M33

M33 - Combined data from 2011

In the picture above, I've combined 2011 M33 images from two sites, Cascade Meadows RV Park and Indian Trail springs, which includes two five minute images and five ten minute images. Maxim DL was used for the calibration, color conversion and stacking (using the "sdmask" option for combining them). Stretching was done in Photoshop (PS), followed by a local contrast enhancement and space noise reduction using Astronomy Tools add-ins on PS. Noise Ninja was used selectively in the periphery of the image and then some color balancing was done (again in PS). Compare it to the other image of M33 in the last blog entry, where images came from one site, lacked dark calibration, and did not have the benefit of Noise Ninja. I think it is a pretty good improvement, though the color is still a little 'off' in the periphery.

Astro-imaging in the Summer of 2011

I’ve not updated my astro-imaging exploits since early July, so here is a summary of the whole imaging season. As I write, we are past the autumnal equinox and the rains seem to have set in for the foreseeable future. The past summer in Oregon was a relatively cloudy one and I’m lucky that I’m retired, so that I could get out during the new moons when and where the weather reports looked promising. Still, I only managed eight serious nights of imaging.

The first night out was July 5^th at Indian Trail Springs (ITS) in the Ochocco Mountains; this was a great night with the only real negative being the pesky flying insects that resulted in me batting furiously at my face as often as I was paying attention to doing my imaging. I resolved to add mosquito netting to my accessories. There were beautiful skies that night and I managed a fairly nice picture of M16 (2x480” exposures), the Eagle Nebula, shown below. My setup, until later in the summer, was the same one I had used last year in Arizona, sporting my new SXVR-M25C camera on an 80mm Orion EON refractor, with a separate 80mm guide-scope mounted in parallel on a cross-bar. I also imaged M31 (Pinwheel galaxy), M33 (Andromeda galaxy), NGC7000 (North American Nebula), M20 (Triffid Nebula), M22 (Globular cluster), M101 (spiral galaxy), and the Pacman nebula. It was a very productive night, with many images coming out fairly nice… but, with so many targets, it’s clear that I didn’t have a lot of exposure time on any single one of them. Here are a few of the better ones:

M16, the Eagle Nebula from ITS 7/5/11

M22 - Globular Cluster

M33 - The Pinwheel Galaxy

M31 - The Andromeda Galaxy

On July 28^th I started out again for ITS, but when I got to Madras I saw the smoke of a forest fire to the south that seemed to be blowing in that direction; as a result, I changed my mind and headed up to RCA’s Trout Lake Star Party. It was early (a Thursday) and only a few people were there. That night was very good and I managed to get a picture of Comet Garrad (below) that, though not great, was published in the next RCA publication of the Rosette Gazette. That night I also imaged NGC6990 (Western Veil), NGC1499 (California Nebula), the Heart Nebula, and M8 (Lagoon Nebula). The Lagoon, a favorite target, wasn’t great because it was low on the horion and I had trouble guiding. The Heart and California Nebula were new targets for me and the Western Veil was one that I had been wanting to get back to because the bright star in it was always problematic for my old ST-402 camera because it always bloomed. Though I planned to stay for the duration of the star party, the second night opened with what appeared to be a disaster: my mount failed. The power light flashed and the mount, instead of slewing to one of my alignment stars, sat there and made the unnerving sound of grinding gears. I’m not into debugging things in the night using nothing but a weak red light, so I packed up and went to bed. I left the next morning, motivated by the opportunity to both see my daughter (home for a visit from her camp counselor job) and attend a family picnic scheduled for that Sunday. While I had thought the problem might have been a bad cable, the cables checked out fine at home. The problem repeated itself and I then tried re-programming the firmware in my hand-controller; this failed, but not before erasing the original firmware. Just before I was about to send the hand-controller back to Orion, I had the idea that the firmware programming may have failed because of my conversion to Windows 7/64-bit on my new laptop; I tried it on my wife’s 32 bit computer and was successful. The mount seemed to work again, but until I gave it a full workout, I couldn’t be sure. I went to a friend’s house Sept. 23rd to experiment with my setup in his backyard. When I tried to power up my mount, it didn’t work at all. When I plugged it into his battery, it worked, leading me to believe that my battery had failed. I took it to the battery store and found that the battery was fine, it was just that the positive terminal was very corroded and I was not making good contact. A wire brush is now in my tool-kit for cleaning the terminal and I now ritually give the terminal clamp a little twist when I hook it up.

