Astrophotography by Calvin Klatt
Images observed at the Lac Teeples deep sky observatory in Quebec.
“The great spirals, with their enormous radial velocities and insensible proper motions, apparently lie outside our [Solar] system.”
Edwin Hubble, 1917.
Images up to October 2019
M101 (Imaged August 2019, Processing October 2019)
First up is a RASA-8 (wide field) image of the M101 spiral galaxy, using the ZWO ASI294MC Pro camera. The data was acquired on 2019-08-25, but I had difficulty creating a good image from it, especially avoiding saturation (i.e. not creating a big blob out of the galaxy).
This new version of the image is based on the same data: 200 images, each 9 seconds long for a total of 30 minutes. The first 20 shots were deleted due to ambient light problems, and 6 to 10 images were deleted due to satellite tracks. In the end more than 25 minutes of data was used.
The photos were the full resolution of the camera (no binning), and were drizzled in the stacking process to double this, creating very large images (8288 by 6644 pixels), around 50M pixels, The result appears quite good. The full image is large enough to make a poster from it, while the cropped version below is still very big (4970 by 2290), over 10M pixels.
In processing I faced major difficulties getting decent colour balance, still unsolved. If you zoomed in closely on the images here you would see that the small stars are all green.
The second biggest object in the image is NGC5474, another spiral galaxy (lower left of the final images). Draw a line from NCG5474 through the center of M101 and continue the same distance. You will come to the small but well-defined elliptical galaxy NGC5422. The two small galaxies (5474 and 5422) both look quite good compared to others' images of them on the Telescopium website. Subtle details in the spiral arms of NGC5474 are visible.
In the cropped image there is a fourth galaxy just visible. It is on the bottom right, a slightly furry ball of light with a star nearby/below (looking like a double star with the larger star being very blurry). This is NGC5473.
There are several other nearby galaxies, but appear as stars in these images.
The first image shown here is the wide-field image (lower resolution for web dissemination). The second one is a cropped version of the first that leaves the four galaxies in view.
M81 and M82 (Imaged October 2019, Processing October 2019)
This is a RASA-8 (wide field) image of the galaxies known as the "cigar galaxy" (M82) and "Bode's galaxy" (M81). The data was acquired on 2019-10-19 using the ZWO ASI294MC Pro camera.
This image is based on much noisy data: 656 images, each 6 seconds long for a total of just over one hour (although much was discarded, maybe more than 10%). The short imaging time is indicative of problems: in this case thin and intermittent cloud and a moon slowly rising and lighting up this cloud.
The photos were the full resolution of the camera (no binning), and were drizzled in the stacking process to double this, creating very large images (8288 by 6644 pixels), around 50M pixels, The result appears good but the stars look "furry", which I believe is because of the thin cloud and moonlight through the imaging process. The full image is large enough to make a poster from it, while the cropped version below is still very big (4000 by 2700), over 10M pixels.
Bode's galaxy is the wonderfully smooth spiral galaxy in the upper central part of the image. The cigar galaxy is the very irregular galaxy lower and to the left. A third, elliptical, galaxy (NGC3077) is visible on the right.
There do not appear to be other nearby galaxies, at least not in the cropped image.
The first image shown here is the full wide-field image (lower resolution for web dissemination). The second one is a cropped version of the first that leaves the three galaxies in view.
FAVORITE ASTRONOMICAL OBJECTS
1) Earth's Moon
Our planet's only natural satellite, our Moon is unusually large. Compared to the other objects shown on this page it is also nearby at only 384,402 km away.
The moon has an angular size as seen from the Earth's surface of approximately 30 arc minutes, virtually the same as our star (AKA the Sun). This makes it appear much bigger than most of the objects shown on this page. Only the Andromeda Galaxy appears bigger (although it is much fainter).
The image below was shot using the 11" Schmidt Cassegrain telescope in September 2019. The field of view of this telescope (using a 6.3x reducer) is roughly 30 arcminutes, so the big moon nearly fills the frame.
2) The Andromeda Galaxy (Messier 31)
The Andromeda Galaxy can be seen with the naked eye in dark skies fairly easily. With binoculars it is easy to find, and is very bright in a large telescope. Andromeda is the nearest large galaxy to our Milky Way, and is part of our "local group". Seen in the image below are two other galaxies that are members of our local group. The number of stars contained in the Andromeda Galaxy is estimated at one trillion (1×1012), or roughly twice the number estimated for the Milky Way. It is roughly 2.5 million light-years away but we are on a collision course: In a mere 4.5 billion years the Milky Way will crash into Andromeda.
