This semester's class was unusually large, and unusually sociable as well. Being Spring, we also had late sunsets, which challenged the night lab projects. For the first time, we had to have students double up on processing the raw images that we did manage to get. All shots were done on the 12" Meade under the dome, which is a good education for future astronomers, and also much faster to target objects, using the Gemini System and computers.

Catherine and Ally surprised me and Dave with this "Certificate of Achievement", as thanks for a fun and exciting course. These two had a ton of energy, which was (mostly!) spent on doing good work.

Sarah, Alesia, Jeff, and Duncan. Looks like Jeff's work is all wrapped up. He was pretty efficient. Duncan is a veteran of a past Astro 8, and came by on class nights just to help out and enjoy that special Astro 8 ambience

Here's our Gallery shots...

Derek Glover
Dane Ostrander
Astro 8A
Spring 2012

M42 - The Orion Nebula
2x5minute exposures were taken using the ST2000 camera on the 12" telescope in the Cabrillo Observatory. Picture was dark subtracted, flat field, then single shot color processed with sRGB gamma. 16-Bitt files were then staked in Registax 6.
Used Photoshop to adjust color levels and curve.  Then made adjustments to hue and saturation.  Applied filter mask; unsharpen & Despekle for clearer image.

Jessica Buckner and Angela Flem's N4414.

Five exposures were taken with the 8inch Meade Idx75 telescope using the st4000 camera and then stacked using Registax. The chip temperature was -23c. In Adobe Photoshop the image was first cropped so the galaxy would be more apparent and focused, placing it using a 'rule of thirds' technique. From here we edited the levels, color balance, and curves.  To further improve the image we used the available AstroTools: 'space noise reduction', 'local contrast enhance', and 'deep space noise reduction'.  Finally, to remove more static noise the 'burn' tool was used to darken and clear the sky. 

Allison's M81. No processing description sent

Ally and Catherine's M101. Tough moon and clouds made for low S/N ratio.

The Pinwheel Galaxy—We took two five-minute exposures of the galaxy with St2k camera through the 12” f/6.3 telescope. We opened both images in CCDOPS5 and did a dark subtract of dk5-20 to each individual image. Then we flat fielded both images. Next, we did single-shot color processing with sRGB + gamma. After that, we used the stacking function in Registax6. We used a bright, uncrowded star to align the two images before stacking them. We edited the stacked image in Photoshop. Space noise reduction was applied three times, followed by use of the burning and blurring tools. Then we adjusted the darkness, lightness, and color curves. Finally, we used Photoshop Lightroom to enhance the vibrancy and contrast.

Chris and Matt's M95 image. No processing description sent.

Whitney and Seth's NGC 2175 (Monkey Face Nebula). No processing description sent.

Jolie and Andrew's M105 Galaxy Group. No processing description sent.

Noah and Korey's photo of the NGC 3190 Group. No processing description sent.

Tyler's version of the spiral galaxy M81. No processing description sent.

Sarah and Jeff's M82 rendition. No processing description sent.