July/August 2013
Contents
1. Articles Manuscripts and letters are welcome in MS Word MS Publisher or plain text format and emailed to the SVAS Editor Deadline is the 22nd of the month prior to the newsletter release Advertising Commercial non personal advertising business card and full page are available Classified advertising is free to SVAS members Copyrights Except for individually copyrighted articles permis sion is granted to other amateur astronomy organizations to re produce articles in whole or in part for internal non profit use provided credit is given to the SVAS Observer and the authors of the reproduced materials Copyrighted material appears in this publication solely for non profit educational and research pur poses in accordance with title 17 U S C section 107 Notice It may take the board of directors 30 or more days to process and approve this application By signing this application I acknowledge I have accessed the SVAS website read and understand the SVAS bylaws and the rules governing the USFS Special Use Permit In doing so I agree to abide by the respective terms and conditions of Address City Phone Email Detach and mail with payment to SVAS Membership Application Observatory Membership Approval The benefits of a regular membership plus private use of the Henry Grieb Observa tory HGO at Blue Canyon You must be a regular member for six months or longer be certified and approved by the2. We decided to do some sur gery and removed the mirror which was attached to the cell with silicone Very carefully cutting the glue with our mirror cratic oath of first do no harm foremost in our minds the mirror came loose nicely Then it was just a matter of applying a bit of SVAS Observer July Aug 2013 24 new silicone and re centering the mirror You can see the toothpicks we used for spacers They worked great by utilizing the tapered end to adjust the space After double checking the spac al ing we set it aside to cure The next day Greg stopped by and we cleaned the mirror installed it re collimated the Newtonian Success the rear cell fell into place square on the tube and now the physical alignment is the same as the optical align 1 ment In other words the scope sees where the op tical tube is pointed absolutely necessary if you want to use encoders The next photo is the freshly cleaned mirror waiting for installation 32 Mostafa third from left dropped by to talk about making his own mirror and telescope Bill de scribed the process of grinding polishing and testing mirrors We all discussed the best size to start with and al ways suggest making a big enough first mirror to satisfy aperture fever for a long time Mostafa decided on a 18 f 4 5 which is a great size for portability eyepiece height and cost With our help and guidance a quality big first mirror is defini
3. until you CAN see it but when it takes a minute or more to do so it involves a lot of waiting If you need to use small incremental movements of the mount to get your object centered or framed the way you want it and then wait for the next few minutes to see the effect of your move ment Hopefully the focusing you did previously is still holding good otherwise you will also have to refocus Here you will depend more on stars in the FOV to check the focus so can use shorter exposures If you are using Nebu losity www stark labs com for capture it provides a Fine Focus mode to further refine focus on a star in the FOV Step 5 Calibrate autoguiding In PHD also from Stark Labs although provided frequently as part of the soft ware with guiding cameras you will pick a smaller unsaturated star in the PHD view screen and click on it If all the settings are correct see the literature and both written and video tutorials for how to make setting adjustments PHD will start the calibration process by moving the mount in the four cardinal directions in increments It should take up to 20 steps in each direction to figure out how to move your mount to keep it guiding on that star If it takes many more than 40 or so steps you need to adjust the Brain parameters Once it has completed the process the green cross hairs should be centered on the selected star Selecting to display the graph will give you a visual image of how guid ing is doing
4. 29 NGC 6578 pn 18 16 20 Chart 13 NGC 6500 12 gx and 6501 13 gx 17 56 18 Chart 19 NGC 6503 10 gx 17 49 70 Chart 13 NGC 6504 13 gx 17 56 33 Chart 14 NGC 6521 13 elliptical gx 17 55 62 Chart13 See also 6411 6223 NGC 6549 14 gx 18 05 18 Charts 14 and 15 See also 6548 6555 NGC 6369 12 9 pn 17 29 23 Chart 16 See also 6401 6325 6355 NGC 6781 11 8 pn 19 18 6 Chart 18 SVAS Observer July Aug 2013 19 NGC 6803 11 3 pn 19 31 10 Chart 18 NGC 6804 12 2 pn 19 31 9 Chart 18 NGC 6822 9 3 gx and 6818 pn 19 44 20 Chart 19 NGC 6445 13 2 pn 17 49 20 Chart 19 See also 6440 Little Gem NGC 6453 10 2 globular cluster gc 17 50 39 Chart 19 Near M7 see also 6475 6396 5441 NGC 6520 10 12 magnitude stars oc near dark nebula B86 18 03 27 Chart 19 NGC 6886 12 2 pn 20 12 19 Chart 18 Near M71 6838 IC 4997 11 6 pn 20 20 16 Chart 18 See also 6891 6879 NGC 6505 11 9 pn 17 51 65 Chart 13 Near C 6 6543 IC 10 11 8 11 3 gx 00 20 59 Chart 20 See local galaxy group NGC 103 7789 hundreds of galaxies on Scrib ble Chart Near M13 NGC 6207 6196 6194 16 43 36 Chart 14 NGC 188 8 1 oc 00 44 85 Chart 1 See also NGC 40 NGC 147 and 185 10 gx 00 33 48 Chart 20 See local galaxy group on Scribble Chart NGC 404 7 1 gc near the star Mirach in Beta Andromeda 01 09 35 Chart 23 NGC 253 Sculptor galaxy a nice finish to your observing session in August at about 3 a m It is about a
