Another look at Regulus

 Regulus, or Alpha Leonis, is the brightest star in the constellation Leo.  At magnitude 1.35 it is the 21st brightest star in the sky.  Regulus  is a quadruple star system.  Regulus A, the bright star visible to the unaided eye, is a spectroscopic double.  A faint companion, Regulus B (HD 87884), is 176 arcsec distant and is also a double star resolvable in large telescopes.

The constellation Leo.  E-M1iii + 20mm f/1.7 + sparkle-6 filter.  ISO 1600, 20 s.

 Constellation photography in urban Santa Fe is difficult because of the large light gradients.  The lower right corner of the above image reveals the brighter sky to the south.  On this particular night (30 Mar) the measured sky brightness to the north was sqml=19.53, somewhat brighter than average for a moonless night.

The constellation Leo.  credit: SkySafariAstronomy.com

 Earlier in the evening I was experimenting with a 114mm GSO Cassegrain telescope and used it to image a few double stars.

Regulus A (center) and Regulus B.  GSO Cassegrain + Sony A7, ISO 400, 5 s.

 Regulus is one of the stars I recently photographed with a diffraction grating.

 I was reviewing these earlier data and suddenly realized that all seven Balmer-series hydrogen-absorption lines are visible in the spectrum of Regulus A, a detail that was previously missed.

 

A closer look at the short-wavelength end: 

Some more pictures from the same day, all with the GSO Cassegrain:

Mizar and Alcor. Sony A7, ISO 400, 1 sec.

Polaris A + B.  Sony A7, ISO 400, 1 sec.

The nearest star.  Sony A7, ISO 400, 1/800 sec. (Baader Astrosolar filter).

GSO Cassegrain solar photography

 

Testing old and new equipment. More fun with star spectra.

The noon air was exceptionally clear on Tuesday while kayak fishing on Cochiti Lake.  That clarity seemed to carry over into the night, which provided a good opportunity to test some recent equipment upgrades.  Unfortunately, the clear air didn't result in a darker sky.  The measured sky brightness was a very typical sqml=19.72 for urban Santa Fe.

The equipment upgrade is a pier extension for the ZWO AM3 strain-wave mount.  When this mount is operated in Alt-Az mode the camera or eyepiece end of the telescope comes uncomfortably close to hitting the tripod legs while the mount is slewing around.  The pier extension raises the mount by 16 cm (6.3 in), which is enough to provide necessary clearance.

An Astro-Tech AT72EDII telescope (fL=432 mm) was fitted with an Astro-Tech 0.8x reducer/field flattener and an Olympus E-M5iii camera.   In addition to testing the new pier extension I wanted to experiment with the star-tracking ability of the AM3 in Alt-Az mode.

The first target was Polaris, for alignment purposes.  Polaris is a challenging double star for small telescopes.  I was able to spot the companion using a Baader 2" Amici-prism diagonal and an Edmund 8-mm RKE eyepiece.  This eyepiece provides a magnification of 54x.  I also tried an 4-mm Tele Vue Delite eyepiece, for 108x.  It was actually easier to see the faint companion at the lower magnification. 

 

When the visual observing was finished the camera and focal reducer were swapped in.  The companion star showed up easily in a short 1/10 s exposure at ISO 1600.  This was a pleasant surprise because a focal length of 432 mm x 0.8 = 346 mm is far from ideal for double-star photography.

Polaris A+B, enlarged 3x.

 The next target was the star cluster M45, the Pleiades.

 

M45, the Pleiades.  ISO 1600, 20 s.

 After that was the dim cluster NGC 1647 in Taurus, which lies only a few degrees from the much brighter Hyades cluster.

 Exposures were kept short (20 s) to avoid smearing from field rotation.  The reducer seems to perform well and gives nice round stars when the tracking is accurate.

AM3 mount in Alt-Az mode, with pier extension.

 The reducer was then swapped for an extension tube with a diffraction grating mounted at the end, approximately 140 mm from the camera sensor.  This is the configuration pictured above.  Four stars were targeted for another attempt at stellar spectroscopy: Procyon (Alpha Canis Minoris), Betelgeuse (Alpha Orionis), Rigel (Beta Orionis), and Regulus (Alpha Leonis). 

Four stellar spectra.  2-sec exposures

Balmer-series absorption bands of hydrogen are easily seen in the spectra of Procyon and Regulus, which are hot F and B-type stars, respectively.  Betelgeuse is a super-giant M-type star with a cool atmosphere.  Its spectrum is dominated by molecular absorption bands, such as TiO (titanium oxide).

Regulus and Betelgeuse compared. The dashed lines mark the wavelengths of the hydrogen Balmer series.

 

The ecllpse was eclipsed

 The weather in Santa Fe was not good for the lunar eclipse of 13-14 March.  Some of the early stages were visible, but totality was completely obscured by thick clouds that brought along roaring wind and rain.

Orion 80mm ED f/7.5 telescope + Olympus E-M5iii camera.  ISO 200, varying exposures.

