HAHNENBERG OBSERVATORY ASTROPHOTOGRAPHYEd Hahnenberg, BA, MA, MA, Ed.S.

Hahnenberg Observatory

The Shed & 10” LX200 Classic

80 mm tracking scope

14” Meade LX200 ACF TELESCOPE

The Meade 14” ACF Telescope

The C1400 FS & CGE Pro mount

Making the decision … There were two

choices to achieve a place for a permanent pier

1. Use of slide-off roof

2. Use of a dome

The decision is made… I could not see myself

sitting in freezing weather without a roof over my head.

I chose the dome with a heater inside.

Cutting hole for pier…

Reasons for the Permanent Pier

Tracking DSOs No setup time Parking the scope Use of CCD camera (Charge-coupled

Device)

Taking astrophotographs… Photography of astronomical

objects brings many difficult problems as compared to the photography as most people know. The exposure times can be very long (even tens of minutes) and the lenses, or telescopes used, typically characterized with big focal lengths (thousands of millimeters). This means that the photographed objects must be well guided during the exposure and that the noise (that increases with the exposure time) can spoil the efforts.

When we add to this problems with light pollution, quality of optics (even smallest imperfections are clearly visible in case of photographing stars) and the weather, astrophotography appears to be very difficult.

What is more, there are the same problems as in the "normal" photography. One of them is the high dynamic range of the photographed objects.

The semi that changed my world…

PolyDome, headquartered in Minnesota, ships the Exploradome anywhere in the US for $350. The dome cost $1414. Roof panels $418.

The arrival of the Explora-Dome ….Dome is 8’ in diameter and revolves manually. Notice the permanent pier in the

4’ X 12” Sonotube.

Adding the 10’ X 10’ X 10’ roomNote the Schaub crew beginning the building process. Look carefully at the

permanent pier with the pier plate atop.

Still a ways from putting the dome in place…The Schaub crew took exactly 1 ½ days to complete the entire project.

The 10’ X10’ X 10’ X 54” room

The Explora-Dome will mount on top of the add-on room.

Angled framing was necessary for roof panels.

End of day one, Oct. 31, 2008

Scope is inside dome, mounted on permanent pier, pier plate, and Meade Ultrawedge.

Rain & snow problem solution

A 10’ 6” X 36” piece of aluminum flashing was cut to drain west to prevent rain and melting snow from leaking into the original shed. No leaks yet…

Entry to the Observatory

A specially cut steel door with padlock and chain added later provide security for the two room observatory.

Cameras SXVF M25

single-shot color camera

The new SBIG STL11000MCC2 Camera – March, 2010

Imaging Source DFK 21AU04.AS USB CCD color camera

The color camera DFK 21 has an ultra-fast 60 frames per second for planetary or lunar imaging. 

Other CCD cameras owned - 1

SBIG PRODUCES HIGH END CAMERAS. HAHNENBERG OBSERVATORY ACQUIRED AN SBIG ST-4000XCM 2 CCD CAMERA IN JAN. 2009.

STARLIGHT EXPRESS – MX 716…MONOCHROME CAMERA ONCE OWNED BY HAHNENBERG OBSERVATORY

Other Cameras Owned - 2SBIG STL 11000M STL 11000CM

 SBIG STL-11000CM Color CCD Camera is self-guiding, as is the monochrome version.

Webcam use

In recent years, webcam imaging has become increasingly popular among amateur astronomers. It is easy to see why: they are inexpensive (< $100) and it is possible, with practice, to produce some truly amazing images.

Keep in mind that webcams cannot be used "out of the box" for astro-imaging. You'll have to do some tinkering before you can use a webcam on your telescope.

The Meade DSI III color camera

The user-friendly astrophotography revolution continued with the introduction of the new DSI III. It combines ease-of-use with a 1.4 megapixel chip, higher resolution, wider field of view and lower thermal noise.

Meade engineers have invented a remarkable new way to reduce noise without a cooling fan. This means you can stack exposures for hours at a time. The thermal monitoring sensors automatically match your dark frames to ambient temperature.

