What's
the Skybox? The
Skybox
is a low-observable observatory. In early 2009, I finally decided
that I needed a permanent setup, and started planning out a roll-off
roof observatory. The Chief Landscape Architect was fine with
that, as long as an eight foot tall hedge was first planted to screen
it from the front of the house. Not wanting to wait five years
for a hedge to grow, I had to come up with another solution.
Since I'm strictly an imager from home (visual
observing is something I do at star parties through your monster dob,
not
my little SCT),
I realized I just needed a small shelter for my rig. I really
didn't
need to climb inside there with it. And the scope itself could be
almost down at
ground level, which would help in meeting the requirement of being
unseen from the street. I built the Skybox over a two-week period
in April 2009.
What's
the Hole in the Trees?
Until 2003, I really couldn't see any sky from my yard, and what with
kids, work and real life, my scope rarely saw any starlight. That
year my neighbor to the south cut down a diseased maple tree in his
front yard, and I saw and imaged the opposition of Mars. A while
later, Hurricane Isabel took out some more of his trees (we're talking
enormous tulip poplars). Then, bless him, he took a chain saw to
the rest. When I finally built the Skybox in my backyard, I
widened the hole by cutting down one of my own tall tulip poplars,
suffering some
carbon guilt in the process but saving my back from years of setting up
and breaking down my rig. I can still see
only about a quarter of the sky - thus
the
Hole in the Trees - but it's enough to let me image from three
hours east of the meridian to two hours west at zenith.
What happened to the Observ-a-dolly? The Observ-a-dolly has returned to its home planet. No, seriously, after several years of devoted service hauling my scope around my bumpy yard, the Observ-a-dolly has retired to life as a humble hand truck. A piece of it - the angle iron from the bottom - is now a rail guard under one rail of the Skybox.
On
to the images:
Deep Sky Images
M3 - A
globular cluster in Canes Venatici. About 30 minutes for
luminance and for each color, with 1 minute exposures. This shows
some improvement over my last shot at a globular, my image of M13 last
summer. May 21, 2009.
NGC
5774 and 5775 - First light for the Skybox! These are a pair
of interacting spirals in eastern Virgo. This is about 16 hours
total exposure, vastly longer than anything I've done before, but the
RA tracking on my scope was starting to fail during these exposures, so
I didn't get as much as I had hoped for. Luminance is about 4
hours, and 3 hours for each color, all four minute exposures.
Shot over 4 nights in April 2009.
NGC2903
- A barred spiral galaxy in Leo. 4 minute exposures; 80 minutes
luminance, 20 minutes each color. Breezy conditions and
intermittent haze made this much harder than it should have been, and
played havoc with the color exposures.
March 23, 2009.
Hickson
44 - A group of interacting galaxies in Leo. This was a huge
stretch from my light polluted yard. 4 minute exposures; about
200 minutes luminance (acquired January 2009), 30 each color (March
2009).
NGC2392
- The Eskimo Nebula, a planetary nebula in Gemini. 1 minute
exposures; 49 luminance and about 20 each color. January 23, 2009.
M1
- The Crab Nebula in Taurus. 2 minute exposures; 190 luminance
and 30 minutes each color. November 23, 2008. Compare this
to my first
attempt in November 2007, shot at f/10 with 4 minute exposures, 48
minutes for luminance and 20 for each color.
NGC891
- An edge on spiral galaxy in Andromeda. 2 hours luminance, 32
minutes each color, 4 minute exposures. October 2008.
NGC7814
- A rather faint spiral in Pegasus. 4 hours luminance, 30 minutes
each color, 4 minute exposures. October 2008. Compare this
with a 90
minute luminance image taken a year earlier at f10.
M27
- The Dumbbell Nebula in Vulpecula. 75 minutes luminance, 15
minutes each color, 1 minute exposures. September 2008.
Compare it with this
image, which I took in August 2007 from Blackwater Falls State Park
in West Virginia with a stack of 15 second exposures, at f10 and before
I was autoguiding.
M74 -
A large spiral in Cetus. 120 minutes luminance, 4 minute
exposures. August 2008, from Savage Farm. My first
experience with imaging while sleeping.
