Posts Made By: Dennis Persyk

Comet 9P/Temple1 passed within about 13 arc minutes of spiral galaxy NGC 5162 on March 6th. Paparazzi that I am, I couldn’t pass up the photo op. Image and supporting data at
http://home.att.net/~dpersyk/new.htm

Comet and galaxy were both about magnitude 12.5, making for a nice match.

Thank you for visiting my site.

Clear skies,

Dennis Persyk
Igloo Observatory Home Page http://dpersyk.home.att.net
Hampshire, IL

Comet 9P/Temple1 is approximately magnitude 13. I tried imaging it well past the meridian where my sky is darker and I think that helped me to get the best image of it so far. Image and supporting data at
http://home.att.net/~dpersyk/new.htm

Thank you for visiting my site.

Clear skies,

Dennis Persyk
Igloo Observatory Home Page http://dpersyk.home.att.net
Hampshire, IL

I have been imaging 9P/Temple 1 which is brightening but the other night it was very close to a bright star so I elected to image it’s nearest neighbor comet, 62P/Tsuchinshan 1.

62P has a relative motion of 0.5 arc seconds per minute. With my sampling density of 2.5 arc seconds per pixel with the E160 and SXV-H9, I was able to take 6 minute guided (on a star) subframes without undue comet blur. 62P is about magnitude 13, a magnitude or so dimmer than 9P, but it is also about 15 degrees higher, so less atmospheric extinction – and skyglow, which I have lots of!

Image and supporting information at
http://home.att.net/~dpersyk/new.htm

Thank you for visiting my site.

Clear skies,

Dennis Persyk
Igloo Observatory Home Page http://dpersyk.home.att.net
Hampshire, IL

H-a image of the Jellyfish Nebula (IC443) at
http://home.att.net/~dpersyk/new.htm

I also compare two methods of binning: Firmware (on-chip during acquisition) vs. software (post-acquisition). The firmware binning is vastly superior, as one would expect, due to readout noise effects.

Thank you for visiting my site.

Clear skies,

Dennis Persyk
Igloo Observatory Home Page http://dpersyk.home.att.net
Hampshire, IL

H-a image of the NGC 1491 at
http://home.att.net/~dpersyk/new.htm

Noted imager and author Ron Wodaski http://www.wodaski.com/newastro/default.asp says of NGC 1491: "This nebula was very challenging to process. It contains very dim and very bight nebulosity, with very little in between. Only a small portion of the nebula is illuminated by a nearby star, but it is extremely bright in comparison to the rest of the nebula."
I did a Google search and was surprised to find very few images of it.

This was taken under the light of a full moon. The H-alpha filter is the best light pollution filter there is!

Thank you for visiting my site.

Clear skies,

Dennis Persyk
Igloo Observatory Home Page http://dpersyk.home.att.net
Hampshire, IL

On July 4, the NASA Deep Impact probe will crash into periodic comet 9P/Tempel 1. Hopefully the impact will cause a dramatic increase in brightness. Meanwhile, I have been imaging 9P as it slowly wends its way through Virgo. Images and accompanying data at
http://home.att.net/~dpersyk/new.htm

Last night afforded a unique imaging opportunity: There were no stars brighter than magnitude 15 within 3 arc minutes of 9P. That allowed me to guide on the comet head and obtain a relatively high statistics image of the comet structure uncluttered by star trails. My previous comet guiding attempts were foiled when the comet would pass over a star. My VLM was only 2.5 but long integration time eventually wins out over light pollution.

The image comprises 8 x 10 minutes with the E160 and SXV-H9 camera. I have added isophote and color intensity contours and some additional supporting data to my New Images page.

My sincere thanks to Jeff Terry for loan of the H9 camera and to Giovanni Sostero (Remanzacco Observatory, Italy) for the method of employing the Rainbow Palette in AstroArt 3 to bring out structure.

Thank you for visiting my site.

Clear skies,

Dennis Persyk
Igloo Observatory Home Page http://dpersyk.home.att.net
Hampshire, IL

New Images http://home.att.net/~dpersyk/new.htm

Here is a Hydrogen-alpha narrow-band image of the Rosette Nebula:
http://home.att.net/~dpersyk/new.htm

Two hours in 20-minute subframes with E160 at f/3.3 and SXV-H9 camera, Schueler H-a filter. Guided with MX716 on NP101, I binned 2x2 to increase the signal, and this seems to work well with my H-a images. The image is undersampled at 5 arc seconds per pixel but my seeing is frankly not a lot better!

Do you think the 2x2 binned undersampling hurt? I’d have to expose for 4 hours to achieve the same SNR binned 1x1.

Thank you for visiting my site.

Clear skies,

Dennis Persyk
Igloo Observatory Home Page http://dpersyk.home.att.net
Hampshire, IL

Here is a Hydrogen-alpha narrow-band image of Thor’s Helmet:
http://home.att.net/~dpersyk/new.htm

Eighty minutes in 20-minute subframes with E160 at f/3.3 and SXV-H9 camera, Schueler H-a filter. Guided with MX716 on NP101.

It reminds me of the Bubble. It doesn’t look like a helmet to me.

I am a bit reluctant to post this image as the stars are a bit fat, due to either my poor focusing or bad seeing, or both. Hopefully I’ll do a better job next year when it comes around again.

Thank you for visiting my site.

Clear skies,

Dennis Persyk
Igloo Observatory Home Page http://dpersyk.home.att.net
Hampshire, IL

Many visitors to my New Images page have informed me that Thor was a Viking, and not a Roman. Hence my allusion to a Roman helmet was incorrect. My image orientation was also incorrect to visualize the helmet.

I have accordingly revised my web page to correctly orient the image with a proper helmet of Viking design beside it. I did not want to offend Thor, the god of thunder. I have enough problems with clouds.

H-a Thor’s Helmet:
http://home.att.net/~dpersyk/new.htm

Eighty minutes in 20-minute subframes with E160 at f/3.3 and SXV-H9 camera, Schueler H-a filter. Guided with MX716 on NP101.

Thank you for visiting my site.

Clear skies,

Dennis Persyk
Igloo Observatory Home Page http://dpersyk.home.att.net
Hampshire, IL

Here is my LRGB image of the Leo Trio:
http://home.att.net/~dpersyk/new.htm

50 minute lum and 20 minute each RGB; True Technology Filters; SXV-H9 and Takahashi E160 guided by MX716 on NP-101.

Thank you for visiting my site.

Clear skies,

Dennis Persyk
Igloo Observatory Home Page http://dpersyk.home.att.net
Hampshire, IL