The Meade DSI III camera (cont.)

The software includes a zoom feature for easier focusing and the square pixels of the new larger chip make processing simpler and images more beautiful than ever. The camera is difficult to purchase today.

The Starshooter Autoguider

Autoguiding has revolutionized the capture of deep-sky images by mechanizing the tedious and tiring method of "manually" guiding an exposure, which involved staring endlessly into an illuminated reticle eyepiece while tweaking your mount's electronic drive controls by hand to keep the stars pinpoint sharp. Until now, the problem has always been the lack of a simple, affordable autoguider camera to do the job.

Problem solved. The StarShoot AutoGuider provides a user-friendly, dedicated autoguiding system for long-exposure astrophotography. It's compatible with virtually any mount equipped with an autoguider port and comes with the software and cables needed to work right out of the box!

The Orion Star-shooter Autoguider

The Autoguider is inserted into an 80 mm telescope mounted to the main scope.

Auto-guiding The Guider tracks a

target star to keep the scope dead-on for the Meade DSI III CCD camera to image the desired planet or DSO.

Types of telescopes - IMY ORION 8” NEWTONIAN REFLECTOR REFLECTORS ARE GREAT FOR

VIEWING FAINT, DEEP-SKY OBJECTS LIKE GALAXIES, STAR CLUSTERS AND NEBULA.

Types of telescopes – 1 (cont.)

THE DOBSONIAN TELESCOPE AN ORION 6” DOBSON

The basic idea driving the original design is to make large aperture telescopes affordable, easy to make, and portable. It is a combined concept that allows the builder with minimal skill to make an extremely large telescope out of common items found in any hardware store or scrap yard.

Types of telescopes - 2REFRACTORS ORION 60 MM REFRACTOR

These are telescopes that use refracting lenses housed in a long, thin tube mounted on a tripod. Refractors are great for viewing the sun, moon and planets where magnification detail is important but brightness is not. Upright images.

Types of telescopes - 3COMPOUND OR CADIOPTRIC MEADE 14” SCHMIDT CASSEGRAIN

Compound scopes use both refracting lenses and reflecting mirrors in their design to provide a compact form factor. They include those of Schmidt, Cassegrain (Cass), Maksutov (Mak) and hybrid designs.

My Meade LX200 14” GPS / SCT

Attached to it is the Solar H-alpha telescope for viewing the sun’s flares, prominences, and sunspot activity…Coronado PST… and an 80 mm guide

scope.

Inside the new observatory

DESKTOP COMPUTER CONTROLS TELESCOPE MOVEMENT, FOCUSING, AND IMAGING.

MEADE 14” ATOP PIER INSIDE ROTATING DOME.

Access to the telescopeWATCH YOUR HEAD! INSIDE THE DOME – LADDER NEEDED

AT TIMES.

Settings on the scope and wedge

CONTROL PANEL AND CAMERA FOCUSER

LATITUDE SETTING AND WEDGE CONTROL

Astronomical chartsSTAR CHART 2000 DETAILED STAR CHART

Eyepieces…1.25 and 2 inchThe larger the mm of the eyepiece the wider and smaller the magnification. The

illuminated reticle has red crosshairs for accurate centering.

Dew Shield

Many nights the atmosphere contains high humidity, thus resulting in a fogging over of the main imaging scope. Dew heaters, or more simple dew shields, are

used to prevent this. It is attached to the end of the scope

Other accessories

Additional eyepieces, connecting rings, collimeter, and several filters (mainly for planets and lunar use) are stored in handy cases.

C1400 FS with HyperStar and SX M25C camera

My newest imaging equipment

HyperStar HyperStar is the easiest way to capture deep-sky

astrophotos.  The HyperStar* unit is a multiple-lens corrector which replaces the secondary mirror on a Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope and allows extremely fast CCD imaging.  Depending on the size of the telescope, the resulting focal ratio will be between f/1.8 and f/2.0, up to 31 times faster than imaging at f/10!  Removing the secondary mirror and installing the HyperStar lens is very quick and easy.  No tools are required and switching between the HyperStar and regular f/10 modes of the telescope takes only a couple minutes.  HyperStar provides the easiest and fastest means of imaging deep-sky celestial objects!