The galaxy is named after the constellation that it can be found in. The constellation is named after a character in greek legend, Perseus' wife. Her mother was Cassiopeia, the queen of Ethiopia. Cassiopeia bragged that her daughter Andromeda was more beautiful than the sea nymphs of great fame. The nymphs shouted "Fake news" and demanded justice for this insult. Ultimately the goddess Athena placed Andromeda in the sky as a constellation.
Imagine the quadrillion folks who live on the trillions of planets circling some of the trillion stars in the Andromeda Galaxy. When asked about the name of their galaxy they have to say "... well, it was named after a star pattern which was named after a mythical character from two thousand earth years ago. A legend from a small country on a small planet in a galaxy 2.5 million light years away. Something about sea nymphs."
Even worse, I've heard of a galaxy named after a mythical woman's spilled breast milk...!
The image shown below was captured using the wide-field RASA telescope in August 2019.
3) The Pinwheel Galaxy (Messier 101)
This face-on spiral galaxy is one of the first astronomical objects I imaged. It is a popular target in Canada because it is fairly close to the northern celestial pole and is high in the sky much of the year. It can be found in Ursa Major, the Great Bear, better known as the Big Dipper.
The galaxy is one of the "Messier objects", meaning it appeared in the catalog of celestial objects put together by Charles Messier in the 1770s. Objects in this catalog are all fairly bright (Old Charles couldn't dream of the equipment I have at the Lac Teeples Deep Sky Observatory), and are visible from the Paris, France, region. Since Paris is roughly the same latitude as Lac Teeples, all the Messier objects are in principle observable. Unfortunately Lac Teeples has a lot of trees... blocking much of the southern sky.
I have managed to image this galaxy several times. You will see it through different telescopes and with different attempts at processing. I hope that the latest ones are best.
4) The Silver Sliver Galaxy or NGC 891
This is an edge-on spiral galaxy about 30 million light-years away in the constellation Andromeda. It is believed to be very similar in size and structure to the Milky Way, our home galaxy. Being edge-on it is illustrative of how flat the disk of such a galaxy is, and the dust lanes that lie near the centre of the disk are very prominent.
Cute story: I was looking at a list on my iPhone of "what's in the sky tonight" fairly late at night, with the lights out. I came upon the Silver Sliver galaxy and checked if it was high enough to be out of the trees, Yes it looked good. I looked a the name and read "silver silver". I thought "what a dumb name" and gave it no further thought. The next day I posted an image on facebook with this name, even adding a link to Wikipedia. Once I'd seen that name as silver silver it took a sledgehammer to the side of the head (figuratively of course) for me to realize that the second word was sliver, which makes a hundred times more sense!
This image was captured in September 2019 using the 11" SCT Telescope.
OTHER IMAGES: WIDE-FIELD ASTRONOMY
8" Rowe-Ackerman Schmitt Astrograph
203mm Aperture (8")
Focal Length 400mm
f/2 focal ration ("very fast")
Field of View (before cropping) with ZWO ASI294MC Pro Camera = 2.74 degree by 1.78 degree
OTHER IMAGES: HIGH MAGNIFICATION ASTRONOMY
EQUIPMENT:
11" Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope (Celestron)
280mm Aperture (11")
Focal Length 2800mm (1760 with Reducer)
f/10 or f/6.3 focal ratio ("slow" or "moderately slow")
Field of View (before cropping) with ZWO ASI294MC Pro Camera = 0.62 degrees by 0.42 degrees (37 arcminutes by 25 arcminutes)
Starting the night of September 21, 2019 a guide scope is used for some images (C-11 observations only).
OTHER IMAGES: MEDIUM-HIGH MAGNIFICATION ASTRONOMY
EQUIPMENT:
8" Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope (Celestron)
203mm Aperture (8")
Focal Length 2032mm (1280 with Reducer)
f/10 or f/6.3 focal ratio ("slow" or "moderately slow")
Field of View (before cropping) with ZWO ASI294MC Pro Camera = 0.86 degrees by 0.58 degrees (52 arcminutes by 35 arcminutes)
Other Astronomy-Related Images