mount working, I was able to learn how to align it (though I need to get better at it) and go to various objects in the sky. Even a good mount, once on the object of interest, needs some help keeping that object motionless in the field of view. The tough way to do this is for the user to watch the object constantly and manually make corrections to the position and the easy way is to use a cheap camera and software to automate the job (called "auto-guiding"). I had purchased an auto-guider but was unable to utilize it for several reasons, some known and some as yet unknown. One reason was that some of the hardware was defective (a mis-tapped hole for a bolt used to hold the camera) and another was that I forgot to set the gain back to 95% on the camera after setting it to 5% in the checkout procedure. However, I also got the impression that even with those issues solved I will have an issue focusing when I try it again. The lack of this capability made it impossible for me to improve my image quality much that evening, though I was able to get two new images (shown above, M103... an open star cluster, and M31, the Andromeda galaxy... double-click on them to get a better view). The one globular cluster I managed to image was no better than my last. I suspect that the seeing, tracking issues,focusing issues and the Nikon D40 all played major roles in giving me these poor images... all things that should be corrected or improved (or compensated for) when I go to the Oregon Star Party in August. The 'globs' will be my primary metric for my improvement and I'm hoping that, in the end, I will be able to better sort out the issues and quantify their contribution to the poor images taken to-date.

One may wonder why I'm doing the astro-imaging, when I can look at the images taken by the professionals and other amateurs to enjoy the "wonders of the universe". The answer, I think, is that working through the issues one encounters along the way is educational, interesting, and satisfying... even though it can also be extremely frustrating and expensive. It also allows me to explore the sky on my own, choosing where to look and when to look, and therefore adding some element of new possibilities... capturing fleeting events or seeing things that others may not yet have seen (things that you can't get from a book). Seeing pictures of Rome still can't capture the feeling of being there... but can remind one of times spent there. Likewise, astro-images can remind one of times spent underneath deep dark skies and all of the good feelings they can evoke.

First Image of a deep-sky object

Tonight I polar-aligned my scope (though not very exactly) and started searching for deep-sky objects to photograph. It was far more difficult than I had expected. Though I was dialing in locations based on RA and Dec setting circles with pretty good accuracy, I was not having any success in finding objects... even in my 8x50 finder. Some of these were supposed to be fairly bright objects. I suspect that a big part of the problem is the not-so-dark skies of suburban Portland. On the verge of giving up, I finally succeeded in locating one... M3, a globular cluster. I ended up seeing it not in my finder, but in directly through my camera's view-finder, hooked up for prime-focus photography. The magnification is slightly more than when I use a 30mm lens, but the camera's field of view is cut-down. I used my standard 30", 1600 Iso, with noise-reduction 'on' (Nikon D40) and this time of course used the clock-drive. I can't say I'm thrilled with the photo (mine is the lower photo, compared with what it is supposed to look like... the top photo), which clearly isn't showing many of the stars and is probably a little out of focus, but for a first try I guess it's okay. Based upon what I see, I think that I need longer exposures, which means I need to try again with darker skies and better polar alignment. I may find I'm near the limit of my DSLR, which would probably mean I'd by a CCD camera designed for astro-photography (with cooling, hence less noise). I also need to look at accessories that allow me to use a lens at the same time as my camera, to aid in finding objects (it's harder seeing objects through the camera's finder) and focusing.

Astrophotography progress

On April 4th and 6th we had clear skies and I was able to take advantage of it with my 8" Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope (C-8 Powerstar PEC). On the 4th I experimented for the first time with eye-piece-projection photography on Saturn using a newly purchased camera adapter. I confirmed fairly quickly the difficulties that others have described with this technique. At high enough magnification to get any detail of Saturn (10mm lens), the planet was very hard to find and contain with-in the narrowed field of view that results from eye-piece projection (compounded by the relatively long focal length of my telescope and the fact that my clock drive was not working). I ended up resorting to using prime-focus photography, however the lower magnification gave me little to see except the bright planet and rings (no moons or surface detail).

On April 6th I experimented with deep space photography using longer exposures. Without my clock drive working, I got by pointing my telescope at the celestial north pole (the area of Polaris, the north star) where the motion of the stars is slower (shorter distance to cover in the same 24 hour period). I took 10", 20", and 30" exposures and was surprised to see that even the 30" exposure (included above) came out very nice (though it did show very slight motion trails). I noted a blue halo near one star, which I'm sure must be either an artifact from camera or telescope or a reflection from a high altitude cloud formation; it looks amazingly like a planetary nebula though! I'm going to investigate this further on the next clear night. I also spent time checking the correspondence between my photograph and the star maps, identifying stars and their magnitudes. My photographs captured stars that were around +13.6 magnitude, despite the poor conditions (moon, moisture, and city lights). Surprisingly, there were some stars that should have been there but didn't register... another thing I need to better understand (glare, pixel resolution... ?). I'm anxious to get my first photographs in a truly dark sky!