HyperStar lens

Getting ready to take a picture…

Adjusting finderscope and main scope Hahnenberg Observatory Clear Skies forecast Collimation of Hyperstar lens Focus telescope Computer powered up & Scope polar-aligned Selection of object to image Maxim DL and Photoshop (latest version) Picture taking (30 sec upwards X 30+) Processing

Clear skies forecast

Images in a telescope – Part l

In order to get an image to correctly reflect what the viewer sees without a scope the photographed image has to be tipped upside down, then turned to face the opposite direction, or reversed. Software does this easily. The "incorrect" image in a telescope has to do with the way in which certain kinds of telescopes view the object. To get a correct image with a telescope, as one in binoculars, would require far larger instruments due to the optics of the mirrors inside.

Images in a telescope – Part II

One of the most surprising discoveries first-time telescope owners will find is that images may appear upside-down or backwards depending on the type of telescope. The first thought is the telescope is broken - when in fact it is working perfectly normal. Depending on the type of telescope images may appear correct, upside-down, rotated, or inversed from left to right. For astronomical viewing, it is not important whether an object is shown

Rotate dome to take image

The dome has a slide-back cover and a fold-down opening to give a 28” window X 90 degrees of the sky.

DSOs and Messier Objects Deep Sky Object (DSO) is a term used by astronomers to describe

mostly faint astronomical objects outside the solar system, such as star clusters, nebulae, or galaxies. They are hundreds to billions of light-years distant from Earth.

The Messier objects are a set of astronomical objects first listed by French astronomer Charles Messier in his Catalogue of Nebulae and Star Clusters published in 1771. There are 110 Messier objects.

NGC and IC Catalogs The NGC contains 7,840 objects, known as

the NGC objects. It is one of the largest comprehensive catalogs, as it includes all types of deep space objects and is not confined to, for example, galaxies.

IC stands for Index Catalogue, and is a catalog of galaxies, nebulae and star clusters that is a supplement to the New General Catalogue.

Abell DSOs and asterisms The Abell catalog of rich clusters of

galaxies is an all-sky catalog of 4,073 galaxy clusters

Like constellations, asterisms are in most cases composed of stars which, while they are visible in the same general direction, are not physically related, often being at significantly different distances from Earth. The mostly simple shapes and few stars make these patterns easy to identify.

M 31 – The Andromeda Galaxy Andromeda is the nearest spiral galaxy to our own Milky Way galaxy. It is visible as a

faint smudge on a moonless night.  M31 contains one trillion stars, more than the number of stars in our own galaxy, about 200-400 billion.

M 51& 52 – Whirlpool Galaxy

The Whirlpool Galaxy a popular target for professionals, who study it to further understand galaxy structure with spiral arms.

NGC 4565

The Pinwheel Galaxy – M101An edge-on galaxy that I used a DDP technique to bring some detail out.

Fireworks Galaxy and Globular Cluster NGC 6946 is a spiral galaxy about 22 million light-years away, on the border

between the constellationsCepheus and Cygnus

M 81M81  is a spiral galaxy about 12 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. M81 is one of the

most striking examples of a grand design spiral galaxy, with near perfect arms spiraling into the very center.

M 101 – The Pinwheel GalaxyM101 is a face-on spiral galaxy distanced 25 million light-years away in the 

constellation Ursa Major,[

M 104 – The Sombrero GalaxyM 104 has a big bright core. It also has an unusually pronounced

bulge with an extended and richly populated globular cluster system - several hundred can be counted in long exposures from

big telescopes.

