Astrophotography at Bortle 5

Have you seen the newest movie by director Christopher Nolan, "Oppenheimer"?   I hope to see it soon at our local IMAX theater.   J. Robert Oppenheimer is credited as the "father of the atomic bomb" and worked on the Manhattan project to produce the world's first atomic bomb in a nuclear arms race against Germany.   Photo Credit:  Department of Energy 1944, Public Domain The first atomic bomb was tested in the New Mexico desert was a fission bomb named Trinity.   The second generation of the nuclear bomb utilized a fission explosion to ignite a more powerful explosion of the fusion stage.  This provided a vastly greater destructive power over a fission bomb. Photo Credit:  Department of Energy Fusion is how energy is generated in stars.   In fact, our Sun converts through fusion 620 million metric tons of hydrogen each second, making 616 million tons of helium in the process.    To put that in scale, that is the equivalent of over EIGHT of Earth's moon wort

  In 2016, my family travelled to Tennessee to see the total eclipse of the Sun.    It was an amazing experience to see a rare event take place.  The Sun will eclipses again on April 8, 2024.   So I am making my plans.   I purchased the Lunt 40mm Solar Telescope along with the Sky Watcher Solar Quest mount.   Both are very portable for us to pack up and take on the road.    Observing the Sun through my lens is lots of fun.   I have also been taking pictures with my ZWO ASI 290 monochrome astrophotography camera using my new ASIAIR mini.   I have been blown away what this little solar telescope can do! Image processing is very similar to taking any lunar or planetary photos.    Once I have centered the Sun in the telescope, I usually take a one minute video.   A one minute video has been generating around 850 mono frames while utilizing the USB 2.0 ports on my ZWO ASIAIR Mini.   Afterwards, I stack the video using the ASI Video Stack software that is free to download.    Once that proce

 As an amateur astrophotographer, I get to see lots of stars through my telescope on clear nights.  But how about our own star up close?    I recently got solar telescope from Lunt Solar Systems ( https://luntsolarsystems.com/ ) to observe and image our local star.   It is the smallest one they offer, the Lunt 40 mm Solar Telescope.   So far, I have been impressed at what this solar telescope can do. So what exactly is the the difference between a regular telescope and a solar telescope?   The primary difference is the solar filter.    Lunt telescopes filters out all the light from our Sun except for a very specific wavelength to measure the Hydrogen-alpha bandwidth at 656.28 nanometers).   I've attached my monochrome astrophotography camera on the end of the telescope to produce eye-popping images that we rarely get to see.   Why monochrome you may ask?   The monochrome astrophotography camera is able to use every pixel on the sensor to measure the incoming light that is only Hydr

  A few months ago I demonstrated how meteors can form craters to my daughter Abby.   It was a fun time as we dropped various size balls with different masses into a casserole dish filled with flour and coco powder.    Check out the video below. Lets dive deeper in how craters can form on a th e surface of a hard-surface planet or moon.   There are three types of craters - explosion, volcanic, and impact. EXPLOSION CRATERS are a type of craters formed by an explosive event.   These can be naturally-occurring or artificial.    Examples of artificial craters here on Earth can be from an accident on a job-site or craters formed from underground testing of bombs.   The following photo is the Sedan Plowshare Crater.    It was formed 104 kiloton nuclear bomb blast that was located 635 feet below the desert surface in 1962. National Nuclear Security Administration Nevada Site Office Photo Library under number NF-12187.  Public Domain VOLCANIC CRATERS are formed by the outward explosion or r