NGC7479
- A barred spiral galaxy in Pegasus. 52 minutes luminance, 20
minutes each color, all 4 minute exposures. August 2008, from
rural skies at Savage Farm outside Leesburg, VA.
M13 -
The Great Hercules Cluster. 60 minutes luminance, 20 minutes each
color, all 1 minute exposures. You can get an idea of how bad my
light pollution is by checking out the
image before I removed the gradient. June 2008.
M63 -
The Sunflower galaxy in Canes Venatici. 72 minutes luminance, 20
minutes each color, all 4 minute exposures. May 2008, under dark
skies in Canaan Valley, West Virginia.
M64
- The Blackeye galaxy in Coma Berenices. 40 minutes of 4 minutes
exposures. May 2008.
NGC
7662 - The Blue Snowball Nebula in Andromeda. About one hour
of 2 minute exposures. October 2007.
NGC
7331 - Spiral galaxy in Pegasus. 1.5 hours total exposure,
with 4-minute exposures. October 2007.
M15
- A globular cluster in Pegasus. 40 x 60 second exposures.
October 2007. This object was also my very
first deep sky image, which I took in November 2006 using only 2
second exposures. I learned a lot in a year!
M57
- The Ring Nebula in Lyra. A stack of 2 minute exposures.
My first autoguided image, and the only one using the ToUCam as a guide
camera. A 2x enlargement of the Ring itself is here.
Imaged September 2007.
NGC
6781 - A planetary nebula in Aquila. A stack of 15 second
exposures. Clouds rolled in before I could collect the color
information. August 17, 2007, Blackwater Falls State Park, West
Virginia.
Except as
noted above, all of the deep sky images were taken from my horribly
light polluted front yard in Vienna, VA. A high pressure sodium
streetlight shines on my scope from 75 feet away!
Lunar Images
Images taken with a DMK camera
Mare
Humorum - 2009 November 29
Rima
Marius and the Marius Hills -
2009 February 6
Mersenius
and the shore of Mare Humorum - 2009 February 6
Mons
Gruithuisen Region - 2009 February 6
Aristarchus Plateau - 2009 February 6
Schickard
- 2009 February 6
Schiller
- 2009 February 6
Images taken with a ToUCam
Atlas
and Hercules - 2006 October 9
Boussingault
Burg
and Lacus Mortis - 2006 October 9
Copernicus
Furnerius
- 2006 October 9
Gassendi
Region
Langrenus
- 2005 October 19
Messier
- 2006 October 9
Neper
Petavius
- 2006 October 9
Petavius
Region - 2006 October 9
Pitatus
- 2006 December 29
Reinhold
Schiller
Taruntius
- 2006 November 19
Vitello,
Lee and Dopplemayer
Wolf
- 2006 December 29
Earlier
images with a Canon A70 camera. These were mostly shot in
video mode and then processed with Registax. The image of Plato
and the Alpine Valley (in the 8 Day Moon folder) won the April 2004
Challenge on the Yahoo Digital Astro group.
Planetary
Images
Venus
These were made with a Canon A70 in video mode
during the 2004 opposition.
Mars
January 14 and 19, 2009 - I brought my old C8 out
of storage for Mars while my C11 is at Celestron for a GPS board repair.
Images
from the 2005 Opposition These were made with a ToUCam Pro.
Images
from the 2003 Opposition These were made with a Canon A70 in video
mode.
Jupiter
May
30, 2006
May 31, 2006
June 16, 2006
June 17, 2006
July 18, 2006
August
17, 2008
August
21, 2008
August
22, 2008
August
27, 2009 03:36UT - Ganymede and Europa in transit, with their
shadows. First light image for the new CPC1100.
September
4, 2009 02:38 to 02:56 UT - Io and its shadow in transit
September
5, 2009 04:12UT
September
15, 2009 03:12 UT
October
6, 2009 01:49 UT
October
20, 2009 01:46 UT
October
26, 2009 01:32UT
Earlier images with a Canon A70 in video mode.
Saturn
2005 October 1
2005 October 3
2006
January 28 - at opposition. Notice how much brighter the
rings are near opposition.
2006
March 28
2006
March 30
2006
April 10
2007
January 3
2008
April 16
2008
May 5
Earlier
images with a Canon A70 in video
mode.
Equipment Used for These Images