5. It is best to let guiding run for a while to settle down before starting to image Step 6 Imaging Finally Set up your imaging parameters For faint objects you may need to take many images of 30 seconds to ten minutes or longer depending on your imaging equipment and tracking abilities For bright objects like planets double stars etc shorter exposures will be needed The key to finding out the correct exposure is in the histogram display of your capture software If the histogram display is all bunched 4 to the left dark areas and very little Jf to the right you don t have enough exposure The screen capture above shows this with the majority of the graph on the left and cut off on the right The next image is the same as above but stretched differently to get a smoother curve You won t have that luxury in your raw images SO you must increase exposure SVAS Observer July Aug 2013 13 length to capture more photons There are however cases where you just can t do that either due to light pollution or noise from other sources In that case you will need to take a larger number of exposures to make up the differ ence in a process called stacking which will cover later The best approach is to take a few test exposures to see how your histogram looks If it looks reasonable go ahead and take a series of lights usually as many as you can afford to spend time on since the more lights you ge
6. Observa tory Director and then be approved by the SVAS Board of Directors Zip Please Print For SVAS Newsletter PO Box 15274 Sacramento California 95851 0274 SVAS Observer each as they relate to the SVAS use of its property and its facilities I further under stand and acknowledge that failure to abide by these terms and conditions can result in revocation of use privileges and or SVAS membership Signature July Aug 2013 26
7. Telescope Making Ross Gorman Nerissa Adams Ross Gorman Walt Heiges Walt Heiges Lonnie Robinson Walt Heiges Margaret Minnick Walt Heiges Perry P Porter Perry Preston Porter Perry Preston Porter Perry Preston Porter Stuart Schultz Tim Tingey Lonnie Robinson Bill Thomas SVAS Membership Application Choose a Membership Level Student student ID required Family or Individual one household Observatory Add to membership approval 48 yr or 4mo New orRenew 24 yr or 2 mo 36 yr or 3mo Supporting membership contribution Contributing membership contribution Additional tax deductible contribution Prorate Dues to July 1st renewal date 75 yr 150 yr Amt Total Name Where We Meet General Meetings the third Friday of each month beginning at 8 00pm Board Meetings begin at 6 30 on the same day All members are welcome Star Parties on weekends nearest the new Moon sacramento City College Mohr Hall Room 3 3835 Freeport Boulevard sacramento CA WWW SVAS ORG SVAS Observer To Subscribe First send in your membership application form below with your dues and upon approval by the board of direc tors the Observer published bi monthly will be sent to your sup plied email address in pdf format Second request to join the SVAS Yahoo Group at http groups yahoo com group svas members This group will keep you informed with the day to day current events and discussions
8. Vol 70 No 4 July Aug 2013 db db db dh OBSERVER Sacramento Valley Astronomical Society Founded in 1945 Star B Q for 2013 SVAS Event Calendar Star B Q Schedule amp Rules Star B Q Sponsors SVAS News Discovery Museum Solar Viewing Astro Photography Chapter 4 Wayne Lord Darkest Night Observing Davin Engil Gibson Ranch Wayne Lord Telescope Workshop Lonnie Robinson Officers New Membership SVAS Sl July Aug 2013 1 July 8 New Moon July 19th No General Meeting Held at Star B Q August 6 New Moon Star Party Schedule 2013 July 5 6 Star B Q August 9 10 September 6 7 October 4 5 August 9 10 Blue Canyon November 1 2 amp 29 30 December 6 7 August 16 General Meeting Friday at 8 00pm Sacramento City College Mohr Hall Room 3 3835 Freeport Boulevard Sacramento CA m Yosemite Star Party Weekend Aug 302Sept 1 TM Moon Sept Sth 5 SVAS Observer July Aug 2013 2 oe i UL umo AE Star B Q Schedule and Rules Arrive early if you can say around 2 00pm on Saturday to find a great parking spot and get your scope set up before we start cooking steaks about 4 00pm The raffle begins around 5 30pm and lasts a couple hours so don t follow my lead and end up eating late during the raffle Lots of great prizes will be spread out on tables for everyone to view and pre select should you have a winning ticket There will be club announcements a
9. a IC 2118 Witch Head Nebula IC 2220 Toby Jug Nebula IC 2574 Coddington s Nebula IC 2602 Southern Pleiades IC 4703 Eagle Nebula IC 5070 Pelican Nebula IC 5146 Cocoon Nebula Not all are visible from Blue Canyon or at this time of year But they are still worth looking up Tip Why can t see low surface brightness objects considering my telescope is rated for even dimmer mag nitudes Because the SVAS has a powerful 16 inch reflector telescope available for club member s use will concen trate on objects for that telescope s limiting magnitude of 15 1 Besides magnitude the surface brightness usually SVAS Observer July Aug 2013 18 for galaxies and planetary nebulae is important For instance if the stars in a spiral galaxy are spread out flat as in the face on galaxy orientation then the telescope may not see a 15 1 magnitude object surface brightness is too low Yet if the stars are stacked on top of each other as in an edge on spiral galaxy then the telescope will poten tially see down to a faintness of 15 1 magnitude Spherical shaped galaxies do not have this difference Tip To what maximum magnification can push my telescope The practical maximum magnification for 8 inch mirrors and up to 30 inches mirrors is only 300x However the SVAS s Ritchey Chr tien telescope RC16 can be pushed to about 960x on the best seeing nights On dim ob jects like ICs it is best to push the magnification as high as
