Report: 29 July - Hedgehogs

I know it hasn't been long since the last one - but then the weather is meant to turn nasty for the rest of the week so was very grateful for the clear skies given to me this evening. I started out with my list of objects I wanted to try find, with their written mag and a rough idea of what they were. This saves me having to continuously go back in to look at a computer screen and lose my night vision. I attached the list for your interest! I started off with M34 and M15 - two clusters, sadly both of which obstructed by a hedge or a house. So I moved on to M92 and was straight away impressed, a really nice cluster to shoot - really recommend it.

M92

I then got a bit distracted by a rustling, sure enough, our local hedgehog has decided to come see what I'm taking photos of. I watched him for a bit with the red-light which doesn't seem to bother him - then told my girlfriend (who loves hedgehogs and wants to attract more to our garden) who then came out to see our spiky friend, who then didn't like the crowd and made a run for it.

Back to the telescope, after 10 mins or so exposure on M92, I moved onto M29 and M103, who seem to be quite different from your usual cluster. These two are Open (rather than globular) and therefore look like they have a small pattern of prominent stars grouped together. Again, another 2 lots of ~10mins exposures on each of these and I moved on.

M29

M103

I felt a bit sorry for the hedgehog, so I got some mealworms we feed the birds with and put some on the ground near where he was seen the last time, hopefully to tell him we're friends not foe and wish him to return!

Having already captured the targets I initially set out to get, I used my phone to navigate the sky and see what objects were visible and were located in the clearest areas of the sky. I then added M71 - a globular cluster to my list, and was very happy that it had just about cleared the roof of my house - another 10 mins exposure!

M71

While happily gazing into space and listening to the camera click, I heard another sound that caught my attention. It's difficult to describe what the slobbery sound was, but of course, it was the hedgehog feasting on the worms we put down. They are very loud eaters! I expect to find a load of dribble on our patio tomorrow morning where he had his feast, but was pretty happy we managed to lure him back!

I then discovered on my phone an object in clear skies called M40 - a Double star. Double star? What was Messier thinking? M40 - also known as Winnecke 4 - a double star in Ursa Major; stealing this from Wiki: "one of the few real mistakes in the Messier catalog," faulting Messier for including it when all he saw was a double star, not a nebula of any sort." Still, I was happy to capture it, and to tick it off my Messier list, even if it was one of his mistakes!

I then packed away my things, left the hedgehog to roam round the rest of the garden without fear of the red-light monster with a clicking contraption, and am now very happy having had such a pleasurable and successful evening capturing the stars.

Report: The hunt for Messier Objects

I went to the pub with a few friends from the local photographic society, and eventually got home about 23:30. I looked up, as I always do, and saw it was a good clear night (you know - when you just seem to see more stars than usual). So decided to quickly cart my gear into the garden and set up. 

Galaxies M81 and M82
Click for annotated version

By around midnight I was set up and aligned - I'm starting to love the routine of setting up now - tripod facing N? check, tripod level? check, Polaris aligned? check, north star focused at 10x zoom with DSLR? check. Once I was star aligned I popped back into the house to look at my report of what there is to see that night, wrote down in my notebook M39 - an open cluster in Cygnus. Having looked at a few images of it, I saw it wasn't your usual cluster (no cloudy blob of stars) so I noted down a rough sketch of what I should be looking for.


So I head downstairs and outside, and punch in M39 on the keypad and watch it slew to the right position. I look up to see... cloud. Bright lit-up-by-the-goddamn-moon type of cloud, moving in. I quickly fired the shutter for 30s to see if I could at least catch something before the cloud came in, but looking at the image after - a hazy blank image with the most prominent stars just shining through.

So I headed in and shouted at my girlfriend about how annoying it all was and she said to just wait a bit, it may pass. But of course, I'm sure you all know, there's never an opening in the cloud! I then noticed there was a clear area of sky lower down toward the horizon, so quickly found some more targets to try out. Armed with my list - M51, M52, M81, M101, I had another go.

M52 - Open Cluster in Cassiopeia
Click for annotated version

First, the pinwheel and whirlpool galaxies - I managed to capture them, but laughed at how feint they were and decided to leave them for another night. Then I moved onto M81 & M82 and got a surprise, they were surprisingly clear - however, due to the theme of the night, it wasnt perfect. The neighbours tree decided to stick a branch right through my field of view. A few more swear words and I then slewed over to M52 - Open cluster in Cassiopia - it was there my luck changed. It looked stunning, a clear hazy cloud of stars on a black background was what met me on my camera screen. I spent about 10 minutes then capturing exposures to stack. I then moved back to M81 & M82, to see if they'd moved clear of the branch - to which they had :-) Good times! - another 10 or so minutes worth of exposures on these and I then realised the clouds had passed, revealing M39 - my original target. A quick final slew and there it was, clear as anything. I took a few shots, then compared the formation of the stars to my sketch - even showed my girlfriend who was very impressed how I found such a formation in the sky that was exactly the same to what I had planned/drawn out. Another 10 minutes or so of exposures and I decided to call it a night.

M39 - Open cluster in Cygnus
Click for annotated version

The only thing I am a little disappointed with, is I completely forgot to get some dark frames. Though my last few sessions have mainly used the same camera settings so could possibly use some of those.

I finished viewing at around 01:00. Came inside, then wrote down the file numbers of each object from - to, as I find this is much easier when I come to stacking as I know which RAW files to stack - considering I can't preview the image quickly.

The following day I processed the images using Deepskystacker 3.3.3 (beta version) and then touched up the images in Photoshop CS5. I'm really happy with how they came out, especially the two galaxies.