M13 – Globular Cluster

The Hercules Cluster

SAO 8890A double star

NGC 6946A barred spiral galaxy

M65, 66, & NGC 3628

The Helix nebula, NGC 7293, “The Eye of God”

NGC 185

NGC 6894

NGC 147

Abell 347 – 10 galaxies

IC 1434 – Globular cluster

Fetus Nebula

M81 & M82

Coathanger asterism

M 45 – The Pleiades

Stephan’s Quintet & NGC 7331

Fireworks Galaxy & Open Cluster NGC 6939

M 17 – The Swan or Omega NebulaM17 is located in the rich starfields of the Sagittarius area of the 

Milky Way. It is between 5,000 and 6,000 light-years from Earth and it spans some 15 light-years in diameter.

M 20 – The Trifid NebulaM20  is an unusual combination of an open cluster of stars, an emission nebula

 (the lower, red portion), a reflection nebula (the upper, blue portion) and a dark nebula (the apparent 'gaps' within the emission nebula that cause the trifid

appearance. It is approximately 7,600 light years away.

M 27 – The Dumbbell NebulaM27 is a planetary nebula in the constellation Vulpecula, at a distance of about

1,360 light years.

The Crescent Nebula

The Elephant Nebula

Flame Nebula

M 42 – The Orion Nebula M 42 is a diffuse nebula situated south[b] of Orion's Belt. It is one of the

brightest nebulae, and is visible to the naked eye in the night sky. M42 is located at a distance of 1,344  light years and is the closest region of

massive star formation to Earth.

The Rosette Nebula

Running Man Nebula

M 57 – The Ring NebulaM 57is one of the most prominent examples of the deep-sky objects called 

planetary nebulae

The Cocoon Nebula

The Horsehead NebulaThe Horsehead Nebula , in the constellation Orion, is approximately 1500 

light years from Earth.

The Veil Nebula

North American Nebula

Lagoon Nebula30 sec. exposure

Flying Horse Nebula

Flaming Star nebula

M 97 – The Owl Nebula

Pelican Nebula

M 1 – The Crab NebulaThe nebula is the remnant of a supernova explosion seen in 1054 AD. Located at a distance of about 6,500 light-years

from Earth, the nebula has a diameter of 11 ly and expands at a rate of about 1,500 kilometers per second.

M 13 – The Hercules ClusterM13 is about 145 light-years in diameter, and it is composed of several hundred

thousand stars, M13 is 25,100 light-years away from Earth.

M16 – The Eagle NebulaThe Eagle Nebula is a young is a star-forming nebula. It is about 6,500 lys distant.

Comet Elenin10 min. exposure stacked – 9-2-2011

Pictures of the moon…At high magnification, the moon moves extremely rapidly, but a Go-To scope may have a lunar tracking speed control. When observing the moon at high magnification, a filter is necessary to cut down on the brightness. This is not necessary for CCD imaging.

Mons Hadley in Apennines

Apollo 15 was the fourth landing on the Moon and was the first to use the Lunar Rover Vehicle. Landed on Moon July 30,

1971.

The LROC’s image of Apollo 14’s site. Notice astronaut’s footprints between LM pod and Instrument site. Image taken mid-July, 2009.

The Moon in cresent shapeCrescent shapes can be waxing or waning…

Imaging with the DFK 21AU04.AS

The Imaging Source cameras are excellent lunar and planetary cameras. The DFK 21AU04.AS can create an avi file that is basically a movie of live images. 30 frames per second can yield 1800 images from which to choose or to stack. Stacking with Registax or other software can give a final picture with user-defined thresholds.

Lunar image of the crater TychoOne of many lunar images taken with the DSI III CCD camera. Moon in ½ crescent

stage. No filter used. Exposure less than .02 of a second.

Crater Erotosthenes and the Alpine mountain range

Crater Clavius

Crater Copernicus

Crater Plato and Alpine valley

Plato crater – DSI IIIPlato is the maria-surfaced remains of a lunar imapact crater. The age of the Plato

walled-plain is about 3.84 billion years

Copernicus (twin mountain peaks) ,Eratosthenes, and the 400 mile long Appennine mountain range.