10. aptop powered up and ready to go otep 2 Polar alignment When Polaris is visible polar align your mount using whichever alignment method you prefer to get an accurate alignment If you have a polar alignment scope in your mount use it to get a reasonably ac curate alignment and then use a more accurate technique to get it closer drift alignment being the most accurate iterative polar alignment or If you are autoguiding it has been my experience that polar alignment does not need to be very accurate and have occasionally just positioned my mount by eye if am pressed for time Step Star alignment Do a two or three star alignment or more to get your mount s pointing accuracy work ing well These days use EQMOD and Cartes du Ciel to provide the pointing model for my mount The alignment points are saved in a database so sometimes have as many as ten stars planets stored there to provide accurate pointing in the area of the sky l m imaging If you are using just the hand controller for your mount Celestron seems to have only a 2 star alignment but it allows you to add another star close to your target area Most others have at least a 3 star alignment Check your mount s user manual for details This is a good place to make sure your primary imaging system main scope and camera is properly focused Use a Bahtinov Mask if you are using a non reflector scope or the secondary mirror spider spikes to get your focus sharp If your
11. behind your vehicle inside the 12 tarmac space There is only room for a maximum of Six RVs They must be parked entirely on the SVAS permit dirt area completely off the tarmac and should remain all night Please park with a 4 space or less between ve hicles Set up your telescopes and seat ing area only to the front or rear of your RV or camper not to the side Check with our observatory director for further information Campers and camping trailers may park close together on the northern end of the SVAS permit area off the tar mac and towards the exit road Keep the 12 tarmac equipment space in mind Tent camping is OK only on the SVAS permit dirt area behind and to the north of HGO Please stay clear of the observatories to the south of HGO Again no tents campers camping trail ers or RVs on the airport tarmac Car Camping on the tarmac is now permissible You may sleep in your car or next to it in a sleeping bag or on a cot under the stars Due to Fire Restrictions no BBQ grill of any type will be allowed except for the official SVAS grills No other open flames are allowed Fire restriction may worsen to no grill at all Please don t use any power outlets from HGO for your camping needs you may trip a main breaker that we don t have access to We don t have a garbage pickup or RV hookups so please carry your waste including sewage back with you and clean up the area when you leave OK now we ha
12. e Transport System which is the standard format used by NASA and other astronomical organizations To enable processing of these images NASA ESA have provided plug ins for PhotoShop to allow users to process FITS images These plug ins are also free but imply that you have PhotoShop If you do that is great and if you don t you may want to consider buying it or the less expen sive Photoshop Essentials You will find it very useful to have this software for final tweaking of your images Orion www telescope com provides a program called Maxim DL with their imagers However it is only a partially enabled version of Cyanogen s MAXIM DL www cyanogen com that sells for 199 for the basic version The Orion proprie tary version will work for basic use but had some bad experience with it initially and found it cumbersome to use They may have improved it recently but have never gone back to try it again since found and purchased Nebulos ity another Stark Labs product Yes said purchased and feel that the 80 price tag is well worth it All of my im age captures and most of my processing is accomplished with Nebulosity Rather than going through a step by step process here which would only repeat what is available elsewhere suggest reading or viewing the available tutori als online Here are a few http www youtube com watch v OMhLYg xPuc Astronomy Shed video http www stark labs com help nebulositytutorials files PreProc 20Walk
13. epor by Wane Lord arrived before 7 30 so the sun was still above the horizon al though partially obscured by clouds and smoke from the fires in the area Perry and Richard were al ready there and mostly set up Perry and I put solar filters on our scopes and showed the sunspots to _ 1 the few people there There were illi several boys with small telescopes there too so we tried to help them get set up However one of the telescopes purchased at a yard sale was so misaligned optically that we couldn t do much with it A few more people showed up as it got darker although the group was never very large spotted Jupiter first and got the Dob set up on it We were able to see three of the Galilean moons and the two colored cloud bands circling the gas giant Both Richard and Perry followed suit since that was all that was available to show the sun having set by that time soon spotted Arcturus and keyed off of it to find Saturn so switched my scope over that way to show the group something different Sat urn was a pretty red colored due to the smoke in the atmosphere With the wide angle 35mm eyepiece in the scope it was pretty small so switched to a 25mm got it centered and then put in a 2x Barlow which made a large enough image so the rings were clearly visible SVAS July Aug 2013 22 although had to keep adjusting it frequently to keep it in view Richard had his Mallincam set up and attempted to fi
14. er to the workshop After in specting the mirror it was obvious it needed cleaning and a center spot for laser align ment We finished cleaning the mirror put a Sharpie mark dead center reinstalled it in the optical tube and inserted the laser collimator only to discover a fuzzy blob of returning light Further inspection of the system rev eled a corrector lens installed in the bottom of the focuser tube This is the first time l ve seen a Newtonian designed like this and we decided to remove the lens before doing the initial alignment Later at the April star party some of us were discussing telescopes and a member mentioned it was common some years ago for a Newtonian to use a spherical main mirror with a corrector lens News to me Un fortunately we were unable to get a satisfactory image for Emerald We even cleaned the corrector lens It wasn t for a lack of trying The next workshop scheduled for April 27 was great fun Seg pictured next page on left owns a 8 Meade Newtonian that refused to collimate Try as ERE JR he might he couldn t find anyone that could help We finally figured out that the main mirror was mounted off center far enough that the existing collimation screws couldn t reach the tilt required to pull the mirror in position Greg and changed the screws for some longer ones that did the job but he understandably wasn t happy with the M idea his scope was looking out of the tube a a bit sideways