Comet Garrad

The California Nebula

The Veil Nebula (Western)

The Heart Nebula

My mount problems had led to me canceling my Oregon Star Party registration for late August (I was close to the last day to cancel). While I could have re-registered, I didn’t, thinking that I would wait to see what the weather and fire-season held in store for that period. There were fires potentially affecting OSP and there were fires affecting the Steens Mountains, which was what I had first designated as a primary backup. Instead, my wife and I went on a hunt for a new place to image under dark, clear skies. This led us (Aug. 28-30) to Cascade Meadows RV Park, just north of La Pine and also to Joseph Smith State Park, northeast of Eagle Point, in southern Oregon. Both were pretty good sites for imaging and it brought my total for the summer to five. On this trip I got two images of the supernova in M101 to compare to older pictures I had taken (pre-supernova). The comparison is shown below. I’ve since imaged it again (Sept. 28^th trip, to be discussed) and it was still blazing brightly.

At J. Stewart State Park, I was putting my equipment away one night when I looked over towards the restroom and saw two big yellow eyes glowing back at me; I don’t know what it was, but the next day I heard that someone was telling the park host that they had heard a mountain lion snarling the previous night. Based upon the size of the eyes and their distance off the ground, it indeed could have been a mountain lion I had seen. Yikes! At least it had the good sense not to attack me!

Other than the supernova, at Cascade Meadows I imaged M33 again, M51 (Whirlpool galaxy, the home of another supernova), and M27 (the Dumbell nebula). In the first night at J. Stewart I added another image of M101 and my first ever look at Neptune. Upon studying this closely, I realized that the image picked up (barely) the moon Triton at the very edge of the planet (see below). The second night at J. Stewart, I imaged M51 and M31 again, plus M11 (the Wild Duck cluster), IC1318 (Sadr region nebula in Cygnus), and NGC6992 (the Eastern Veil). I was pleased with the star color in M11 (see below, along with a few others).

M101 Supernova

Neptune (the bluish orb) with Triton the spot at about 8 '0 clock

M11 - The Wild Duck Cluster

Nebulosity in the Sadr region of Cygnus

M31 - The Andromeda Galaxy again (it never gets old)

Upon returning from Southern Oregon, there were still some dark nights left and I spend the eveings of Sept. 1^st and 2^nd at Stubb Stewart State Park, a local site where the day-use area is made available to those who apply for Star Gazing permits. I made a new friend the first night, C.K. (who is from Malaysia) and the second night C.K. returned and my friend Curtis came as well. The first night I imaged the nebulae… the Bubble, Crescent, Pelican and Veil. The second night I imaged M101, the Sadr region, and M45 (Pleiades) and then switched to a barlow lens to image smaller objects including M27 (the Dumbell), IC 348, M76 (the Little Dumbell), and NGC 7331 (galaxy). The M45 image was the best I’ve ever taken of the Pleiades (see below). The images taken with the barlow lens were not very satisfying.

M45 - The Pleiades (The Seven Sisters)

The Veil Nebula (Eastern)

Interacting with my friends was great. C.K. told me of a 50mm guide scope that Orion offered and I later decided to order it as a way of making my set-up easier to balance. I would no longer have to go with the cross-bar and I found that I could go down to one 10 pound counter-weight. Curtis gave me other suggestions that I’ll talk about later.

I used this new setup on what was likely my final night of imaging, Sept. 28^th . Weather reports for the period of the late-September new moon were marginal. The forecast for the Maupin Star Party (later that week) was not good, however Sept. 28^th stood out as the best day. Since it was a bit early to go to the Maupin site, I chose to check out a new site, Prineville Reservoir State Park (PRSP), with the idea of going to ITS again if the site didn’t have a decent horizon. Since the main goal of the trip was to image nebulae in the constellation Orion (not visible earlier in the summer and now rising above 30 degrees after about 3am), I needed to find a good view of the eastern horizon. PRSP turned out to be very good. I had camp site with electrical hookup that was perched right on the edge of the reservoir with a great view of the eastern horizon. The reservoir was very scenic and the weather was nice. The night of imaging that followed was probably the best I’ve ever had. Having an electrical hook-up was great because I didn’t have to resort to my inverter to run my laptop off of the 12V battery. Being there alone and being able to go in and out of the RV as much as I wanted (no concern over waking up my wife) made the night much more tolerable. Though I had built dew heaters and was ready to use them, I had no dew all night. Best of all, the new setup with the 50mm guide-scope worked out very well. Guiding seemed to be very good except for two episodes that I believe were related to some imbalance on the declination axis (and I think I can easily correct that next time). I was able to take exposures as long as twenty minutes without any significant issues and I got 2Hrs and 40 minutes of exposure time on one object, which was a record for me. Before Orion came up, I spent my time on the Pelican nebula (2Hrs 40 minutes exposure time) and the Western Veil. When I saw the reflection of Orion in the reservoir as it rose, I found the sight pretty stunning and I wished I had a tripod with me for my Nikon D-40 so I could have photographed it. Orion is, to me, the most beautiful northern constellation. The objects I imaged there were all nebulae: NGC 2175, M78, IC 434 (the Horsehead Nebula), and a few shots of the M42 (the Great Nebula in Orion) at the end. IC 434 was the primary objective because I think that it is one of the most stunning and because I didn’t get to spend enough time on it in Arizona last year; I ended up getting six ten minute exposures (a full hour). I was also pleased with NGC 2175 and, after processing it, wishing that I had spent more time on M78; both of these were new objects for me and I found them both to be photogenic. You’ll find pictures of each of these objects below. With the little time remaining a got a few quick images of M42, but it wasn’t a prime target (did it last year); it is always beautiful though, even with a burned-out core.

