ASTRO: M108

Some nights everything works. Not often, unfortunately. Good seeing
has been very hard to come by this winter but finally the seeing gods
smiled on me and I had good transparency as well. I had time to process
this as we are finally getting our first snow of the year that was more
than a dusting. We should have 75 cm or more on the ground about now.
Until today we had less than 1. Now we are up to 10 and it is still
coming down, slowly but that's better than nothing. Not much but sorely
needed. Unfortunately it is a pretty dry snow. Still, I'll take the
clouds for that!

Anyway, look around, there are lots of interesting small faint fuzzies
in the field.

14" LX200R@f/10, L=9x5' RGB=3x5' all binned 2x2, 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".

yeah there is a bunch of faint fuzzies edge on and face on...
kewl...

Nice image Rick. It looks a bit dark with some green missing to me...but my
monitor is and old CRT so that may be what the problem is also. I checked
the brightness range and I can't differentiate the 2 darkest zones anymore.

P.S. Are You in MN and if so what part?

Joe


"Rick Johnson" wrote in message
...
Some nights everything works. Not often, unfortunately. Good seeing
has been very hard to come by this winter but finally the seeing gods
smiled on me and I had good transparency as well. I had time to process
this as we are finally getting our first snow of the year that was more
than a dusting. We should have 75 cm or more on the ground about now.
Until today we had less than 1. Now we are up to 10 and it is still
coming down, slowly but that's better than nothing. Not much but sorely
needed. Unfortunately it is a pretty dry snow. Still, I'll take the
clouds for that!

Anyway, look around, there are lots of interesting small faint fuzzies
in the field.

14" LX200R@f/10, L=9x5' RGB=3x5' all binned 2x2, 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".



----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----

I reprocessed the image for my monitor and I have to say that the number of
back ground galaxies is amazing...WOW! I took a shot of M97 last year and
there is a bunch of distant fuzzys in that also.


Joe



"Rick Johnson" wrote in message
...
Some nights everything works. Not often, unfortunately. Good seeing
has been very hard to come by this winter but finally the seeing gods
smiled on me and I had good transparency as well. I had time to process
this as we are finally getting our first snow of the year that was more
than a dusting. We should have 75 cm or more on the ground about now.
Until today we had less than 1. Now we are up to 10 and it is still
coming down, slowly but that's better than nothing. Not much but sorely
needed. Unfortunately it is a pretty dry snow. Still, I'll take the
clouds for that!

Anyway, look around, there are lots of interesting small faint fuzzies
in the field.

14" LX200R@f/10, L=9x5' RGB=3x5' all binned 2x2, 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".



----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----

The green does seem a bit down to me too but when I put it up the
background went really green and much of the galaxy tuned a funny blue
green color. Problem is that my STL-11000 is one of the very first ones
out and has no heaters around it's optical window. They are coming.
With the extreme cold (below 30C) that was taken at I get a faint frost
on the front of the optical window. It plays havoc with the color. It
is also so uneven (changes each frame) that there's no use leaving some
grey in the image as the frost hides any faint detail you'd otherwise
see. I also found a red light leak in the 4 port Sidewinder that was
easily fixed once I realized where it was coming from, an opaque red
port cap wasn't quite opaque! Also I have to drop the background darker
than I'd like to get rid of the rainbows of color you'd otherwise see
from the frost and that faulty cap. Temps are now 20C warmer now so the
frost problem shouldn't be there any more but it is also cloudy so I
can't test anything as yet. When the heaters arrive I'll put them in as
well.

I'm on (Big) Mantrap Lake at 47.08122N 94.91494W per a borrowed GPS
unit. The scope is about 60 feet above the lake and 16 above the ground
level The Google Earth image was taken before we built (though dated
later) so there's nothing in the picture but forest and a hint of the
drive we cut the year before building. Many of those trees kept us warm
the last two winters and have enough for yet another winter. Kept us
warm cutting and splitting it too!