15. n a N dark room experi N voy i As Uh j 2 31 833147 02 f aes NN 36165 3735 Giausar menting with different lt le tong i Batt o UBC 9749 Mag 00 9 colors that would 07 1 V JN SX Grumium 3 ER Ve show up under red MEME ON eet ass X j 9 r i E light After creating a pee 4 By A ek matching large num Xa 9 planisphere like num bered map they be Came super conven ient to use mad 14 Hercules 6229 Too much infor mation on map making It s a work in progress a labor of love so to speak and when find new cool objects they are scribbled in until the next computer session and subsequent reprint It would be great fun to share them with you free to SVAS members to scribble in your favorite objects and make the maps your own Hopefully you will send me new stuff to add as well as corrections and could return the updated PDF or MS Publisher files for you to print Im sure there must be many mistakes in something so technical so please let me know so they can be corrected Give me or Davin Enigl a shout for a free download and I ll try to have a free CD handy at our star parties Happy Astro Scrap Booking NW BS Rastaban oa A Re A T SVAS Observer July Aug 2013 21 o9 StarA F Cp Gibson Ranch R
16. nd awards fol lowing the raffle Then on to a great viewing evening under the stars Rules Rules and more Rules however they are meant for everyone s enjoyment It s the same rules we should be following at all HGO Star Parties The following is a Summation and update of the formal rules posted in the SVAS Web Site the ones we all agree to follow when signing up as a new SVAS member Guests As a SVAS member in good standing you may invite up to four guests unless special permission has been granted Please ask you guests to park outside the permitted area and tarmac to preserve space for members and their equipment Also make sure not to block any emergency vehicle ac cess lanes Try to park with a 4 foot maximum space between vehicles and set up your equipment in front or behind your vehicle to make more room for parking White Light discipline Friday evening is usually more for the dark sky oriented photographers and deep space viewers so please pay extra attention to white light It takes at least 30 minutes for the eye to adapt to full darkness so it s very irritating when someone shines a white light requiring another 30 minutes for your eyes to readapt to dark skies It goes without saying that stray white light will ruin a cameras exposure Red light protects the dark adapted vision so cover flashlights and car lights with dark red plastic film Don t forget interior and trunk lights Saturday is more of a family night geared towa
17. nd some deep sky objects but the hazy sky and light pollution worked against him so both he and Perry wound up with varying views of Saturn That being the case and with limited availability of other targets switched to the dou ble stars Mizar and Alcor in the handle of the Big Dipper It also allowed me to provide a little teaching moment on how to use the Big Dipper to find Polaris Arcturus and Spica also provided information to some of the parents on obtaining Google Sky the free Android smart phone app and later saw some of the kids and adults using it The Discovery Museum solar event was also mentioned at various times so we may see some of the people from last night at some time this weekend lt S Gale lt sale Celestron Skywatcher 12 f 5 Dobsonian Has Orion SkyView Pro 8 OTA f 4 9 rarely used factory encoder push to system with hand pad A Includes original instruction manual and zippered Laser collimator is included heavy duty padded carry case Asking 700 Original price for all 368 85 in February 2006 Asking 300 Contact Dave Compton 1 530 346 7259 Contact Wayne Lord 916 729 5537 Citrus Heights SVAS July Aug 2013 23 Telescope Workshop sfronomers NS A few months ago we had the first Telescope Workshop for 2013 A young lady named Emerald called me earlier in the week asking if we could align an old 6 Orion type equatorial Newtonian reflector and Bill and l invited h
18. nviction Kidding again Honestly we did ae E well considering they were asking MU PEN NN a mae m i ea ae Legem t X gt questions go SY x2 A B5 amp straight from pe oc Sn ee it 5 their school ECL teachers lec tures ex plained how the hydrogen in the Sun is always circulating from the interior up to the surface and how sunspots have extremely strong magnetic fields which repel the circulating hot gases This causes the sunspots to cool down slightly and look darker relative to the rest of the surface All the while the youngsters were saying you are right you are right because they knew the answers all along These kids are amazing It s great fun sharing our views them The next page has several photos from the inside of the Discovery Museum There are so many great displays many about space exploration You can even cook or buy K the same freeze dried meals our astronauts eat Looking foreword to doing it again next year July Aug 2013 10 361 5 Auburn Blvd sacramento CA 95821 www TheDiscovery org 916 808 3942 Special thanks to Wayne in Kissler for adding some great photos July Aug 2013 Stro Chapter 4 Processing h Otog ra D ny by Wayne Lord In the previous chapters we have gone over all the equipment needed to take pictures of the heavens In doing so it was necessary to men
