A small class this Fall, but good chemistry in our group, and we had a great time doing our astro photos, getting good variable star data, and also enjoyed a field trip to attempt a Tuesday evening occultation by the asteroid Ivar from UCSC.
Mike won for "best light curve" for the RV Tauri star R Scuti. He also wrote some great Excel programs for plotting and period-searches for our cepheid variable stars. Excellent work! |
Cody took the honors for the difficult star Eta Aquila, who's cycle curve was almost exactly 1 week, a tough beat frequency for our weekly class meetings. |
A tie! Solange, our dancer from the VAPA side of campus, and Ray, had equally top quality data for Delta Cephei |
Ashlee had the best data for the ellipsoidal eclipsing binary star Beta Lyrae, getting both the primary and secondary eclipse curves very well. |
Lauren Stoops--Pinwheel Galaxy M101
Pinwheel Galaxy (M101) in the Ursa Minor Constellation (Shayna M. Troy) 3x-5 mins exposures taken on October 4, 2016; 9:06pm PST Cabrillo College Observatory, Aptos, California. Using a 12” dome scope, ST200 XCM Altitude: +24/Chip Temp: -20 degrees Sky Conditions: A clear and bright sky; above Santa Cruz; object was low; moon was in the sky, crescent ¼ size; minimal clouds, if any; object at least 90 degrees from the moon. (Troy, Shayna)
Notes- I was planning on photographing M74 which is a galaxy in the Pisces constellation, but did not find time to take the image. The object maintained its presence in the sky so I thought I had more time to photograph than I expected. Rainy/cloudy at the end of November through December.
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The Eagle Nebula M16, taken 9-11-18 9:52pm. Clear sky, no moon, frost on camera,dry, Alt 29 degrees. Four five minute exposures taken with 12 inch meade schmidt-cassegrain telescope featuring St 2k camera. Chip T=was dk18. Each image single shot color processed in CCDOPs5 using SRGB with gamma. Images were dark subtracted and stacked in Registax 5-1. Photoshop: curve adjusted, image sharpened, and pixels removed. "Make stars smaller" action was unsuccessful
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This image of M13 was taken at the observatory at Cabrillo College with a 12" Meade f/10 (w/ f/6.3 reducer) telescope and an ST 2000 XCM CCD camera on September 19, 2018 at 9:26pm. Four five minute exposures were taken. Using CCDOPS, all four exposures were dark subtracted using a dark frame (dk5-18; chip temperature at -18°) and a flat field correction was applied using the flat field image (f20180919-3). The dark subtraction reduced the amount of image noise while the flat field corrected the blurry corners cause by the circular shape of the telescope. Each image was then converted into color using the DDP method in CCDOPS. The next step was to stack the four dark subtracted, flat field corrected and colorized images in Registax which further reduced noise. Registax allows the user to choose a star as a reference point to neatly stack all three images. After that was done, Photoshop was used to do the final editing touches. Curves were used to reduce the abundant greens dispersed throughout the image and attain darker skies. Curves were also used to bring out the blue in the reflection nebula and the red in the emission nebula. Brightness and contrast settings were adjusted to level out the image as a whole. Used gradient tool (black to transparent) on a transparent layer to reduce residual green noise on top corners, and used the eraser tool to bring out the stars that were hidden beneath the gradient.
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Aaron Balbo. M57 - Ring Nebula. Astro 8A Fall 2018. Taken at Cabrillo Obs. on 10/30/18 at 8:30 pm.
Telescope: 8" Meade LDX200. Camera: ST-2K
Conditions: No moon, faint streaks of clouds in the north early in night. Dry air conditions, high 50s temperature.
Photo: 2 images at 5 minute exposure. CCDOPS dark subtract of -25, flat field, colorized sRGB. Registax 4 to stack images.
Photoshop: Astronomy action tool to reduce noise and make stars smaller. Used curves/levels to alter luminescence and granulation. Clone-stamped dead pixels. Space noise reduction applied to add clarity. Image cropped to make nebula appear larger
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Michael Salo, Crab Nebula (M1) in Taurus, 12" Meede LX200, ST2000XCM, 5x5min exposures. Taken for Melanie 11-11-2017, 9:45PM, sky conditions - unknown. CCD cooled to 24C. Images processed into 16 bit TIFF, 20 deg dark field subtracted with image:dk5-20.ST2K. Flat field correction preformed using image: fSep22-15-3.ST2K. Color conversion performed using sRGB+gamma "method." Images stacked with Registack5.1 software. Stacked image manipulated with Photoshop: S-curve adjustement performed to darken dimmer pixels reducing skyglow and improving contrast. No color adjustment and minimal cropping performed.
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Derek Beuerman - Helix Nebula
This is a long exposure astrophoto of the Helix / Sunflower Nebula (NGC 7293 / Caldwell 63). The Helix Nebula is a magnitude 7.3 planetary nebula that resides in the constellation of Aquarius, at a distance of 700 light years from Earth. Observations of the Helix Nebula was first recorded in 1824 by a German astronomer named Karl Ludwig Harding.
It was taken at the Cabrillo observatory (by another student) on 11/10/15 at 8 PM, with an ST2000XCM camera and a 12" Meade LX200 Cassegrain telescope. A total of four, five-minute-long exposures were taken while the object was at +31° in altitude. Unfortunately, only three were used during the stacking process due to the object drifting considerably in the field of view.
The separate five-minute exposures were taken whilst the sky was clear and dark, with no moon present and a camera chip temperature of -29°. For each exposure in the final stack i used CCDOPS to subtract a dark frame, a flat field frame and then i finished each one with RGB color conversion. After stacking the individual frames via Registax i processed the final image in Photoshop. Through Photoshop i enhanced the contrast, light curves, color saturation, reduced camera grain and color noise.
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Wizard Nebula (NGC 7380) (Ray Rogers)
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