Rick

J McBride wrote:

Nice image Rick. It looks a bit dark with some green missing to me...but my
monitor is and old CRT so that may be what the problem is also. I checked
the brightness range and I can't differentiate the 2 darkest zones anymore.

P.S. Are You in MN and if so what part?

Joe


"Rick Johnson" wrote in message
...

Some nights everything works. Not often, unfortunately. Good seeing
has been very hard to come by this winter but finally the seeing gods
smiled on me and I had good transparency as well. I had time to process
this as we are finally getting our first snow of the year that was more
than a dusting. We should have 75 cm or more on the ground about now.
Until today we had less than 1. Now we are up to 10 and it is still
coming down, slowly but that's better than nothing. Not much but sorely
needed. Unfortunately it is a pretty dry snow. Still, I'll take the
clouds for that!

Anyway, look around, there are lots of interesting small faint fuzzies
in the field.

14" LX200R@f/10, L=9x5' RGB=3x5' all binned 2x2, 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".




----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----

Sounds like your monitor is a lot darker than mine. I do have all in
the dark end but missing one in the white as this 5 year old LCD is
showing its age by dimming on me. I use a different one for processing
that does show all levels. Yes M97 has a bunch, being near by that isn't
surprising. I took a shot of it at the same time as 108 and will post
it when I get it processed. The shot with my 6" f/4 I took last spring
sure showed a bunch. It has a somewhat larger FOV so won't pick up as
many with the 14" and at f/10 doubt it will go quite as deep either.
Actually I took M97 before 108 and if I remember right the frost hadn't
yet developed to the extent it had in the 108 shot. Will find out when
I process it. I'm still about 5 or 6 shots behind in my processing.
Dealing with the frost issue just doesn't make processing any fun!

Then we ended up getting about 17 cm of snow. More than than twice what
we got all season. I have a km of drive to blow clear. Waiting for the
wind to settle down. Its a very light snow and will just blow back in
my face.

Right now I'm working on another shot I took the same night (it was an
all nighter due to the good seeing). Frost is giving me fits but I
think, if you ignore the varying color balance due to the frost streaks
on the window it will be a pretty good Leo I.

Rick

J McBride wrote:

I reprocessed the image for my monitor and I have to say that the number of
back ground galaxies is amazing...WOW! I took a shot of M97 last year and
there is a bunch of distant fuzzys in that also.


Joe



"Rick Johnson" wrote in message
...

Some nights everything works. Not often, unfortunately. Good seeing
has been very hard to come by this winter but finally the seeing gods
smiled on me and I had good transparency as well. I had time to process
this as we are finally getting our first snow of the year that was more
than a dusting. We should have 75 cm or more on the ground about now.
Until today we had less than 1. Now we are up to 10 and it is still
coming down, slowly but that's better than nothing. Not much but sorely
needed. Unfortunately it is a pretty dry snow. Still, I'll take the
clouds for that!

Anyway, look around, there are lots of interesting small faint fuzzies
in the field.

14" LX200R@f/10, L=9x5' RGB=3x5' all binned 2x2, 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".




----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----

Dang, I didn't know you are in MN? I am from MN to, grew up in North St.Paul and Minneapolis in
Blaine City in Anoka County off of 35W. I love the Twins and to watch them play ball in the dome.
Was there for the W.S.1987...
Which in 2010 they should have there own stadium...
Best dark sky I ever seen was in way upper North East MN on the border of Canada and USA. In portage
country which we were doing. Nothing has compared to that sky...
Mantrap Lake near Park Rapids, MN...
how's the light pollution there? Got any light domes?
I miss MN, but not shoveling the white ****! Loved to play in the snow. Anyone here in SC says it's
cold. There full of crap! I know what cold is!..

your location?
http://tinyurl.com/yr8lvg

G wrote:
Dang, I didn't know you are in MN? I am from MN to, grew up in North St.Paul and Minneapolis in
Blaine City in Anoka County off of 35W. I love the Twins and to watch them play ball in the dome.
Was there for the W.S.1987...
Which in 2010 they should have there own stadium...
Best dark sky I ever seen was in way upper North East MN on the border of Canada and USA. In portage
country which we were doing. Nothing has compared to that sky...
Mantrap Lake near Park Rapids, MN...
how's the light pollution there? Got any light domes?
I miss MN, but not shoveling the white ****! Loved to play in the snow. Anyone here in SC says it's
cold. There full of crap! I know what cold is!..

