Chris Lasley

Had a great time down in Nashville, Arkansas at the first ever Ark-La-Tex Star Party. Roy, Tim, Kevin and all the members of the Red River Astronomy Club did a great job putting the event together. The weather was great, the skies were clear and the food was excellent. What more could you ask for?

I was one of six speakers at the event. Topics ranged from photometry and spectrometry to collimation, planetary imaging and everything in between. I spoke on “The Imaging Process” and as usual rambled on way longer than I intended to. Click here to download a PDF file of my presentation.

Hope to see you there next year!

The past weekend was an imaging bonanza!

I imaged more in the past weekend than I believe I have in the past 2 years. I’m continuing to work my way through the Messier List – geeze there are a ton of star clusters in that catalog. I managed to capture 5 more objects, 4 globulars and a nebula. Tonight I processed M57, the lone object that wasn’t a globular.

M57 the famous Ring Nebula in Lyra is thought of as a benchmark example of a planetary nebula. It was discovered by Antoine Darquier de Pellepoix in 1779 and lies some 2,300 light years from Earth.

I captured M57 using a 12.5 inch f/9 RCOS Ritchey-Chrétien telescope with an SBIG ST10XME and AO7. The image is a combination of 6 – 10 minute exposures.

I’ve moved down the list from Messier 102 to Messier 101, the Pinwheel Galaxy. M101 was discovered in 1781 by Pierre Méchain and added as one of the last entries in Charles Messier’s famous catalog. There is a bit of controversy over the possibility of Messier 101 and Messier 102 being duplicate entries. As I mentioned in my M102 post, M102 is commonly accepted today to be the Lenticular Galaxy NGC 5866.

I captured M101 using a 12.5 inch f/9 RCOS Ritchey-Chrétien telescope with an SBIG ST10XME and AO7. The image is a combination of 12 – 10 minute exposures.

According to SEDS, M102 is a rather controversial object. Evidently good old Charles included the object in his catalog based on an observation of his friend, Pierre Méchain. Problem is Charles didn’t verify the observation before publication and the published position is wrong – opps. Today M102 is commonly accepted to be the Lenticular Galaxy NGC 5866 in Draco, also sometimes called the Spindle Galaxy.

I captured M102 using a 12.5 inch f/9 RCOS Ritchey-Chrétien telescope with an SBIG ST10XME and AO7. The image is a combination of 6 – 10 minute exposures.

I’m imaging again! I’ve set my color filters aside and gone back to what I know works for me. Gone are the frustrations of tri-color imaging. Gone are the worries of finding a guide star through a blue filter. Gone are the endless hours of blood, sweat and tears that go into color imaging – I AM FREE!

The truth of the matter is my observatory is ridden with light pollution. I literally have a parking lot lit in all it’s glory feet from my backyard. Mix that in with city lights, limited clear nights and mediocre skies and it just equals an uphill battle for color imaging.

I’m not saying it can’t be done – I have managed to pull a couple rabbits out of the hat. The return just isn’t worth the effort for me in my current situation. Some day I will return but today I embrace all that is gray.