Shortly after starting my astronomy obsession, I started scouring the web for resources and information that would feed the beast. The job I had then brought a LOT of down time into the mix. So I had plenty of opportunity to do plenty of looking. I'll go over those in a little more detail further down.
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So, not Hubble quality, but not bad for a geezer just a few months into his new thang.
One of the most well known DSOs* is The Great Orion Nebula. David with Eyes on the Sky says it glows due to "excited gases" (like your old Uncle Charlie!). Whatever the reason, I will always remember that early morning when I pointed the scope at Orion's sword and saw that glow bursting out. I'll bet I had the scope fixed on that for maybe an hour. I'd heard the term "breathtaking" a million times, but this was the first time I felt it.
About this time, I found the program Stellarium. For those of you I haven't preached to yet, Stellarium is a free program for your PC or mobile with a zillion features and an endless database. On your mobile, you point it at the sky and it displays what stars are up there. On your PC, it's a great planning tool. Thanks to the downtime I mentioned, I did a whole lot of research on Stellarium on my work laptop. Which led me to the next wonder.
Using the "W" shape of Cassiopeia led me to the "T" shape of Andromeda. The short stem of that "T" points right at the brightest galaxy visible to your naked eyes. You can see it in the picture below. The Milky Way is almost straight up and down in the center. Towards the upper left is an object tilted almost 45 degrees:
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They say the Andromeda Galaxy takes up as much sky as a full moon. It's just the light is spread out so far an area and....well I forget. I just know it was another breathtaker.
So I was outside in the darkness, seeing all these wonders, and I just couldn't keep it to myself. I still can't. It isn't a matter of "See I've done this great thing", it's a lot like "See, look at this great thing". So one of my first forays was getting pictures of what I was seeing. It's one thing to be out at 3am having my "Holy shit!" moments when looking at Jupiter or Saturn. It's quite another to get a picture of it and share that with my long-suffering pals. My astrophotography setting on the phone was cool, but I was using it mainly off-scope, getting shots like the one above. There are additional programs that help and these are mainly for planets.
I won't go into granular detail here, but the here's the main programs. All free:
- PIPP: used for centering and stabilizing your videos
- AutoStakkert: Used for normalizing your RGB and stacking the video frames into one picture.
- RegiStax: Used for fine tuning colors even more
- GIMP: More advanced image tweaking. It's kind of like PhotoShop, but...free
I fell down this rabbit hole and I'm still finding my way. The planets are one thing, but I start goofing around too much on the DSOs things start to look artificial. So my first attempts with the big guys didn't turn out too awful:
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| Jupiter and Ganymede |
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| Saturn, with a hint of the Cassini Division in the rings. |
So, not Hubble quality, but not bad for a geezer just a few months into his new thang.
Not to wax philosophical, but I'm going to say this new interest has been a welcome respite from the constant onslaught from the Entertainment/Industrial Complex. Everywhere I go, there's an attempt to amuse/inform/provoke me. When I look up into the stars and try to find something new, the discovery brings a sense of wonder that is very absent in our day to day.
Next: more gear, better pictures and a new job
*Deep Sky Object - usually a galaxy, nebula or star cluster
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