Astrophotography – Page 10

2004 BL86 Passes By

Asteroid 2004 BL86 is not small, it is large enough for astronomers to take notice as it passed near the earth yesterday at a close, but safe distance of 745,000 miles. Numerous telescopes were trained on this object as it passed by, including a deep space radar at Goldstone that confirmed that the asteroid is about 1,100 feet in diameter. They did get a surprise as well, 2004 BL86 has a small moon.

Close approach was earlier in the day, thus it was some hours after that I was able to photograph the asteroid from Hawaii. The most difficult part in taking the photo is locating the object. An asteroid this close by will move across the sky very quickly. To locate the asteroid I used a high precision ephemeris generated by the JPL Horizons Database with time intervals of every half hour. This was necessary as the asteroid was moving several degrees each hour. If I used coordinates even an hour off it would have been out of the frame. It took half an hour of hunting, comparing frames taken a couple minutes apart.

Below is the streak created as the asteroid moves over the course of an eight minute exposure…

Asteroid 2004 BL86 just after close approach on January 26, 2015

Comet C/2014Q2 Lovejoy and the Pleiades

Sunday night I shot a wide-field image of the comet as it passed near the Pleiades star cluster. I am somewhat disappointed by the image. The skies over Waikoloa are just not conducive to wide-field imaging. And with a couple scheduled mountain days I did not have the option to take the gear up to where conditions are better. Not and get any sleep. Still, it is not a total disaster…

C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy & M45 — Comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy passing by the Pleiades star cluster

Comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy

The first good night for comet imaging since the moonlight has departed the evening sky. If is wasn’t clouds it was heavy haze and vog. With a good Saturday night I set up the ‘scope in the driveway and shot for a couple hours on comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy.

This is not a properly processed shot, rather just a quick stack of the longer exposures. The real image will be a few days before I can get about to processing it. Still, a lot of interesting detail in the tail…

The Tail of Comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy

Taking the material I acquired last weekend, you can process a single frame, or process an animation. To bring out the tail a little better I converted the two hours of frames into an animated GIF. I also converted the frame to black and white and inverted it to show the fine detail.

The results are encouraging. Now… How well will this comet photograph when at its brightest in a couple weeks?

C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy Animation — An animation of comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy, 29 x 4min exposures with a Canon 6D and TV-76mm telescope

Comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy

The first real product of Saturday’s imaging session on Mauna Kea. Processing comet images is a challenge (actually I am using far less correct language while I work on it). The problem is that comets move rapidly against the star field. This creates all sorts of issues when attempting to assemble a final image.

The single frame shown here is he product of 28 light frames and thirty calibration frames. The light frames used in this image were each 4 minutes long, accounting for nearly two hours of exposure total. There were a few more, but a few had to be discarded due to wind-shake of the telescope during the exposure.

The image below is processed to align on the comet as it moves against the background stars. During the two hours of exposures the comet moved appreciably. The stars are somewhat suppressed by using a sigma reject combine, but they are still there. Processing like this allows the details in the tail to be seen.

With a set of images running for two hours taken without interruption other things can be done. One possibility is that these images can be animated, leading to another interesting product… Up next!

Shooting a Comet

It has been a while since the last good photographic comet. Since comet ISON disintegrated at perihelion a year ago, we have had few opportunities to get a really nice comet photo. It is the surprise of comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy that changed this.

Better yet… The comet is well placed for photography in the late evening and early morning sky. While fellow sky watchers on the south side of our planet have been enjoying the comet as it has brightened, for most northern hemisphere observers it is still rather low. In the past couple weeks it has moved far enough north that it is now nicely positioned to observe from Hawaiʻi. I have been following the comet for a while, catching it in binoculars from the house. We showed it to students of Paʻauilo Elementary in club telescopes as they camped out at the Kilohana Girl Scout Camp earlier this week.

Unfortunately it is still low enough that my neighbor’s trees prevent me from photographing it from the driveway. Thus I took the opportunity to pack up the ‘scope and head for Hale Pohaku and the Mauna Kea Visitor Information Station for a night of photography.

The Mauna Kea VIS is busier than ever, the numbers of tourists coming to this free show just continued to increase. Parking is now a major issue, with even the lower gravel lots full of visitor vehicles. Fortunately, with some discussion and name dropping, the rangers allowed me and my vehicle past the barricades into the main lot so I could set up just off the patio. I would be entertaining guests at the telescope and answering questions all evening, becoming part of the show.

Continue reading “Shooting a Comet”

Milky Way over VLBA

VLBA & Milky Way — The summer Milky Way soars over the VLBA antenna atop Mauna Kea

Mauna Kea Summit Panorama

Mauna Kea Summit at Night — The Mauna Kea summit at night, panorama of seven frames with a Canon 6D, 20s @ ISO6200 and Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 lens

It may look small, but this image is anything but small, click on it to find out. The panorama is assembled from seven frames, with final dimensions of over 12,000 x 2,000 pixels. The version posted here is a bit smaller, only 4,000 pixels wide. While it is a big image it does not really come close to the effect of actually standing there beside the camera. Also missing from the photo? The biting cold wind.

The image includes ten telescopes, two planets, two galaxies, two meteors, four volcanoes, and innumerable stars.

Milky Way over Mauna Loa

Comet C/2014 E2 Jacques Animation

With 24 exposures, each 4 minutes long, it is possible to animate the comet’s movement among the stars. Just process the photos individually and import into photoshop as an animation, then export as an animated GIF. Just click on the image to view…