Today's date is JD2456436.5
August 20 2012
Flat Frames Part 1 : Calibrating for Uneven Illumination
Posted by Duncan at JD2456159.51873
Since the issue of flat frames seems to come up quite a bit in discussions at the various imaging workshops, I thought I would spend some free time while at OSP writing up an explanation with some examples. This is part 1 of 3, with the other two parts to follow describing an example of applying flat frames and a walk through of flat box construction.
Filed under Methods & ProceduresAugust 19 2012
Posted by Duncan at JD2456159.24452
First process of data captured Wednesday and Thursday night at Oregon Star Party, using my new telescope, a Celestron EdgeHD 11 with a .7x focal reducer. I captured the luminance data on the first night, starting at about 3am, and then the RGB data from about 3am on Thursday night. Thursday had looked like it might be a washout due to smoke from forest fires that at one point completely obscured the sky, but it finally blew away around 2am and stayed clear all the way to dawn.
Resolution is very much seeing limited here; at a focal length of 1960mm I have a pixel scale of just over 0.5 arcseconds per pixel, and the target was still quite low in the sky.
May 14 2012
Counting Galaxies in Coma Berenices
Posted by Duncan at JD2456061.60211
My first imaging opportunity in several months thanks to an apparent early start to summer here in Oregon. Both Friday and Saturday nights were clear and uncharacteristically dry, resulting in some unusually transparent skies. This is galaxy cluster Abell 1656 in Coma Berenices, appearing quite close to dead overhead here in Oregon; at a latitude of 45 degrees or so, it can be found by looking due south at 11pm and almost straight up, at about 75 degrees from the horizon.
Filed under GalaxiesNovember 06 2011
The Black Fish Nebula from Skyview Acres
Posted by Duncan at JD2455872.38344
This was imaged from Skyview Acres just outside of Goldendale, Washington, a private site owned by Phil Reid of Vancouver, Washington that he generously makes available to astronomers. The skies are fairly dark and generally transparent, with just a little local light pollution from an outside light at a house about a mile away.
Filed under NebulasVisitors
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NASA Administrator Charles Bolden met with members of the asteroid initiative team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., today.
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October 12 2012
Capturing an Exoplanet Transit From My Back Yard
Posted by Duncan at JD2456212.59248
This is my first attempt at capturing the transit of an exoplanet from a couple of weeks ago on September 30th. It's not a particularly clean curve (unsurprisingly given how little I did to correct for known deficiencies in the capture process) and I missed the very start of the transit, but nonetheless the transit is plainly there in the data.
September 02 2012
Flat Frames Part 2 : An Example of Applying Flats
Posted by Duncan at JD2456173.2109
This is part 2 in a series of 3; part 1 can be found here
August 20 2012
Posted by Duncan at JD2456160.21972
This is a total of about 3 1/2 hours of exposure time on M101, taken over Wednesday and Friday nights at Oregon Star Party. I wasn't able to collect any data on the Thursday night due to smoke from forest fires, which eventually cleared, but not before M101 had sunk too low in the sky to image.
Clear Sky Clocks
Portland, OR
Indian Trail Spring, OR
Wapinitia Airstrip, OR
Goldendale, WA
Clear sky clocks from cleardarksky.com
Moon Phase
Moon phase image and data from the time service of the US Naval Observatory
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