19. ols one of which provides the astro frame bd M42 The Great Nebula in Orion plus NGC 1977 Running Man Nebula M42 is the brightest nebula in the sky visible to the naked eye in Orion s Sword Taken February 14 2013 from Citrus Heights CA Total exposure 37 minutes 17x1 Min 10x2 Min StarShoot Pro V2 0 CCD camera SVAS Observer July Aug 2013 17 for July amp August 2013 by Davin nigl The darkest nights for these months are July 8 9th and August 6 7th from Midnight to 3 a m Summer has shorter time periods of darkness compared to the other seasons We will explore many of the New General Catalog NGC objects and a few Index Catalog IC objects All NGC and IC objects have numbers Most paper based sky charts electronic sky charts and Go To telescope systems have the locations for NGCs The best electronic paper pdf sky chart for NGCs and ICs is Lonnie s Scribble Chart It is available for free as a PDF or MS Publisher file and was created by our own SVAS member Lonnie Robinson also recommend Philip S Harringtion s 2011 Cos mic Challenge book for further reference for charts and more information especially on the ICs See also the mod ern NGC project 1993 http www ngcicproject org The list of 7 849 objects was completed by John Louis Emil Dreyer in 1888 It is an updated version of John Herschel s Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars of 1786 NGCs are better organi
20. oons of color and globs of detail Observer Editor iS Observer July Aug 2013 7 The SVAS board of directors has unanimously voted for July 1st to be the new annual membership renewal due date It will be the same date for all mem bers We have been discussing this for several months listening to our members suggestions and decided it would be eas ier for all concerned to have one date Here are the discussion points Easier for members to remember when their annual memberships are due We can remind everyone a few months ahead of time Dues may be paid at Star B Q Membership cards can be handed out at Star B Q Dues will already be paid prior to SVAS elections Easier for our treasurer to plan our yearly budget expenditures In order to make it easier to prorate existing and new memberships to the new date we changed the amount slightly so it would be evenly devisable by 12 months Here are the new rates Student Was 20 24 or 2 per month Family or Individual Was 35 now 36 or 3 per month Observatory Was 40 now 48 or 4 per month Please make an additional one time adjustment payment from your current expiration date to the new July 1st due date Then everyone s membership will come due each July We the SVAS officers and board of directors hope this will be a smooth and welcome transition for everyone SVAS ODserver July Aug 2013 8 LIiIscovery Museum Solar VIEWING Walt Adam Perr
21. possible to blacken the dark background of space Magnification artificially increases the contrast between the object and it s background and therefore the dim object can be seen better Suggested Observing List for July and August 2013 Legend NGCZ name if known magnitude if known type of object RA amp degrees declination location Scribble chart number NGC 6027 Seyfert s Sextet galaxies gx NGC 6027A and E 14 8 14 4 magnitude Seyfert s Sextet galaxies gx see also nearby NGC 6040 14 1 6041 14 2 6042 14 9 6041 14 2 See also IC 1178 14 1 IC 1182 14 2 IC 1183 14 2 and IC 1185 13 8 Located at 16 hours RA and 20 degrees 16 00 20 Lonnie s Scribble Chart does not have every object in this suggested list but the RA Dec is usually well marked with near by objects for star hopping to the unmarked location See Chart 12 NGC 7333 Deer Lick group of eight galaxies See nearby NGC 7320 7319 7318 7317 Stephan s Quintet Southwest of 7331 22 37 34 Chart 21 Near M81 and 82 NGC 3077 2959 and 2976 and integrated flux nebula 10 03 68 Chart 2 NGC 6578 13 1 planetary nebula pn and nearby IC 4732 13 3 pn 18 16 20 Chart 19 See also 6440 Little Gem and NGC 6445 NGC 6309 Little Ghost Box nebula 17 14 12 Chart 16 See also 6356 6235 6287 6284 NGC 6572 pn 18 12 6 Chart 14 NGC 6337 pn 17 22 38 Chart 14 NGC 653 pn Red Spider Nebula 18 05 19 Chart 19 NGC 6323 gx 17 13 43 Chart 14 See also 6239 62
22. r and more memory works better to handle this so usually either send the raw files via LAN or copy to a mass memory device to transfer the files Since it is usually fairly late when get done imaging don t plan on processing anything that night and postpone any serious work until can approach it the next day with a fresh alert mind will admit though that sometimes do a real quick process to see how things came out if it is a real interesting target Skip to the next morning Now it is time to start converting the raw images from last night into finished products If you purchased a CCD camera and were able to capture the CCD images from the previous session you likely have at least one of the tools needed to complete the process Most if not all CCD cameras come with some sort of capture and processing software If you are using a DSLR however the software that comes with them may let you capture images of a sort but don t provide the tools needed for astro imaging Fortunately there are a number of free stacking programs avail able among which are two that use on occasion They are Registax http www astronomie be registax and the current release is Version 6 and DeepSkyStacker http deepskystacker free fr english download htm at release 3 3 2 Both are totally free for download Two more are worth mentioning here FitsWork4 and FITSView most CCD cameras capture images in a specialized format called FITS Flexible Imag
