August 2006
19/08/2006
Local:Pulo do Lobo - Serpa
Pulo do Lobo VI
Night spented in one of the Europe's black holes , where the sky still is one of darkest of Portugal. With the SQM on average marking an amazing value of 21,51, being this the best mark to date, however it hadn't the transparency of high altitude sky.
The night was mild, without humidity but with some strong winds at the beginning.
Still with the Sun up I had the chance to observe for the first time live and in color its spectrum (and also the a spectrograph itself ) - machine for me extraordinary for what it is possible to discover through it . trasversing the “band”, I could easily see the absorption's bands at h-alpha, Sodium, Iron between many others and also from atmosphere's several molecules that formed stronger bands along the Sun going down. What I see is very similar to this image.
After a pleasant afternoon's end with a snack, the night started with another ISS pass that shone as bright as Jupiter.
Ûnder this dark sky it was possible to observe with a 7x50mm binoculars, objects that typically would be outside of reach. I do not remember seeing as evident and without using any filter the North America and Pelican nebulas and also the Veils. It was really easy to run a Messier's mini-marathon with some extras, that could be counted by the dozen: M51, M101, M81, M82, M33, M32, M31, M110, M27, M71, M56, M36, M37, M38, M45, M44, (most of the Messiers at Sagittarius and Scorpio), Helix among many others.
On the telescope (Sky90), for one more time Antares was left to be splited due wind and respective turbulence that was felted at the beginning of the night during its transit, but it was compensated by the view of the pair NGC 253 “Sculptor Galaxy ” and the globular NGC 288, pair located very close to the galactic South Pole that was portraied below. I still passed by my favourite globular, the M22 and the enormous M7 (also registered on a windy environment). Also I tried the search of the the Sculptor Dwarf (PGC 3589) and the Fornax Dwarf (PGC 10074).
The images were obtained with a Takahashi SKY90 f/4.5 (400mm)+Nikon D70 4,5" res on top of aTakahashi P2Z beeing 5 minute non-guided sub-exposures at 400 iso, some have 6 and 7 minutes due chating around. Converted and stacked (sigma-clip) with IRIS and finished on the PixInsight and PS.
More images from this sky at atalaia.org.
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| "Snake" & Co (manter rato sobre a imagem para legendas - keep mouse over the image for labels) |
The Barnard's catalog of 370 dark nebulas (prefix B), was elaborated from A Photographic Atlas of Selected Regions of the Milky Way from which on this image half a dozen of it can be seen, including a small planetary (NGC 6369) and small globular (NGC 6325). The "Snake nebula" belongs to pipe smoke of the imense "Pipe Nebula".
 NGC253 & NGC 288 |
This great galaxy at Sculptor is for all reasons one of the galaxies always to revisit, is extremely bright and big (7,2 magnitude and 29 ' x7' of dimension) being a good target for small apertures. At 21x both the objects were well fitted, with a good extension of the galaxy visible , but the globular not resolving almost anything, even with more magnification. The galactic South Pole is a bit below and to the left frim globular NGC 288.
 M22 & NGC 6642 |
Although the M13 has the credit of being the most impressive of our hemisphere, it loses on the apparent size and the total brightness, being M22 third in these parameters after the “southern” Omega Centauri and 47 Tucanae. It is also one of closest ones that are visible from the north hemisphere, but due its position close to the Galaxy plane its brightness is dimmed by the abundant interstelar dust , it would be clearly the indisputed king of the globulars. Its proximity (10100 light years) allows small telescopes to resolve some extra stars than the usual, being however an impressive sight with any aperture.
Below are some experiences using only one 5 minute exposure. The RGB channels were all added and later binned. With this procedure it is possible to go deeper on the images at the cost of the color and resolution. Anyway, the difference of star populations between these two images is extraordinary.
  (clique na imagem - click on the image) |
11/08/2006
Local:Pátio (Leiria 39.75N 8.82W alt:60m)
Solar Sunspot 904
Here it is a nice group of solar spots at this time of the cycle. If ther images that they cost the sweat of your face, this is one of them - here at the patio they were 39 degrees celsius at the time of the acquisition. The setup is same as always, only that in this in case I used a 1000 oaks filter.
 Sun (clique na imagem - click on the image) |
09/08/2006
Local:Pátio (Leiria 39.75N 8.82W alt:60m)
"Red Moon Rising"
It was pretty but for the wrong reasons, the ashes of the some forest fires in the region had almost made of this full moon a rising Sun. Also this full Moon is one of the nearest to Earth this year, distant only 360,134 km.
 Full Moon |
 Full Moon |