Tag: Astronomy

A Sagittarius triplet – M8, M20, and NGC 6559

Edit 9/10/2021: This image was selected for Italy’s APOD GRAG: https://apod.grag.org/2021/09/10/a-sagittarius-triplet-m8-m20-and-ngc-6559/ This so far is my favorite image! Nearly 21 hours of data (taken across 4! nights) and 3 hours of processing went into this huge project. I love the color range so much – golden milky way stars, pink lagoon nebula, and light blue trifid reflection. Image: Equipment: Nikon D90 Sigma 300mm prime lens Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer Star Adventurer Tripod Bahintov Mask Intervalometer DIY diffraction spikes using a violin strings Stellarium All Sky Plate Solver Sharpcap […]

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Interesting Astronomy & Astrophysics news from the week of 8/8/2021

Next week’s night sky: When the moon completes the first quarter of its journey around Earth on Sunday, Aug. 15 at 11:19 a.m. EDT (1519 GMT), its 90-degree angle away from the sun will cause us to see the moon half-illuminated — on its eastern side. In the first quarter, the moon always rises around midday and sets around midnight, so it is also visible in the afternoon daytime sky. The evenings surrounding the first quarter are the best ones for seeing the lunar terrain when it […]

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A two-panel mosaic of the Sadr Region

Image: Equipment: Nikon D90 Sigma 300mm prime lens Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer Star Adventurer Tripod Bahintov Mask Intervalometer DIY diffraction spikes Stellarium All Sky Plate Solver Sharpcap Laptop Acquisition: Bortle 2-4 Iso 800 F4 8/04/2021 – North Panel 122 x 2′ light frames 100 bias 34 dark 43 usable flats 0/06/2021 – South Panel 106 x 2′ light frames no bias 29 dark 50 flats Processing: Calibrate with WBPP Blink to discard bad frames Generate normalization data with NormalizeScaleGradient Image integrate CFA drizzle scale 1 Crop DBE each […]

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M16 – The Eagle Nebula

The Eagle Nebula is perhaps the most famous nebula in the night sky. Made famous by Hubble’s stunning image of the pillars of creation, the Eagle nebula is one of the most interesting nebulae for astronomers to study. Image: Equipment: Nikon D90 (Astro-Mod) Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer Sky-Watcher Tripod AF-S NIKKOR 500mm f/5.6 Bahintov Mask Intervalometer Laptop All Sky Plate Solver Sharpcap Stellarium Acquisition: ISO 800 f/5.6 Bortle 2-4 Taken on 7/11, 12, 13 in 2021 732 light frames x 1 minute (taken across three nights) 500 bias […]

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The Andromeda Galaxy

This is the closest galaxy to Earth and the Milky Way – and it will collide with the milky way in about 4 million years! Equipment Sony RX10iv Sky-watcher Star Adventurer Sky-Watcher Tripod Acquisition: 60x2min light frames, ISO 800, F/4.0 30 Dark Frames 50 Bias Frames 50 Flat Frames Preprocessing stacked in DSS Post-processing stretched data in Gimp combined unstretched and stretched data to preserve the core slight color saturation and curve adjustment Gimp Denoise Image with objects: Do you like this photo? Comment below what object […]

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Theoretical Vs. Observational Astronomy

Astronomy is one of the oldest existing sciences, started when humans first looked at the night sky. The study of the sky is split into two main parts, observational astronomy and theoretical astronomy. Observational astronomy deals with the study of electromagnetic radiation from space. This simply means taking photos of the sky and then analyzing these photos. Theoretical astronomy uses tools of physics and chemistry to create analytical models. This branch tries to explain why things happen. How do these branches work together? The two branches complement […]

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The key differences between a space and ground telescope.

Astronomy hinges on that ability to observe the sky, and to do that we need telescopes. Astronomers have telescopes nearly everywhere on Earth and many more telescopes in orbit.  But why do we need telescopes both on the Earth and in space? Why not just figure out which location is better, and just put all our telescopes there? The answer is much more complicated than it seems. There are numerous arguments for space telescopes and numerous arguments for ground telescopes. Advantages of space telescopes The biggest advantage […]

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The top ten coolest things in space

This is a list of what I consider to be the top ten coolest things in space! 1. Thorne-Zytkow object First is a Thorne-Zytkow object. These objects form when a pulsar worms its way into the body of a different star. Although these objects would appear to be almost normal, they would house all sorts of strange elements that would never appear in a regular star. The only one that we know of in the entire universe is called HV 2112. 2. The Fermi Bubbles Second, the […]

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My photos of the comet NEOWISE

Last night was a very very clear night, and so I was able to get some good photos of comet Neowise! Here they are: I was able to get these images by looking right under the big dipper. Neowise is getting dimmer, so I may be hard to see. It is a good idea to get your eyes used to the dark before trying to find it. Look for a streak in the sky that seems out of place. That will be the comet!

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All about spectroscopy

Spectroscopy is probably the most important tool the scientist can use to find out more about our universe. What is spectroscopy? In its simplest form, spectroscopy is the measurement of light coming off of an object. We can graph this information in spectrum to make it easier for us to understand. Below is an example of a graphed spectra: These dips and spikes happen at a certain wavelength. Because wavelengths correspond to color, we can visualize the data in a graph like this. What causes these lines? […]

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