Since those observations, I took my telescope clock-drive over to my brother Dave's watch repair shop and looked it over with him. When I first purchased the telescope in 1993, it worked briefly and then just stopped, never to work again. At the time the Celestron technical support advised me over the phone to try tweaking the adjustment screws that hold the worm gear up against the large gear that rotates the telescope (though he cautioned me that it was a tricky adjustment). I was reluctant to mess with it at the time, but in Dave's shop we did it. Dave loosened the screws and immediately confirmed that the motor was working. He then re-engaged the gears and it continued to work, even after they were tightened. While I can't be sure until I get a full rotation, I think it's working again and I'm really excited about trying to photograph some real deep-sky objects on the next night the sky is clear. With this progress, I'm actually now in position to get drawn into astro-photography as a regular hobby. The plan is to see what I can get out of my Nikon D40, C8, and a working clock drive, before I start spending $ on any more sophisticated equipment. I was never really that excited about the views I could get through my C8, but I can get excited about what I've seen amateurs produce with CCD camera's. In addition, there's the excitement of getting real-time data, with the potential of capturing objects (e.g. comets) that others have not yet seen (though the odds are not good). At the very least, I'll extend my own experience with the night sky.

The Moral Animal

Having just finished another book, “The Moral Animal”, by Robert Wright, I’m prompted to get back to blogging after my winter lull. My reading of this book coincidentally comes in the year of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, whose life the book thoroughly dissects from the perspective of evolutionary psychology. It treats the reader to some great insight into who Darwin was as a person and how he may have come to be that person. The introspective reader will find much food for thought as the origin of our most basic behaviors are speculatively (though reasonably) discussed.

For those who understand the theory of biological evolution and acknowledge the substantial evidence supporting it (and lack of any other credible theories), it is no leap at all to believe that our human behaviors are at least partly attributable to it. The difficulty is in understanding (and especially in proving) exactly how those behaviors evolved and what role genes (versus environment) played in the process. Wright makes, however, a very credible case for at least a high-level understanding of evolved human behavior. Like Darwin’s theory, it will not be warmly embraced by a general public who is waiting to have their cherished fantasies established as objective reality. For those who understand that such reality does not conform to human desire, but rather waits to be discovered by those who can see past it, the material Wright discusses awaits them as a real treat.

Evolution of a species is driven by which genetic materials make it through the filter represented by the environmental challenges to its survival. Because evolution operates only very slowly (particularly for species such as ours with long gestation), these environmental challenges though are the ones that existed before our civilization arose about ten thousand years ago. The behaviors that promote that survival are going to be the most prevalent behaviors today. Studies of our primate cousins, however, suggest that the origin of those behaviors was in fact much more ancient because they show commonalities with basic human behaviors.

Among the behaviors discussed in this book are those surrounding the pursuit of sex, which is of course primal to the proliferation of genes. Individual status within a group is a prime determiner of the number of opportunities for sex that a given male gets. The range of behaviors that relate to this status are the source of many interesting discussions in this book. One in particular that is very interesting is the tendency to be dishonest to promote ones status, but even more interesting is the tendency to believe ones own lies so that one can be a better liar! Delusional thinking is built into our nature. Anyone who has watched the countless American Idol auditions in which outrageously bad singers walk way heartbroken and in denial would have to agree. Examples abound of course… and of course none apply to ourselves, right? (-: The ‘badge of morality’ that one adopts when proclaiming to be a member of an popular established religion can also be looked upon as one of these behaviors that can be at least partly motivated by the competition for social status.

The origins of human morality are a primary topic of this book. What it proposes is that human morality arises despite our selfish natures due to ‘reciprocal altruism’… a behavior in which we remember those who help us and we in turn help them while punishing those that do not reciprocate. This is one of the behaviors observed in our primate cousins. Support for the model comes from research done with computer models of moral systems in which ‘tit for tat’ (a form of reciprocal altruism) is demonstrated to endure in evolutionary competition.

The implications of this line of thought to the idea of ‘free will’, the nature of the subconscious mind, the degree to which we can perfect human society, etc. are just a few of the ways in which this book can send your thoughts down new and fascinating paths. While it promotes a way of looking at life that is in one way discouraging (suggesting that we are more programmed in our behaviors than we would like), it at the same time gives us the understanding that might (if anything can) enable some level of transcendence of that kind of existence by facilitating honest, critical introspection.