Lunar image – DSI III

Copernicus with the DFK

Alpennines and crater Erotasthenes

Crater Clavius

Alpine Valley and crater Plato

Astrophotography in winter

Dome is rain and snow- proof, but getting there in a heavy snow season is by snowmobile.

Astrophotography in daylight

THE PERSONAL SOLAR TELESCOPE IMAGE OF SUN IN H-ALPHA

Photographing the sun

Viewing the sun is very dangerous in a telescope. NEVER DO IT without a filter, for both the finderscope and main scope.

Sunspots taken with Meade LX200 12” & filter

Nikon Coolpix 995, ISO 100, f/4.6/ and at 1/88th of a second

Solar flare in h-alphaImages such as this are possible with our Coronado solar telescope.

More sunspots

Nikon Coolpix 995 attached with T-ring and using a solar filter.

Sun spot with h-Alpha filterCoronado h-alpha telescope picture

A word about JPEG and FITS files

JPEG IMAGES FITS IMAGES (Joint Photographic Experts Group) An

ISO/ITU standard for compressing still images. JPEGs are saved on a sliding resolution scale based on the quality desired. For example, an image can be saved in high quality for photo printing, in medium quality for the Web and in low quality for attaching to e-mails, the latter providing the smallest file size for fastest transmission over dial-up connections.

The standard data format used in astronomy

Stands for 'Flexible Image Transport System'

Endorsed by NASA and the International Astronomical Union

Much more than just another image format (such as JPEG or GIF)

Used for the transport, analysis, and archival storage of scientific data sets

BMP and GIF filesBMP IMAGES GIF IMAGES

Short for "Bitmap." The BMP format stores color data for each pixel in the image without any compression. For example, a 10x10 pixel BMP image will include color data for 100 pixels. This method of storing image information allows for crisp, high-quality graphics, but also produces large file sizes.

The letters "GIF" actually stand for "Graphics Interchange Format.” GIFs are based on indexed colors, which is a palette of at most 256 colors. This helps greatly reduce their file size. These compressed image files can be quickly transmitted over a network or the Internet, which is why you often see them on Web pages. GIF files lack the color range to be used for high-quality photos.

Stacking image programs

There are many astrophotography image programs. Astroart, Photoshop, Maxim DL, Astrostack, Registax, CCD Soft and dedicated programs included in telescope company’s software such as Meade’s AutoStar Suite. Their function is to align and sharpen images.

Taking pictures of planets – I

Planet comes from the Greek word πλανήτοs, which means “wanderer.”

In order to take a picture of a planet, one must be aware there is a different motion speed and direction than that of the moon or stars.

So, there is planetary motion, lunar motion, and sidereal motion.

Taking pictures of planets - 2

Fortunately, with CCD cameras, one does not have tracking problems, because images are taken in 100ths or thousandths of a second.

Digital or film cameras are less sensitive to light, so one might need to use a shutter control.

One of my better images of Jupiter

Experimenting with exposure time and gain control gives different results. This image was a BMP image of less than ½ a second.

Rings of Jupiter

Although extremely hard to see, Jupiter does have rings plus 63 moons. Four moons are usually visible.

Saturn with Meade DSI I taken 2 years agoSaturn will tilt its rings during 2009 so that no rings were visible in 2010.

Bummer!

Saturn

Venus – December 18th, 2008Venus was in 60% crescent stage. DSI III image at less than .01 second. No

features are visible unless filter is used.

MarsMars is the fourth planet from the sun. The planet is one of Earth's "next-door neighbors" in space. Earth is the third planet from the sun, and Jupiter is the fifth. Like Earth, Jupiter, the sun, and the remainder of the solar system, Mars is about 4.6

billion years old. It has ice at its polar caps.

Uranus – DSI III - Less than .05 second image

Uranus is 1.7 billion miles away from earth, between Saturn and Neptune.All four gas planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) have rings, although

Saturn’s are the most spectacular.

Registax sample of Uranus

NeptuneNeptune is the eighth and farthest planet from the Sun in our Solar System. Named for the 

Roman god of the sea, it is the fourth-largest planet by diameter and the third-largest by mass. Neptune is 17 times the mass of Earth and is slightly more massive than its near-twin 

Uranus, It is 2.7 billion miles away from Earth.

