Hooked on Video

My days as a dedicated visual-only observer are over - in the past week, with wonderfully clear skies, I've gotten more than 15 hours in using my new Color Hyper MallinCam with the 8-inch LX90 and 15-inch Obsession. Anyone want to buy some Denk binoviewers? Naglers? Denk 21mms? Mine are going up for sale ;-) (And for those of you for whom video astronomy is old hat - forgive my enthusiasm. I'm the new kid on the block and having a ball!)

I got the video primarily for educational purposes, but much to my surprise I'm finding it a great way to observe. What is most important to me is the continuing LIVE experience of observing under dark skies, I keep the TV covered with a red shield to protect my night vision. I find it intriguing to glance up with naked eye, binoculars, or occasional peek through the scope, then play with the image appearing on the TV screen, fooling with different camera settings.

The second big surprise was how much fun it was to record some of what I see on DVD and take the DVDs inside and sit down comfortably the next day and review what I have while reading text about the objects, exploring charts and comparing them - though I consistently go way deeper than Mag 15 which is where my most detailed charts go - and looking at other pictures of the same object. I never realized how very different each image can be depending upon length of exposure, collection device, etc.

Please keep in MIND that my goal is NOT to produce polished pictures. That may change some day. But I see tons of educational possibilities with this and one of them is to simply follow-up an observing session by sending my visitors stills of what they observed so they can follow through as well and have a permanent reminder of what they saw. To that end I am simply playing the DVD ( yes, that is NOT the best way to capture this information) in my Mac and using a screen capture utility to produce a photo file which is then further compressed - with loss of detail - to a JPG for email or Web consumption. So keep in mind that the photos here are, if anything, less than what is seen on the screen live and they have not been manipulated by astronomical software, such as a stacking program, to reduce noise. Ok, in a few case I darkened, or added a little contrast ;-)

So... is the "blue snowball" (NGC76762) blue? Or green - you call it!

I fooled around a lot with the Orion Nebula trying to capture - not wash out - the Trapezium by manipulating exposure time. ( I see lots of educational possibilities for this sort of manipulation done live.)

Have you seen the "ears" on the Saturn Nebula? I haven't until now - when I saw it on the screen for the first time I was really struck by how appropriate it's nickname is. (NGC7009)

And how many stars do you see buried in M27? I'm thrilled when I notice half a dozen or so - and did I mention color? (For that, admittedly, you have to remove the red screen or wait until you view it inside on a rainy night like this one ;-)

M57 is no slouch either - and the central star is a piece of cake - though I admit that by the time you get down to this JPEG it's a bit difficult.

I had fun doing comparisons of globulars - I started with the globular wannabe, M71

Then moved along to the most dense globular - M15 - I kept the exposure short to show the nearly star-like, super-dense core, so don't make direct comparisons between this and the next image of M2 - or compare knowing that M2 is a 12-second exposure. (BTW - did I mention that my scopes are not equatorially mounted - this is mostly with the DOB using Servocat and ArgoNavis.)

. . . and M2 . . .

You can, of course, do some exploring of the moon - not the strength of this camera, but again, from a "live" educational standpoint some very real possibilities. Can you find the "Pearl Ring" here? (Hint - think "black pearl.")

Open clusters fascinate me . . . I have to get this stuff up on the Web site. I have a lot more and I can't wait to go out and do some of this stuff over - I'm sure I have a lot to learn and plenty of room for improvement. Here's a glimpse at M37, though, which is starting to take away my enthusiasm for M35 much the same way that Almach is draining my enthusiasm for Albireo - that's another topic I'm playing with - trying to show color contrast in double stars. Had some success too, but again I have a lot more to learn.

Oh - and here's M43, that too-frequently ignored region of the Orion Nebula - well, ignroed by me anyways . . . what fascinates me here is that sharply-angled chunk of blackness that cuts in from the upper left.

Can't wait to tackle galaxies. Done a little there, but with too much interference from the moon. Also, keep in mind, the color version of this camera is NOT as sensitive as the B&W version - if galaxy hunting was my basic goal I would have gone with B&W.

Oh - about visual observing - I still do it. Hell, while doing this I wear a pair of IS binos around my neck . . . . SO I CAN SEE THE SCREEN TO FOCUS WHILE STANDING 10- feet away AT THE SCOPE :-)