The Veil Nebula (Eastern, again)

The Pelican Nebula

NGC 2175

M78 - One 20' exposure

IC 434 (The Horsehead Nebula) - My #1 Favorite 6x60" exposure

Though I didn’t have a lot of nights imaging, it was a great summer. I learned a lot and improved my setup. I also have a lot of things to pursue in the future. Curtis encouraged me to utilize my old C8 SCT more and to use off-axis guiding (OAG) and we started looking into this. As it turned out, I needed some new equipment (a better OAG than the Meade I already had) and some T-thread spacers to make it work. I may also need to use a more sensitive camera to find guide stars more consistently, but time will tell on that. I have the equipment now and will test it at the next opportunity. Curtis also made some other suggestions for improvement of my set-up and motivated me to look again at direct computer control of the mount (using EQMOD and ASCOM). I tried it for awhile in his backyard and, while it seemed to be working okay, I did have some disturbing unintended movements of the mount during alignment that influenced me to go back to using the hand controller. This is definitely worth pursuing though, because it opens up the possibility of remote-control from the confines of a warm and bug-free RV. One thing that I didn’t get to this summer was learning drift-alignment, however I got information from Curtis and C.K. that should make it easier and quicker when I do get to it.

This season I updated my version of the PHD guiding program, such that it has the capability of giving me data on the quality of my guiding. This has allowed me to both benchmark my guiding (compare one night to another and compare set-ups) and to gain some insight into what kind of guiding problems I am having. I can also now watch a graph of the guiding error real-time and know when to abort and re-start.

With Curtis's prodding, I finally got around to ordering a noise reduction program (Noise Ninja) and I'm SO glad I did! I also realized that I should use dark frames (though originally I was told I shouldn't have to with this camera), at least until I figure out another way to get rid of the bad (hot) pixels that I have finally established as the cause of those pure-color "stars" in some of my photos. The set from PRSP all used dark frames.

Imaging may be over for the year, but with my home-built dew heaters, I may actually try to do some imaging on some cold, but clear, winter night. We'll see. I REALLY hate being cold!

My new set-up (with 50mm guide scope) at Prineville Reservoir

Astro-imaging in the Ochocco's

I'm happy to report that I was able to get out for my first astro-imaging session of 2011 on July 5th. Not only that, it was in the ideal place (Indian Trail Springs in the Ochocco Mountains) and extremely good conditions (except for a lot of extremely annoying bugs). My 12V battery was too run-down after that night to chance another (the result of a long time on the shelf?), so one night was all I had.
It started out poorly, as my lack of practice set the stage for a voluminous brain fart (I didn't use my compass correctly to find Polaris). The result was that I had to tear down the equipment, move the tripod, re-level and set up again. Fortunately, that didn't take long past the time when the moon slipped over the horizon to bring on the darkest sky. After that, things went well. The three-star alignment was successful on the first try. Though I had wanted to try to improve my alignment by trying the drift-alignment technique, I couldn't bring myself to take the time with such great skies above me. It turned out that was a good decision because by the end of the night I had gotten some very nice exposures as long as ten minutes.
I imaged a total of eight objects in the span of about four and a half hours. That's too many, because the really great images require on the order of hours of exposure. I'll wait to do that when I know how to align the scope better. In the meantime, I had fun imaging a bunch of objects with the new Startlight Xpress camera (SXVR-M25C). The objects imaged were M16 (Eagle Nebula), M20 (Triffid Nebula), M22 (globuar cluster), M31 (Andromeda galaxy), M33 (spiral galaxy), M101 (spiral galaxy), NGC 7000 (North American Nebula), and the Pacman Nebula. I had imaged them all before except for NGC 7000, which is too big for my old camera to image well. With the new camera the field of view is very large and I can capture nearly the whole nebula in a frame. However, when I took the image I didn't see any nebulosity; as a result, I took only one exposure that had a satellite track through it. It wasn't until I got home and did the full processing of the image that I found I was able to bring out the nebulosity; it ended up being a pretty good (see below) given how little data there was.