your location?
http://tinyurl.com/yr8lvg



Yep, that's where the observatory is. House is to the west. At the
time that was taken the power line went right through where the
observatory was built and through the kitchen of the house as well.
They had to move it at their expense as the county told me this was
where I had to put the house. Would have made a place to hang the dish
towels I suppose. Just to be grounded when you hang up a wet one!

Minnehopeless (they seem to have the gang killing of the day of late)
runs a lot warmer than we do. Though they get more snow as well. We
run a good 20 degrees colder up here in winter. They scream at -20.
The screaming here starts about -40.

Park Rapids is a very bright dot on the famous light pollution photo of
the US. For only 3000 folks it is as bright as many four and 5 times
its size. They sure know how to waste electricity lighting up bird
bottoms. Fortunately it is almost 20 miles away and not much of a
problem. About the same size dome as Bemidji which also is way brighter
than it's 11,000 population should be. Must be all those signs to
entice you into the tourist traps. Though most are down for the winter
their signs never go dark unfortunately. Bemidji is to my north where
trees block the view so no problem. Most of the sky has a limit of
about 6.5. Neither dome goes higher than 15 degrees and below that my
seeing is so lousy I rarely image there anyway.

While I've been in the boundary area and know its dark skies they don't
begin to compare to the sand hills of Nebraska. That's because the
humidity and dust there is so low. They have less sky glow as well.
The boundary waters have no artificial light but the sky glow there, and
here is a lot worse than in Nebraska. Also they are humid with all the
water and there's more dust than in the sand hills. The boundary waters
are really no darker than here just without the two light domes on the
horizon. I still had the same 6.5 limiting magnitude when there. In
the sand hills I can easily see down to beyond 7th magnitude. Some
claim 8th but I can't do that, maybe 40 years ago but not any more. The
Milky Way casts a very obvious shadow. That I can see. The club in
Lincoln I helped found in 1961 along with two others in the state hosts
the Nebraska Star Party out there each year. Its a family star party
with lots of activities for the rest of the family as well. Now that's
a dark sky!

http://www.nebraskastarparty.org/

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".

Rick,

certainly one of the best M108's I have seen. Seeing your image I recognized
a spiral structure in M108 for the first time, I always thought it was too
much "edge on" to see the spiral. The galaxy to the lower right looks like a
"baby" version of NGC 2903,

Stefan

"Rick Johnson" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
...
The green does seem a bit down to me too but when I put it up the
background went really green and much of the galaxy tuned a funny blue
green color. Problem is that my STL-11000 is one of the very first ones
out and has no heaters around it's optical window. They are coming. With
the extreme cold (below 30C) that was taken at I get a faint frost on the
front of the optical window. It plays havoc with the color. It is also
so uneven (changes each frame) that there's no use leaving some grey in
the image as the frost hides any faint detail you'd otherwise see. I also
found a red light leak in the 4 port Sidewinder that was easily fixed once
I realized where it was coming from, an opaque red port cap wasn't quite
opaque! Also I have to drop the background darker than I'd like to get
rid of the rainbows of color you'd otherwise see from the frost and that
faulty cap. Temps are now 20C warmer now so the frost problem shouldn't
be there any more but it is also cloudy so I can't test anything as yet.
When the heaters arrive I'll put them in as well.

I'm on (Big) Mantrap Lake at 47.08122N 94.91494W per a borrowed GPS unit.
The scope is about 60 feet above the lake and 16 above the ground level
The Google Earth image was taken before we built (though dated later) so
there's nothing in the picture but forest and a hint of the drive we cut
the year before building. Many of those trees kept us warm the last two
winters and have enough for yet another winter. Kept us warm cutting and
splitting it too!

