Rainbow At Night ...

... Skywatchers Delight!

Sunsets have been especially colorful this year, presumably due to volcanic eruptions.

Before the stars came out at Cherry Springs we were treated to a vivid sunset.

Keep looking up!

M49

This past weekend, Patty, myself, and four friends, went to Cherry Springs State Park in Potter County, Pennsylvania. For a bit of stargazing.

One of the participants was our friend Marie, who, as noted before on this very blog, is working on her N for N list.* And one of the items on the list was to go observing at Cherry Springs.

The plan had been to go last summer and, as I'm the astronomy geek in our circle of friends, I was to provide the telescopes and serve as celestial tour guide. But my back issues put the kibosh on that plan.

I'm better now (yay!) and we had earlier in the year tried to go observing on Assateague Island. But rain spoiled those plans (boo!).

So if at first, (and second), try, try again. And, continuing the cliche theme, the third time's the charm.

As these pictures of the Milky Way show, charm it was. We had two very good nights of observing.

And Marie was able to checkoff the 49th item from her list.

🎂  🎂  🎂  🎂  🎂

* Marie had a milestone birthday last year, the 'Big N'. And the "N for N" list is N things to do in her Nth year. As this is #49 on that list it kinda gives away N. But Marie says that's ok.

Island Universe

Or three.

The large object in the image is the Andromeda Galaxy, aka M31, the sister galaxy to our home Milky Way. There are two other galaxies in this image. Almost directly above the center of M31 is M110. At the 4 o'clock position from M31's core is M32 (it looks like a large blurry star). As always, click on the image to bigafy it.

The first known record of the Andromeda galaxy is form the 10th century by the Persian astronomer Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi. al-Sufi described it as a small cloud, an accurate description of the naked eye appearance at a dark site. To me it is a football (American style) shaped cloud. But is wasn't until the early twentieth century that astronomers figured out what these small clouds were. It was Edwin Hubble who identified cepheid variable stars in what was then known as the Great Nebula in Andromeda. Cepheid variables have a relationship between their intrinsic brightness and the period of variation, allowing them to be used as celestial mileposts. And the Great Nebula was found to be much to far away to be part of the Milky Way.

And thus was born the modern universe.

The Andromeda Galaxy is 2.5 million light years away, meaning the light that struck the chip in my camera had been traveling for 2.5 million years.

That's a long time.

And this is the closest spiral galaxy to the Milky Way.

The universe is a big place.

Adventures in Astrophotography

Star trails, although in this image it is the camera that moved, not the stars. The red monstrosity is the telescope set up next to mine. Behind it is the open trunk of a car. (This and this is what they look like when you do it right.)


The artistic effects of a fog filter by a photographer too cheap to buy an actual fog filter. Dew on the lens is free!

Finally, a tip for all you budding astrophotographers: once you set the focus try not to fiddle with the lens. Or you'll get shots like this one, with big round out of focus stars.

Mr. Murphy was my assistant on this night.

365 Theme 174: Local Landmarks

For very large values of "local".

This is M31, the Andromeda Galaxy. The largest galaxy in the "Local Group". Two satellite galaxies of M31 are also visible, M32 and M110. Another galaxy, which may be NGC 278, is visible in the upper left corner [Update: the galaxy in the upper left has been identified as NGC 185].

M31 is the visible to the naked eye at a dark sky location. At 2.5 million light years away, it is probably the most distant local landmark visible from earth. And no doubt it is the largest object I'll ever use my macro lens on.

365 Theme 324: There's No Place Like Home

Another image made at Cherry Springs, this one is a close up of the part of the sky covered by the last image. Deneb, the brightest star in the constellation Cyngus, is to the lower right. To the left of Deneb is NGC 7000, also known as the North American Nebula. It is the pinkish area the bottom of which looks like the Gulf of Mexico.

If you draw a line between Deneb and the Xi Cygni, gold star off the California coast, it will pass through New Jersey, the state which I call home.

Further more, all of the stars you see here are in the Milky Way galaxy, which is of course our home galaxy.

365 Theme 68: Cross

The Northern Cross asterism in the constellation Cygnus the Swan. Another image made at Cherry Springs State Park in Potter County Pennsylvania. The cross is somewhat difficult to make out, as there are so many stars in this image.

365 Theme 235: Places of Worship

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."

- Albert Einstein, What I Believe, 1930

The Milky Way over Cherry Springs State Park.