M31 (below) turned out better than it ever has before, but it still pales in comparison to the images of many amateurs. Progress makes me happy though!

My favorite image of the night was the Eagle Nebula (below).
M22 (below) came out much better than the last globular cluster I imaged with this camera (October 2010 in Arizona).


The other images were pretty good, but all were a bit noisy because of the small amount of data. For the first time I used the data-logging on PHD guiding but I've yet to sort through it.
One of the really nice things about the new camera is that there is very little dark noise, such that dark frames are not even required. I did take both flats and bias frames this time and that was the extent of my image calibration.

The next step is to use some of the moon-lit clear nights between now and the end of July to go through the drift-alignment method and become well-practiced at it. I'll be going back to ITS during the period of the next new moon. I also need to work on a better, quicker way to balance my scope and I need to get some bug netting to cover my head. The bugs at ITS this last week were terrible! They were constantly flying into my face and buzzing my ears, such that I spent about as much time slapping at my head as I did paying attention to my imaging setup.

The Economic Crisis: Who is doing the right thing?

There is a war going on in Washington D.C. between ideological extremists in both the Democratic and Republican parties. The result of it is that no serious problems can be solved by our government. It is the recognition of that problem that led me to vote for Barack Obama in the last election. I saw him as a person capable of compromise in the name of progress. He is liberal in his beliefs about what is best for our country, but centrist in the way he governs. The problem is that too few in government share this approach.

Now, as we near a major economic crisis brought about by our government's history of being generally irresponsible in its management of government finances, all politicians are being put to the test.

If our government lets the deadline for raising the debt ceiling pass without constructive action, I feel there will be an economic disaster of major proportions. If the debt ceiling is raised and no actions are taken towards reducing the national debt, the near term disaster will be averted, but only delayed. At some point, politicians have to do something about the debt issue. Delaying action only will make the pain associated with the crisis worse.

The best thing that can happen is that a compromise is found that raises the debt ceiling but implements significant measures that will reduce our the national debt. If this happens, I feel the economic recovery will be given a significant boost. If no debt reduction takes place, all of the reasons for people be nervous about spending and investing will persist and we will see only slow economic growth, if not decline.

President Obama is taking flak from many in his Democratic Party for being willing to compromise with the Republicans. Those critics want to keep the programs that are the major sources of our national debt untouched and raise taxes as necessary to solve the debt issue. Meanwhile, the Republicans are being equally uncompromising about raising taxes. Experts are saying that both actions are clearly required to solve the debt issue.

In showing a willingness to compromise, President Obama is one of the few who is putting the well-being of our country and its citizens above that of his political party and personal biases. My prediction is that, if the Republicans do not compromise, the President will reluctantly let the disaster happen or go along with raising the debt ceiling and delaying the disaster. "Caving" and "being weak" would be to support a resolution that did not require the Republicans to also compromise and tolerate some increase in government revenue to address the debt issue. I do not believe the President would ever do that. If this crisis results in an economic disaster, only those congressmen and senators who had shown a willingness to compromise will deserve to keep their jobs.

The abandonment of a free-market economy is not going to happen in this country unless a major disaster strikes. Maybe that is what some Democrats are hoping for. The total abandonment of social programs by the federal government is not going to happen (look at the civil unrest that was brewing in the early 1930's and ask yourself what would have happened if the government had NOT stepped in to help). I'm sure that this is what many Republicans are hoping for. To have an uncompromising position in this current crisis, one either has to be an ideological extremist who thinks one of these things CAN and should happen, or a person whose governing principles only center around his personal interests (keeping his job, his money, his power, etc.); I am disgusted by both varieties. Keep up the good work Mr. President.

Delving into ethics

In 2010 Sam Harris exposed the world to his claim that science can play a role in determining what is ethical and what is not. What this comes down to is a claim that there is objectivity in the ethics… that it is not completely subjective. What I found out when trying to discuss this with others is the same thing that Sam Harris found out. It is very controversial… even amongst self-proclaimed Humanists who claim that behaviors that are “good” are measurable by their consequences to human beings.

