Astronomy Cafe – August 23, 2021

Transcript video of the meeting

• Mark Wheen at Pearson College wants to train some people to operate the 25″ telescope – members should contact Bill Weir if interested
• Astrophotos from Victoria Centre members
  • Intro from John McDonald
  • Brock Johnston – online gallery
    • Using new ASI 2600 camera (one shot colour)
      • Cocoon Nebula
      • Fireworks Galaxy
      • Andromeda Galaxy – 3 nights
      • Deer Lick Group – SCT Celestron Edge 9.25″
      • Jupiter 
        • Using video from ASI120 OSC planetary imaging camera
        • De-rotated about 1 minute clips
      • Saturn
        • Using video from ASI120 OSC planetary imaging camera
        • Doesn’t need to be de-rotated
      • Processing of planets: PIP > WinJupos > AutoStakkert
    • Pick objects that are rising in the eastern sky, so there is time to image them
  • Dave Payne – online gallery
    • Rosette Nebula – taken 10 months ago
      • H2 cloud, UV radiation
      • Big – about 1 degree across
      • 127mm refractor, 660mm f/l
    • Tulip Nebula – Sharpless catalog
      • Smaller
      • CDK 12.5″ 2540mm f/l
      • H2 cloud
      • Note Cygnus X1 on left side of field of view, some purple clouds driven by the Black Hole’s accretion disk
    • Iris Nebula
      • Much closer than the other nebulae
      • Blue colour indicates that this is a reflection nebula
      • PAH – life can be formed when this is present
  • Dan Posey – online gallery
    • Rho Ophiuchus – short focal length – modified dSLR, camera lens & small tracker
    • Comet NEOWISE – modified dSLR, camera lens & small tracker
    • California Nebula – tri-band filter with Askar 108mm 600mm f/l
    • Uses Starnet – to subtract and add back the stars using neural net processing
    • M81, M82 –  Milky Way background structure revealed by doing some exotic processing technique
    • Eagle Nebula – imaging from a balcony downtown at 400mm using SBIG 8300 – compared with imaging from the VCO 16″ TPO RC computer
    • NGC 7318 interacting galaxy pair – imaging using the Plaskett telescope
    • RASC Victoria might have imaging time on the Plaskett in October, so send Dan any objects of interest (if you are on the Active Observers’ email list)
  • Garry Sedun – online gallery
    • XM2000 monochrome camera, 20″ Newtonian astrograph
      • Horsehead Nebula
      • M51 galaxies
    • Moravian 16200 imager, 20″ Newtonian astrograph
      • M82 galaxy revealing the jet –
      • Jellyfish Nebula – colour and monochrome wavelengths – star colours still need work
      • M81 galaxy and blue dwarf companion galaxy – two versions
  • John McDonald – online gallery
    • Halton Arp’s catalog of peculiar galaxies
    • Book: Lonely Hearts of the Cosmos: The Story of the Scientific Quest for the Secret of the Universe – Dennis Overbye
    • Arp objects imaged by John: 213, Whale & Hockey Stick galaxies (281), 273, M101, 270, 214, 41, 273, 9, 316, M82, M51, Stephan’s Quintet or Hixon Group (319), Heron 84, 333, 270
  • Discussion among the astro imagers on technique, optics, sites, conditions
• Scientific Narrative – Ken Atkinson
  • Ventu Sky – interesting weather maps
  • Human genomes
  • Highly magnetized  and rapidly rotating white dwarf as small as the moon
  • Books
    • Birth of a Theorem – Cedric Villani
    • Cantor’s Dilemma – Carl Djerassi
    • Newton’s Darkness: Two Dramatic Views – Carl Djerassi
    • Berlin in lights – the diaries of Count Harry Kessler – mentions dining with the Einsteins and other famous people