Looking to the futureAfter several years of reading books, blogs, and upgrading equipment, I still consider myself a beginning astrophotographer. Each year technology in the amateur astronomy field comes out with new cameras, software, and telescopes. Let’s look in detail at how to take DSOs worthy of publication.

Some of Hubble’s best…

The Hubble Telescope has provided some spectacular images of the 500,000 known galaxies, each with 100 billion to our own Milky Way’s 400 billion stars. The following frames are a sampling of what lies around us…

M16 – The Eagle Nebula

Appearing like a winged fairy-tale creature poised on a pedestal, this object is actually a billowing tower of cold gas and dust rising from a stellar nursery called the Eagle Nebula. The soaring tower is 9.5 light-years or about 57 trillion miles high, about twice the distance from our Sun to the next nearest star.

M104 – Sombrero Galaxy

Hubble easily resolves M104's rich system of globular clusters, estimated to be nearly 2,000 in number -- 10 times as many as orbit our Milky Way galaxy. The ages of the clusters are similar to the clusters in the Milky Way, ranging from 10-13 billion years old.

Omega Centauri

Omega Centauri is so large in our sky that only a small part of it fits within the field of view of the Hubble Space Telescope. Yet even this tiny patch contains some 50,000 stars, all packed into a region only about 13 light-years wide. For comparison, a similarly sized region centered on the Sun would contain about a half dozen stars.

The Helix Nebula

It is similar in appearance to the Ring Nebula, whose size, age, and physical characteristics are similar to the Dumbbell Nebula, varying only in its relative proximity and the appearance from the equatorial viewing angle. The Helix has often been referred to as the 'Eye of God' on the Internet, since about 2003.

NGC 2440

The star is ending its life by casting off its outer layers of gas, which formed a cocoon around the star's remaining core. Ultraviolet light from the dying star makes the material glow. The burned-out star, called a white dwarf, is the white dot in the center.

Supernova 1987a – Will it be seen in daylight? 1987A was generated by a star 20 times more massive than the Sun. It resides in a nearby galaxy called the Large Magellanic Cloud. Because of the time it takes light from the event to reach Hubble, the explosion actually occurred 160,000 years ago, in the time frame of its origin.

Pillars of Creation

We are looking at an image that is no longer there as shown, but was 7000 light years ago. The universe continues to expand, faster outward each day. It will

end not with a bang, but with a whimper, according to scientists and T.S. Elliot. Pillars has become one of the most famous images of modern times.

Jupiter's moon Ganymede plays peek-a-booThis color photo was made from three images taken on April 9, 2007

Detection of new exo-planets

WHAT A CANADIAN TEAM FOUND IN 2004, AND CONFIRMED AGAIN NOV, 2008, ARE THREE PLANETS CIRCLING THE STAR. ACCORDING TO A THEORETICAL MODEL THAT ACCOUNTS FOR THE LIGHT COMING FROM THE PLANETS, THEY RANGE IN SIZE FROM FIVE TO 13 TIMES THE MASS OF JUPITER AND ARE PROBABLY ONLY ABOUT 60 MILLION YEARS OLD.

While over three hundred exoplanets have been discovered by noting wobble of host stars, a trio of exoplanets have been directly imaged.

Next Hubble - (JWST) HUBBLE IS ONLY 353 MILES FROM EARTH. LAUNCHED 1990.

THE JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE…BETWEEN EARTH AND SUN, AND PAST MOON.

The $4.5bn telescope will take up a position some 930,000 miles from Earth.

It will measure 80ft long by 40ft high and incorporate a hexagonal mirror 21.3ft in diameter, almost three times the size of Hubble's. It will be launched in June 2013 and have a 10 yr. life.

My real stars ….

My real stars…Matt, Marie, and Ben … along with Therese, Ed, Liz, Nick, Rose, and my wife Marlene.

The latest book ….

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