Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) is peaking for observers in the northern hemisphere in early July. As I type this the comet is a morning object rising in the northeast at about 4:45 a.m. CDT. The brightening of the sky as dawn approaches means the early bird gets the worm. You will not have much time to get your shot until the comet is washed out should you hope to photograph the comet.
Over the next few days NEOWISE will dive lower in the sky until it emerges as an evening object in the northwest sky. If the comet holds it current magnitude and does not suffer the same fate as others that came before it, namely Comet Atlas, then sky watchers should continue to enjoy this celestial interloper well into the month.
Comet SWAN observing opportunities are here! That also means getting up early, and most importantly, having an unobstructed view of the north-eastern horizon to see it. Tomorrow, Monday morning, May 18th the comet will be at it’s highest for us northern hemisphere observers. The attached image courtesy of Stellarium shows Comet SWAN’s position at 5:15 a.m. CDT as seen from the DFW area each morning this week with the tick marks moving right to left. Notice it drops lower in the sky each morning. Tomorrow morning looks best for this week as does the weather. Use binoculars or a telescope for the best view as the comet is currently mag +5.8 or just barely above naked-eye visibility under dark skies. Additionally, the comet will be at it’s best as morning twilight starts, so be early and find it quick as it’ll be lost in the brightening sky as the minutes tick away. Happy hunting!
When Comet ATLAS (C/2019 Y4) was discovered on December 28, 2019 by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) it was a very dim magnitude +20 object however, once it’s orbit was calculated it was initially tagged as a “comet to watch” in 2020. Comets are fickle objects, and while the message was sent and received by the astronomical community, most astronomers (professional and amateur alike) knew the standard caveat that precedes such news. Comets are like cats. Predicting their behavior is a risky business.
Best described as dirty snowballs with highly elliptical orbits they typically blossom as they get closer to their parent star. This blossoming occurs when solar radiation causes the nucleus of the comet to sublimate forming a coma or shroud of gas and dust to form around the speeding comet. The closer the comet gets to the Sun usually the more material is spewed, and the classic “comet tail” forms trailing the icy body and always pointing away or perpendicular from the Sun.
Shooting from Bortle 8 skies with an f/5 scope means exposures get blown out or go white fairly quickly. Shooting long exposures is doable but with my skies and setup I’d greatly benefit by using a light pollution filter. But what type of filter would work best for my rig a 2″ round or clip-in, etc. What’s available for my older Nikon D5100 DSLR and where would the optimum location for a filter reside in my light train?
With these questions in mind I ventured to find out. My first stop? A quick scan of the owner’s manual for my Meade Series 6000 70mm Quad APO Astrograph but surprisingly this revealed no information at all. There is this in the owner’s manual:
Not much help really and the “picture” mentioned above is not actually on the whopping 2 page owner’s manual. So after searching online for information on adding a filter to my specific scope and even calling Meade Customer Service for assistance; I got nowhere. I felt sure that a filter could be added I was just seeking assistance with the best approach.
The Test
I didn’t have a 2″ filter so I bought an inexpensive 2″ Solomark Moon & Sky Glow filter for $20 bucks off Amazon mainly as something to test with before taking the plunge and buying a high dollar LPS imaging filter. I’m glad I decided on that route. I very quickly found out that the 2″ filter did fit nicely between the 48mm to 42mm adapter that is used to connect the DSLR to the telescope. The line up goes like this: DSLR, Nikon T-Ring adapter, 48mm to 42mm adapter, Moon & Sky Glow Filter, telescope. Success! Not quite. Adding the filter at this point in the light train increased the distance that the camera was from the back of the scope. By pushing the DSLR back slightly I was then unable to achieve focus. The focal point with this telescope is very close to the end of the scope with the focuser almost fully racked in. There is hardly any travel to work with. Back to the drawing board.
Tomorrow morning (Monday, February 17, 2020) be on the look out for a nice planetary alignment. If you are up early tomorrow morning and have a good view of the southeastern sky be sure to check out Saturn, Jupiter, Mars and the Moon as they line up in that order.
President’s Day Planetary Alignment
Additionally, for those in the DFW area the International Space Station will be making a fairly bright pass (-0.6 mag) right through this line up! In fact, the space station should pass between Saturn and Jupiter around 6:37 a.m. See the screen shot above that I made from Stellarium for more information regarding the alignment and passing of the ISS through them on Monday, February 17th 2020.
You might be wondering why I haven’t jumped on the Betelgeuse “dimming” bandwagon and yelled from the roof top “The sky is falling!” err sorry, “Betelgeuse is about to go supernova!” Well, I decided to tap the brakes and take a wait and see approach. At least for a little bit. Often these types of reports travel at the speed of light only to fizzle out leaving people to later ask “Hey, whatever became of that star that they said dimmed a little bit, and might even explode?”