Rick

J McBride wrote:

Nice image Rick. It looks a bit dark with some green missing to me...but
my
monitor is and old CRT so that may be what the problem is also. I
checked
the brightness range and I can't differentiate the 2 darkest zones
anymore.

P.S. Are You in MN and if so what part?

Joe


"Rick Johnson" wrote in message
...

Some nights everything works. Not often, unfortunately. Good seeing
has been very hard to come by this winter but finally the seeing gods
smiled on me and I had good transparency as well. I had time to process
this as we are finally getting our first snow of the year that was more
than a dusting. We should have 75 cm or more on the ground about now.
Until today we had less than 1. Now we are up to 10 and it is still
coming down, slowly but that's better than nothing. Not much but sorely
needed. Unfortunately it is a pretty dry snow. Still, I'll take the
clouds for that!

Anyway, look around, there are lots of interesting small faint fuzzies
in the field.

14" LX200R@f/10, L=9x5' RGB=3x5' all binned 2x2, 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".




----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----

I'd love to know what it looked like face on. Still looks "troubled" to
me. But it does appear one dust lane does go almost half way around
from the "front" to part way down the "back" side. My M82 shot seemed
to show a bit of that as well. I'd never noticed in in either before.
Kind of fun when you see something in your own shot you never noticed
before. Probably happens because I do look at mine more closely than
even the big observatory or Hubble shots.

Rick


Stefan Lilge wrote:

Rick,

certainly one of the best M108's I have seen. Seeing your image I
recognized a spiral structure in M108 for the first time, I always
thought it was too much "edge on" to see the spiral. The galaxy to the
lower right looks like a "baby" version of NGC 2903,

Stefan

"Rick Johnson" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
...

The green does seem a bit down to me too but when I put it up the
background went really green and much of the galaxy tuned a funny blue
green color. Problem is that my STL-11000 is one of the very first
ones out and has no heaters around it's optical window. They are
coming. With the extreme cold (below 30C) that was taken at I get a
faint frost on the front of the optical window. It plays havoc with
the color. It is also so uneven (changes each frame) that there's no
use leaving some grey in the image as the frost hides any faint detail
you'd otherwise see. I also found a red light leak in the 4 port
Sidewinder that was easily fixed once I realized where it was coming
from, an opaque red port cap wasn't quite opaque! Also I have to drop
the background darker than I'd like to get rid of the rainbows of
color you'd otherwise see from the frost and that faulty cap. Temps
are now 20C warmer now so the frost problem shouldn't be there any
more but it is also cloudy so I can't test anything as yet. When the
heaters arrive I'll put them in as well.

I'm on (Big) Mantrap Lake at 47.08122N 94.91494W per a borrowed GPS
unit. The scope is about 60 feet above the lake and 16 above the
ground level The Google Earth image was taken before we built (though
dated later) so there's nothing in the picture but forest and a hint
of the drive we cut the year before building. Many of those trees
kept us warm the last two winters and have enough for yet another
winter. Kept us warm cutting and splitting it too!

Rick

J McBride wrote:

Nice image Rick. It looks a bit dark with some green missing to
me...but my
monitor is and old CRT so that may be what the problem is also. I
checked
the brightness range and I can't differentiate the 2 darkest zones
anymore.

P.S. Are You in MN and if so what part?

Joe


"Rick Johnson" wrote in message
...

Some nights everything works. Not often, unfortunately. Good seeing
has been very hard to come by this winter but finally the seeing gods
smiled on me and I had good transparency as well. I had time to
process
this as we are finally getting our first snow of the year that was more
than a dusting. We should have 75 cm or more on the ground about now.
Until today we had less than 1. Now we are up to 10 and it is still
coming down, slowly but that's better than nothing. Not much but
sorely
needed. Unfortunately it is a pretty dry snow. Still, I'll take the
clouds for that!

Anyway, look around, there are lots of interesting small faint fuzzies
in the field.

14" LX200R@f/10, L=9x5' RGB=3x5' all binned 2x2, 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".