23. ram a list of dark files and light files tell it wnat kind of stacking you want to do and it does it for you Here is an example gue 1 2 Demasale anc gt 1e o Square Pixels g Figure 3 Dark Subtraction Figure 4 Single Frame Processed Figure 5 stack of frames processed SVAS Observer July Aug 2013 16 Final Tweaking Normally stacking programs provide some basic tools for stretching and enhancing a stacked image but to bring out the subtle details smooth out gradients and provide a finished look to your images you will need to do some post processing There are quite a few programs available to do image enhancement and even a few free ones but in my experience and that of most other APers the premiere program is Adobe Photoshop Photoshop Elements is a less expensive alternative but with less capability use Photoshop CS3 Extended version that provides a few more useful tools than the non extended version Photoshop also opens up the ability to use Actions that perform various processing steps in a repeatable fashion One of the most capable and versatile sets of actions tailored to astro imaging is Noel Carboni s Tool Set http www prodigitalsoftware com Astronomy Tools For Full Version html At 21 95 it is well worth the relatively low cost Since have used M42 as a sample for previous images it is fitting that the final image be a recent one that post processed in Photoshop us ing Noel Carboni s to
24. rd general observing One of the biggest problems is cars coming and going all night and it seems each one has at least one white light shining be it backup lights or running lights To reduce this an noyance we would like to request that you arrive on the tarmac no later than an hour after sunset If you plan on leaving early try to park near the exit road and back into your spot so you won t need to use backup lights when leaving Also plan your exit between say midnight and 1 00am so the folks staying overnight can get their eyes adapted again and enjoy the rest of the evening The old guard are all familiar with turning off covering or removing interior and trunk lights They all are willing to guide you out to the exit with their red flashlights Please don t yell at anyone who violates the no white light rules because we are all there to have a good time Lets respectfully assist newcomers and ex plain the necessity of red lighting These areas are off limits to SVAS members Aircraft runway because aircraft can and do land at any time The dirt aircraft overrun strip between the runway and tarmac Private observatories south of HGO The south end of the tarmac is reserved for aircraft parking CHP helicopters and private observatories Safety Airplane traffic has priority at all times You may be asked to move your observing site if additional aircraft parking is required Please no bicycles skateboards rollerblades
25. roller skates or Frisbees There is a lot of very expensive equipment that is susceptible to serious damage from youngsters goofing around Keep your chil dren under control and close by at all times because you could be responsible for replacing a damaged 3 000 mir ror let alone running someone s evening year Alcohol affects your night vision among other things so please don t drink at HGO Smoking is very hard on delicate lens coatings Be aware of the benches and telescope piers SVAS ODserver July Aug 2013 3 permanently mounted in the ground at the south side of HGO they are really dangerous in the dark Be sure to bring mosquito repellent sunscreen and a hat Camping Camping with RVs 5th wheels camping trailers and tents is a very sensitive subject but remem ber we are the guests of Placer County Airport when we use the tarmac As SVAS members we are only allowed to camp in RVs Campers and Tents on our own permit property defined by the east edge of the asphalt airport tarmac and the tree line behind HGO to the east An emergency evacuation plan for large events like Star B Q was worked out between SVAS the Forrest Service and Placer County To allow for an ample sized emergency exit lane and three to four rows of parking we must only use a 12 width of tarmac for the first row nearest HGO This means all vehicles in that row should be parked mostly on the SVAS permit dirt area to allow room for equipment setup
26. s long as wide and as spectacular as the Andromeda Galaxy 00 47 25 Chart 26 Caldwell 65 See also NGC 247 and 12th magnitude IC 1558 NGC 253 The Sculptor Galaxy SVAS Observer July Aug 2013 20 SCRIBBLE CHARTS by Lonnie Robinson What are these widgets called Scribble Charts They began life as mag 13 Astro chart printouts from The Sky Software Then literally scribbled penciled in all my favorite objects and many others on my wish list The charts got cluttered and hard to read so decided to scan them into MS Publisher and add my selected objects with basic symbols Galaxies have always been my favorite and thought it would be interesting and think original to map as many galaxy groups as possible with their estimated distances and basic info Of course all the Messier and Caldwell objects were necessary as well as favorite double stars globulars planetaries and nebula Things quickly got challenging complicated and very slow going at first planned the 35 maps to cover North to South sections that progress West to 3r East for viewing con anu T O H venience Notice the oo a RE TA m ff ae gd 1 3 extra large num E as AN sd OR 5 bers when In serted in vinyl sheet h Y a protectors with binder V 4 P a M Push 7 rings they very aoe e pe easy to see in the dark also spent considerable time i
27. set checked focus made sure guiding is working satisfactorily and given a name for the series of images you will be taking you are finally ready to start imaging Now is when all the hard work and effort starts to pay off Set the series going and you can take a break while the capture program works for you It will chug away capturing your minutes long sub exposures until it reaches the number of them you selected Put the cover on the scope and take a series of darks of the same length There is always a question as to how many darks to take Some people recommend taking as many darks as lights generally take about 1 3 the number of lights There is also some evidence that the algorithms used in processing darks work better if there are an odd number of them so take the odd number sequence Set it going and once again take a break while the darks are captured SVAS July Aug 2013 14 Step 7 Completing the capture process When you are done taking lights and darks for one target if that is all you will be doing in this session you can stop guiding remember to do this every time before slewing or moving the scope park the scope and shut everything down If you have another target in mind go back to Step 4 and continue from there If you will be using the same machine to stack and finalize the processing of the images you can take it inside to be ready for that find that my desktop computer with a larger screen more processing powe
