Astrophotography at Bortle 5

Photo Credit: Stellarium :  Scorpius Constellation When you hear the word "occult", what do you think of?   Most of us think of the supernatural, dark arts, voodoo, or other such practices.   The word "occult" comes from Latin that means "to hide".   Occultation in astronomy means when something between me and a distance object blocks my view of that object.   Occultations take place all the time with planets, moons, stars, and asteroids.    During the solar eclipse, the moon is occulting the Sun.   On the evening of August 24th, the bright star Antares was occulted by the Moon.   I was unable to view this occultation, but did capture a monochrome image of Antares within the glow of the moon on this night.    Antares is the bright star in the middle. Photo Credit:  Erik Swindlehurst Antares is located in the Constellation Scorpius.    This star is a very large, super red giant star.   It is 12 times larger than our own Sun.   If placed at the center of our

This Summer I recently purchased the Lunt 40mm f/10 B500 Dedicated H-alpha Solar Telescope.   I've taken a number of amazing pictures of the Sun by borrowing my guide-scope camera, the ZWO 290mm mini monochrome camera.   Its done a great job.  However, due to the sensor size, my images of the Sun have been clipped. So I decided to get the ZWO ASI178 Monochrome CMOS Imaging Camera after some research.   This camera falls in the planetary camera category.  I decided to get a monochrome camera since I am going to use this camera primarily for imaging the Sun and Moon. I got it based on the specifications that this camera offers.   I highly recommend using Astronomy Tools website to determine what your field of view will be through your equipment, lens, and imaging cameras. https://astronomy.tools/ FEATURES OF THE ASI178 Camera CMOS:  There are primarily types of image sensors in the market - CCD and CMOS.    Most digital cameras have a CMOS sensor, and they are great at astrophotograp

I never pulled an all-nighter in college.   But I did set the alarm this morning on the 2023 peak date and time for the Perseid Meteor shower.     After going outside, my glasses instantly fogged up from the 100% humidity.   Dew was not my friend with my camera lens.  Skies overhead were sort-of-clear, with high cirrus clouds rolling through my 30 second exposures on my Go-Pro and Canon R10 camera.    Despite this and the light pollution, I was able to get the brighter meteors shooting through the skies south of Atlanta. The meteors that we can see in this meteor shower are appearing in the constellation Perseus.   The meteors are dusty remnants left behind from comet Swift-Tuttle over the past 1000 years.    When those comet remains collide with our atmosphere, it creates a fiery and colorful streak in the sky. Comet Swift-Tuttle is a large long-period comet, circling our Sun every 133 years.    The nucleus of the comet is 16 miles in diameter.   It past Earth a few decades ago in Dec

Most of us are familiar with the night sky.   We see the moon, a few planets, and a bunch of stars of various brightness and colors.  Occasionally we will have the excitement of seeing other objects in the sky.   This past week a series of lights all in a row traveling at fast speeds caused a huge stir in my neighborhood.      My friends and neighbors were treated to a lightshow put on by SpaceX’s Starlink satellites. In this article, I want to focus on how stars reside in our universe.    Stars travel through space normally in orbits or paths that are influenced by gravity.    Our solar system resides in the "Orion Arm" or "Orion spur" of the Milky Way Galaxy. Photo Courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (SSC/Caltech) GALAXIES Galaxies harbor a massive numbers of stars.  Our own Milky Way galaxy is estimated to contain 100-400 billion stars.    And the observable Universe is estimated to contain 100-200 billion galaxies.   That is a lot of stars!!!     Our solar syst