ASTRO: Hind's Variable Nebula, a huge molecular cloud and 9 asteroids-- no waiting

Not what I had hoped for but at least its better than my last post of
the Hercules galaxy cluster with all the flat problem. Moonlight nailed
this one even though it wasn't a very big moon.

The one clear night I had in December also had some moon but I tried
this one anyway. Lots of gradients to deal with and I'm not all that
sure what was gradient and what was real as I dug really deep into the
data to bring out the huge molecular cloud that T Tauri was likely born
in and has no escaped. Still getting most of its light from
gravitational collapse as it hasn't started fusing hydrogen yet, it
isn't hot enough to give off ultra violet light and thus cause the cloud
to glow the normal pink color. So it's a dirty brown in my shot though
I've seen some showing it blue. My blue data was very weak so I'm lost
how it could come out blue without some jiggering of the color balance.
Or maybe some haze moved in and reduced my blue severely, I just
don't know. I need to try again on some moonless night. Indeed, after
seeing the moon problems I planned on retaking it but that was more than
2 months ago and now it is over in the part of the sky that's lousy this
time of the year due to lake fog. SO I decided to process it anyway.

I was shocked to find 9 asteroids in the shot, my previous record was 5.
Only 8 of which are known. One is unknown, the one in the lower left
corner. Some are faint, one below 20th magnitude and most of the rest
nearly so. See if you can spot them all. I'll post a separate posting
with them identified. Obviously after more than 2 months have passed
there's no hope of recovering my discovery. That's the second that's
gotten away from me. This time I could blame myself for not looking
closely for one but since it was cloudy the rest of the month and the
moon was out much of that time I will just blame the clouds for it
getting away.

Because the molecular cloud is super faint, it barely registered on my
first try for this guy in 2006, I binned 3x3 to get 27 micron pixels to
catch as much light as possible and gave up some resolution.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=7x10, RGB=2x10 (needed more), STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Rick

--
Correct domain name is arvig and it is net not com. Prefix is correct.
Third character is a zero rather than a capital "Oh".

HI Rick

that is one of those cool objects....

I tried the polarization difference method on that last year about this time
but had some technical problems that gave me inconclusive results. By the
time the weather cleared again I had missed my chance for imaging it.


"Rick Johnson" wrote in message
...
Not what I had hoped for but at least its better than my last post of
the Hercules galaxy cluster with all the flat problem. Moonlight nailed
this one even though it wasn't a very big moon.

The one clear night I had in December also had some moon but I tried
this one anyway. Lots of gradients to deal with and I'm not all that
sure what was gradient and what was real as I dug really deep into the
data to bring out the huge molecular cloud that T Tauri was likely born
in and has no escaped. Still getting most of its light from
gravitational collapse as it hasn't started fusing hydrogen yet, it
isn't hot enough to give off ultra violet light and thus cause the cloud
to glow the normal pink color. So it's a dirty brown in my shot though
I've seen some showing it blue. My blue data was very weak so I'm lost
how it could come out blue without some jiggering of the color balance.
Or maybe some haze moved in and reduced my blue severely, I just
don't know. I need to try again on some moonless night. Indeed, after
seeing the moon problems I planned on retaking it but that was more than
2 months ago and now it is over in the part of the sky that's lousy this
time of the year due to lake fog. SO I decided to process it anyway.

I was shocked to find 9 asteroids in the shot, my previous record was 5.
Only 8 of which are known. One is unknown, the one in the lower left
corner. Some are faint, one below 20th magnitude and most of the rest
nearly so. See if you can spot them all. I'll post a separate posting
with them identified. Obviously after more than 2 months have passed
there's no hope of recovering my discovery. That's the second that's
gotten away from me. This time I could blame myself for not looking
closely for one but since it was cloudy the rest of the month and the
moon was out much of that time I will just blame the clouds for it
getting away.

Because the molecular cloud is super faint, it barely registered on my
first try for this guy in 2006, I binned 3x3 to get 27 micron pixels to
catch as much light as possible and gave up some resolution.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=7x10, RGB=2x10 (needed more), STL-11000XM, Paramount
ME

Rick

--
Correct domain name is arvig and it is net not com. Prefix is correct.
Third character is a zero rather than a capital "Oh".

Beautiful image Rick. These asteroids are a real nuisance though with their
coloured tracks ;-)

Stefan

"Rick Johnson" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
...
Not what I had hoped for but at least its better than my last post of
the Hercules galaxy cluster with all the flat problem. Moonlight nailed
this one even though it wasn't a very big moon.

The one clear night I had in December also had some moon but I tried
this one anyway. Lots of gradients to deal with and I'm not all that
sure what was gradient and what was real as I dug really deep into the
data to bring out the huge molecular cloud that T Tauri was likely born
in and has no escaped. Still getting most of its light from
gravitational collapse as it hasn't started fusing hydrogen yet, it
isn't hot enough to give off ultra violet light and thus cause the cloud
to glow the normal pink color. So it's a dirty brown in my shot though
I've seen some showing it blue. My blue data was very weak so I'm lost
how it could come out blue without some jiggering of the color balance.
Or maybe some haze moved in and reduced my blue severely, I just
don't know. I need to try again on some moonless night. Indeed, after
seeing the moon problems I planned on retaking it but that was more than
2 months ago and now it is over in the part of the sky that's lousy this
time of the year due to lake fog. SO I decided to process it anyway.

I was shocked to find 9 asteroids in the shot, my previous record was 5.
Only 8 of which are known. One is unknown, the one in the lower left
corner. Some are faint, one below 20th magnitude and most of the rest
nearly so. See if you can spot them all. I'll post a separate posting
with them identified. Obviously after more than 2 months have passed
there's no hope of recovering my discovery. That's the second that's
gotten away from me. This time I could blame myself for not looking
closely for one but since it was cloudy the rest of the month and the
moon was out much of that time I will just blame the clouds for it
getting away.

Because the molecular cloud is super faint, it barely registered on my
first try for this guy in 2006, I binned 3x3 to get 27 micron pixels to
catch as much light as possible and gave up some resolution.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=7x10, RGB=2x10 (needed more), STL-11000XM, Paramount
ME

Rick

--
Correct domain name is arvig and it is net not com. Prefix is correct.
Third character is a zero rather than a capital "Oh".