28. system is still cooling down it is a good idea to recheck periodically throughout the session to make sure focus hasn t drifted oidebar note rarely find the need to use visual eyepieces in my sessions these days unless have made a major change in focus or alignment of my pointing tools have a red dot finder to mount on either of my scopes and it is usually sufficient to get a target star in the Field of View FOV of my autoguider camera and PHD the guiding program used almost universally Center the star in its Bulls eye display and if it and the main scope are properly aligned the target star should be close to the center of the main display Center the star in it accept the position and make whatever minor adjustments are needed to get the autoguider centered again and you have no need to mess SVAS Observer July Aug 2013 12 with removing cameras looking in eyepieces refocusing replacing cameras or refocusing etc Step 4 Slew to Target Frame and Focus Put your target into your hand controller or planetarium program and have the mount slew to it If your star alignment is good it should be pretty well centered at least in your Finder scope or Autoguider display Center in the main scope as needed checking your capture program display to verify framing Now here is a problem What if you can t see your target i e it is too faint or diffuse to see Patience is needed here because you need to increase your exposure length
29. t the more photons you capture and the better your signal to noise ratio will be Plan to spend some time also in shooting darks with the shutter closed or the dust cap on your scope These need to be of the same exposure length as your lights and ideally at the same chip temperature as the lights Shooting alternating lights and darks would be ideal but tedious Usually it is safe to shoot darks after a series of lights Darks are used to subtract out hot pixels from your lights For short exposures darks are not usually critical but as your exposures get longer more and more hot pixels will show up Here is an example This is a single frame image of M15 non dark subtracted All the colored pixels are hot pixels This is rather an extreme example since it was taken on a camera where the thermoelectric cooling chip TEC had failed allowing many more hot pixels than usual to show up The next image is still M15 but this time with a dark image subtracted from it Note that there are only a few hot pixels showing It still has problems though since the focus is way off There are other types of frames that may help improve an image such as bias frames and flat frames but am not going into that kind of detail here You may research what they do how to take them and use online Be aware though that there are many opinions some diametrically opposite on how to implement their use Once you have a good exposure length
30. tely possible The workshop is a great place to get started and once the size and type decisions are made the serious work can begin at your home and at my or Bills home workshops where we have the mirror ma chines and testing equipment Getting started on your mirror and working through rough grinding can be done at your home at your personal pace Polishing is a lot of work and we can schedule machine time for that task Figur ing takes a lot of planning and advice and ultimately Bill and can help finish up Quite a challenge but very reward ing to push your own glass Contact Bill or me any time to schedule a special telescope tune up appointment or telescope building experience There is ATM help avail able in the SVAS Lonnie Robinson July Aug 2013 25 SVAS Officers 2013 President Vice President RossGorman Walt Heiges 916 543 7383 916 684 3421 Secretary Treasurer Past President NerissaAdams KirkAlexander LiamMcDaid nstarr133 at hotmail com 530 753 4430 916 558 2005 SVAS Board of Directors Perry Preston Porter RamonaGlasgow Lonnie Robinson 916 689 1581 209 327 9889 916 723 7279 RichardSandler TimTingey Bill Marquardt 916 212 1426 916 695 0935 707 592 1285 Membership Resources Star B Q Newsletter SVAS Web Site Outreach Director Community Star Parties Observatory Director First Light Team HGO Maintenance Director Telescope Loaner Program Amateur
31. through comp pdf Stark Labs step by step walkthrough http www youtube com watch v 3PEFI Uxpzt4 This tutorial covers Nebulosity and several other software packages Stacking mentioned stacking earlier and almost all of the good pre processing packages will involve stack ing but what is it Back in the days of film photography most imaging was done using large glass plates that fit in astronomical telescopes that were essentially large cameras Various techniques were used to make this film more sensitive to light but long exposures were still needed This resulted in good images but they also had a lot of noise Astronomers tried to find ways of reducing the noise in these images and when one astronomer tried placing two im ages of the same object one on top of the other he discovered that after aligning the plates due to the random noise but constant stellar position of stars the noise was partially cancelled while leaving the stars and other fixed objects visible Adding a third plate reduced the noise more This reduction via stacking is called the Signal to Noise Ratio or SNR You can imagine how tedious it must have been to stack plates and get them aligned properly but it worked SVAS Observer July Aug 2013 15 In the digital age things get much easier Stacking pixels is a lot simpler than stacking glass plates And to make it even simpler the pre processing programs do all the work for you You just give the prog