The reality is Betelgeuse is destined to go supernova and astronomically speaking it’s due to happen pretty soon. Betelgeuse is a red supergiant star and starting back in October of last year the star noticeably dimmed in brightness, thus far by a factor of 2.5 from magnitude +0.5 to +1.5. This is not totally out of the realm of possibility since Betelgeuse is a variable star whose brightness fluctuates from +0.0 to +1.3 but it was enough for astronomers to sit up and take notice.
The constellation Orion (The Hunter) with Betelgeuse at upper left.
The star is 650 to 700 light years from Earth, the second brightest star in the constellation Orion behind Rigel and is the 11th brightest star in the night sky. As luck would have it Orion is perfectly placed these February nights for you to step out after dark, and if you are in the U.S., face south. You’ll find Orion fairly high in the southeast and crossing the meridian around 9 p.m.
I was recently contacted by Ken Mitchell the creator/owner of PhotoKemi Star Tools. Ken graciously offered me the chance to obtain a copy of his PhotoKemi Star Tools as well as the PhotoKemi Star Tools Extras package in exchange for a blog post with my assessment. I gladly jumped at the chance. What follows are my results, before and after images, and thoughts on using PhotoKemi Star Tools on several of my astro images.
So what is PhotoKemi Star Tools anyway? It’s a collection or set of actions designed for use in Abode Photoshop specifically for editing/enhancing astrophotography images. Tasks that are typically generated manually using several simple steps to multiple steps with different tools and/or complicated iterations in Photoshop are condensed into Actions and run at the click of a button. That’s the power of PhotoKemi Star Tools.
In Photoshop they are referred to as “actions” but to me I think a more accurate name for them should be “auto tasks.” Please don’t misunderstand, I’m not saying that manually working your image in Photoshop is a “thing of the past.” Not at all, but having these auto tasks or actions at your finger tips will lighten the load and speed things up to be sure.
Beginners and experienced astrophotographers will find the PhotoKemi Star Tools action set easy to run, time saving and versatile to use when processing their images. I know I sure did. But there is another and perhaps most important aspect PhotoKemi Star Tools affords the beginner – reducing the post processing learning curve! Let’s face it from start to finish producing a great astro image is a huge undertaking for the newbie and any benefit or edge obtained in that long and diverse sequence of tasks is welcome and appreciated. Especially when it works and works well.
M45 – Before and after using PhotoKemi Star Tools. I wanted to see how much nebulosity I could bring out in my image of The Pleiades. The answer? A lot more. Some of the PhotoKemi Star Tools I just to produce the image included: nebula filter, color correction, reduce background stars, sharpen nebula and reduce star bloating.
The images were stacking up! Okay, well they weren’t coming out of my ears or anything like that but I quickly determined that I needed a page on this site to make my deep sky astrophotography images available to those who wish the view them. So I did just that. There is now an appropriately named Deep Sky Images page that can be found under the the Astrophotography menu heading on this site. There you can see all the deep sky images that I’ve posted thus far.
M45 – The Pleiades
Additionally, I do have a free account on Astrobin.com which allows me to post 10 images. So I plan to not only post my latest images there as well but keep a running tally of my best images there too.
I knew I needed a new or different camera for astrophotograpy. The Nikon D60 (10.2 MP) DSLR I had at the time was not going to work for several reasons. The D60 is an entry level camera and while it was a good camera for shooting the kids and vacation stuff it was not very well suited for astrophotography. So the question to me was upgrade the DSLR or go with a dedicated astrophotography camera. The most economical and versatile choice was to go with a DSLR.
Nikon D5100 Top
Most astrophotographers use Canon DSLRs rather than Nikon but having already been a Nikon consumer I felt it better to go with the Nikon. Having amassed lenses and accessories from that manufacturer, not to mention already being familiar with Nikon’s software and menu structure, it just seemed logical to stay the course. Looking back on it that decision, it might not have been the best plan as most clip in filters are only available for Canon.
I’ve heard on more than one occasion “the mount is the most important part of your astrophotography setup.” That’s usually followed with “focus more on the mount than the telescope” when it comes to putting together your imaging rig. Without a firm foundation a house is doomed to collapse. These suggestions and recommendations are sound.
It’s important to choose a mount and tripod that are stable, rigid, precise in their tracking abilities, rated to accept the total weight you plan to place on them during your imaging sessions and well tested with accessible and repeatable results. When it comes to stability and tracking for astrophotography your mount had better perform as advertised or your images will suffer no matter how much money you pour into your telescope and imaging cameras.
Current amateur astronomy information such as points of interest and events in the night sky, star party dates, educational information, telescopes buying tips and much more.