Sam Harris’s unveiling of this position first occurred in a “TED talk”… a free on-line video on a site devoted to providing talks on important new ideas from notable people. The aftermath of that talk was an on-line series of critiques and rebuttals which Sam Harris loved because he was finishing up a book on this subject and this gave him a preview of the critique, hence an ability to incorporate some of his response in the book. The book was published in October, 2010 and I received a copy of it as a Christmas gift. I’ve started reading it, but at this point have not yet finished.

Basically, what Sam Harris is saying is that, 1) what is ethical is what promotes well-being, 2) well-being comes down to states of human consciousness, 3) states of consciousness are the consequence of physical processes of the human brain and are themselves physical…hence measurable. Once ethics can be measured, it can be studied scientifically.

His motivation for this book is aligned with his motivation for his other books. While the purely cynical will say “yes…to make money”, I would say that a component of that motivation relates to his concern with the impact of extremist religion in the world, most importantly its role in Islamic terrorism. He is frustrated by the tendency of many intelligent people to avoid criticism of other cultures (and religions) and the behaviors that result from them. Generally, this is called “moral relativism”… the belief that ethics are entirely subjective and that what is “good” or “bad” is entirely a function of one’s “frame of reference”. Some intelligent people will stick to this general view of ethics even to the point of defending female genital mutilation, murder as punishment for daughters who are raped, etc. Harris is uncomfortable with that. So am I.

In fact, Bertrand Russell, a humanist and one of the greatest intellectuals of the 20^th century, was also uncomfortable with the purely subjective treatment of ethics. I know this because I just finished a book that I would highly recommend, “Bertrand Russell’s Ethics”, by Michael K. Potter. This book describes the evolution of Russell’s ethics through his life…ethics that recognized the role of subjectivity, but, in the end, included objective components. From the book… “Late in life, Russell admitted that he was dissatisfied with his moral philosophy. 'I cannot see how to refute the arguments for the subjectivity of ethical values, ' he lamented, 'but I find myself incapable of believing that all that is wrong with wanton cruelty is that I don't like it. '”

Russell’s ethics evolved from the forms of “Emotivism” described by A.J. Ayers and C.L. Stevenson. These early theories of ethics posited that ethical statements were expression of only attitudes and could not be used to argue ethical positions. Potter points out many flaws in these early theories, most notably that they did not provide any means of resolving ethical dilemmas; they were not practical. Russell excelled at addressing ethical dilemmas and Potter, while in the end still finding faults with Russell’s form of ethics (as did Russell!), found his theory to be far superior to the early theories and worthy of continued consideration and development.

Russell delved deeper into ethical theory than the early emotivists. Instead of referring to “attitudes”, he looked at ethical statements as statements of desire. In Potter’s words “His theory can also account for the difference between moral and non-moral values - the first concern universalizable and maximally compossible desires; the second do not.” In other words, moral values relate to desires held generally by everyone and are compatible with one another. His answer to the question “Is this good?” is, 'Yes, if it is compatible with the general collective desires of humanity. ' The collective desires of humanity seem objective/measurable… perhaps even more so today as neuroscience starts understanding in what ways our brains have common structure and functions.

Potter states that Russell’s early works on the theory of “impulses and desires” is fundamental to understanding his ethics, though Russell never referred to them when discussing ethics. Russell tried to delve deeper into how the mind works in order to understand ethics. I wonder what revisions he would make his theories if he possessed our current understanding of the human mind.

Though I haven’t finished his book, it is clear Harris is not trying to define a complete theory of ethics. He is expressing the concerns that Russell expressed with a completely subjective approach and is suggesting a way out that, to me, may have a lot in common with the direction that Russell was trying to go. It is also frightening in its implications and that fear makes a lot of people want to immediately dismiss it. What if morals have a significant objective component and there can be ‘experts in a science of morality’? What if they tell me that I am immoral or have acted unethically? What if the science of morality is far beyond the capability of the common man to understand, such that we are reliant upon experts to explain it to us? Can we trust them? Taken to an extreme, the idea of objectified ethics can be terrifying... but does that mean it is not the right direction? Is it better for people to throw their hands up and be afraid to judge anyone else? Is it better to leave ethics/morality in the hands of the many religions of the world that favor an absolutist form of ethics with a subjective basis? In these times when we have problems we face as a species, isn’t it better to find common objective values that can lead us to unity?