32. tion a number of things dealing with processing those images but covering the processing has been post poned until now In processing images there are almost as many ways to tackling them than there are different types of telescopes cameras and mounts so once again will deal with ones with which am familiar and have found to work for me Taking pictures of the stars nebulae and galaxies is very different from normal terrestrial photography For one thing many of the objects we take pictures of are so faint we can t even see them with our un aided eyes and some are so faint we can t even see them in our telescopes so we must capture them with seconds or minutes long expo sures to even be sure we are aimed at the correct position in the heavens So it is definitely not a point and shoot experience am going to provide a Sample Workflow here Yours may be different due to differences in equipment or soft ware but mine should provide a general guide for you to modify as needed otep 1 Set up equipment Do this in the early evening so you have light to work by Get the mount as closely polar aligned as you can either by using a compass remember to offset to True North GPS or pre established marks Pier mounted you are good to go Attach the telescope finders etc and the camera s and balance the head so that you have it slightly east heavy Attach all the USB and power cords needed to use your mount and camera s and get your l
33. ve reviewed the rules lets have a safe and fun Star B Q SVAS officers and board of directors Please read the formal rules on the SVAS web site wwwSVAS org but it is slow updating Any questions Call or e mail the observatory director a board member or a SVAS officer SVAS Observer July Aug 2013 4 otar B Q Sponsors TelescopeS NE T by Woodland Md 4 Camera amp Telef ORION TELESCOPES amp BINOCULARS Jim s Mobile ws d b a ENTE Telescopes Manufacturing Advanced Telescope Products SVAS July Aug 2013 5 Oceanside Photo amp Telescope HAND CRAFTED TELESCOPES 11820 KEMPER RD AUBURN CA 95603 530 623 7796 FREE www AgenaAstro com SVAS July Aug 2013 6 HGO s front porch and ramp are finished Thank you Stuart Fan tastic job We will be at tempting to schedule a cleanup day So we will present our best at the Star B Q in July The commissary ceiling has been repaired and all the various stuff stored eve rywhere has been sorted through and reorganized 99 The SVAS 16 Dob is cleaned with new wheel barrel handles ready for members to roll out on the tarmac As usual HGO presents some of the best sunsets have ever seen We should run a contest for the best sunset photos have one from a few years back of a parasail outlined by a total outra geous sunset sporting fest
34. y Tim Wayne amp Lonnie dn it e i ADS und SVAS July Aug 2013 9 The Discovery Museum located on Auburn Blvd near Watt Ave is such a fun beautiful place to hold a SVAS Outreach solar viewing There were a lot of visitors on this Saturday May 4th and you can see by the photos on the beginning page there were no shortages of young and older viewers The picture at left of a sun dial clock painted on the entry patio with my hat s shadow pointing gl at the time use the upper light colored numbers for day 1 light savings time shows we were there around noon A slight breeze kept the temperature in the barley warm AM spectrum making our extremely hard work very pleasant bottom photo shows the excessive physical activity of the M powers that be Kidding The entire grounds area is like a giant park showcasing some very large redwoods ponds and nature walking trails There are numerous picnic tables and bench seats scattered throughout the property Bring the family spend the afternoon and have a pick nick The previous page s pictures pretty much tell the whole story check out the faces of people possibly experi encing their first views of our star the Sun The kids always ask such simple questions like what are the sunspots do they have an intensity cycle how long is the cycle and how fast does the sun rotate on it s axis Of coarse we were up to the task and an swered with great authority and co
35. zed and usually dimmer than Messier s list of 1771 NGCs are the next logical step for amateur astronomers beyond Messier and Caldwell objects recommend a ten inch diameter mirror reflector type telescope or larger After exploring the NGCs it s natu ral to want to see the even dimmer ICs with a 16 inch reflector or larger Refractor telescopes in general do not have enough light gathering power to see most of the NGC or IC objects The lists start at 00 00 Right Ascension RA turning left to get higher numbers and include both Northern and Southern hemisphere declination Dec located objects For a complete list of objects see https en wikipedia org wiki Category Lists of astronomical objects See NGCs https en wikipedia org wiki List of NGC objects See the original publications of ICs at http hgcicproject org legacy iconline default htm Index Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars The IC list Index Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars is a group of updated lists to the NGC list and has an additional 5 386 objects for a total of 7 849 5 386 13 235 The IC list is basically the new galaxies clusters and nebulae discovered between 1888 and 1907 and corrected in 1912 If you want to look further into the ICs suggest finding these IC 349 Barnard s Merope Nebula IC 405 Flaming Star Nebula IC 410 nebula near the Flaming Star Nebula IC 434 bright nebula around Horsehead nebula IC 1396 Garnet Star Nebul
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