 

Just a hint of penumbral shading.  10:41 MDT

11:13 MDT

The last view, through thickening clouds, an hour before totality.  11:32 MDT

Stellar spectroscopy

 A large fraction of my time as a working physicist involved doing neutron and gamma-ray spectroscopy of nuclear reactions.  I have always been intrigued by the possibility of trying optical spectroscopy of stars.  Fortunately, there is an easy entry into this practice for the amateur astronomer.  All it requires is an appropriate diffraction grating that can be mounted in the optical path of the telescope ahead of an eyepiece or camera.  

Tom Field, a former contributing editor to Sky & Telescope magazine, founded a company that supplies both the hardware and software required.  The starting point is Tom's website Rspec-astro.  I purchased the Star Analyzer 100 diffraction grating as well as the Rspec analysis software, which is well-written and versatile.  The software is specific to Windows, but I had no trouble installing and running this software under Crossover (Wine) for Linux.  In spite of this success, the results shown below were processed with my own software from my working days (use what you know).

Here is a an image of the diffraction grating mounted on a 2-inch extension tube that inserts into the focuser of the telescope.

 This particular grating has a line spacing of 100 lines/mm, and is housed in a standard 1.25" filter cell.  The label on the grating says "PATON HAWKSLEY, UK STAR ANALYZER 100".

The distance from the grating to the image plane was measured with a ruler as L = 140 ± 1 mm.  The exact distance doesn't matter because the spectrum calibration was obtained from the actual data. 

Light with wavelength λ is diffracted at an angle 

sin(θ) = λ/d,

where d is the line spacing (10^-2 mm) of the diffraction grating.  The wavelength of the Hydrogen-beta transition, which is a convenient reference in the blue part of the spectrum, is λ = 4861.4 angstrom. For the configuration shown here, this line will therefore appear at a displacement of  x = L*tan(θ) = 6.8 mm from the zero-order image of the star.  This displacement is well within the width (17 mm)  of the micro-four-thirds sensor of the Olympus E-M5iii.

The telescope used was an Orion 80mm f/7.5 ED refractor.  Here is an image of the star Sirius and its diffracted spectrum, ISO 1600, 1/5 sec:

 

In this image, Hydrogen absorption bands are easily visible.  The spectrum shown below was obtained from the luminosity channel of this image.  The red dotted lines correspond to the various transitions of the Balmer series in Hydrogen.  The correspondence is very good, though there may be some non-linearities that I don't yet understand (I'm just a beginner in this field). 

 The actual spectrum of the star extends well below and above the cut-off wavelengths of 3800  and 7000 angstrom seen here.  The wavelengths visible in these data are limited by the quantum response of the CMOS camera sensor and the filter stack in front of it.

 

Preparing for the eclipse

 There will be a total eclipse of the moon on the night of 13-14 March (Thursday pm into Friday am).  It is always good to check equipment ahead of time.  This image was taken with an Orion 80mm ED f/7.5 refractor and an Olympus E-M5iii camera, ISO 200, 1/640 s.

11.9-day moon

 

The Night Watch

 I am usually alone with the telescope, but last night I had company.   I heard the scratchy sounds of its arrival, and my headlamp revealed a curious observer.  It sat and watched for about five minutes, but offered no advice or commentary.  This was not the first time it has kept me company under the stars.

Procyon lotor, the star raccoon.

In the constellation Canes Venatici, which lies south of the Big Dipper, there is a deeply-red variable star with the nickname "La Superba".  Its official designation is Y Canum Venaticorum.  At magnitude 5.2, this star is one of the brightest examples of a "carbon star".  These stars have high concentrations of carbon compounds in their atmospheres.  These compounds absorb short-wavelength light and lead to the sunset-like coloration.

La Superba lies south of the handle of the Big  Dipper, between Mizar and Cor Caroli, the two double stars featured in the previous post.

credit: SkySafariAstronomy.com

Capturing this star's color in a wide-angle image is a bit of a challenge.  Diffusion filters definitely help. A darker sky (sqml=19.8 last night) would also help.

Sony A7iii + Rokinon 85mm f/1.4 AFII + Softon filter.  ISO 1600, 30 s.

Olympus E-M1iii + 45mm f/1.8 + Sparkle-6 filter.  ISO 1600, 30 s.

The Hoya Sparkle-6 filter seems to produce the most accurate colors, although the six-pointed star patterns border on looking gimmicky.  The Hoya Softon filter tends to render blue colors better than reds.

Two easy double stars

 There are two double stars visible in the northeast in the late evening that are easily accessible to small telescopes.  They are Cor Caroli (Alpha Canum Venaticorum) and Mizar (Zeta Ursae Majoris).  Both are easy to find.  Mizar is the brightest component of a naked-eye double star in the handle of the Big Dipper, and Cor Caroli is easily identified by its proximity to the Big Dipper, as seen in the image below. 

Olympus E-M1iii + Olympus 25mm f/1.8.  ISO 800, 30 s. Sparkle-6 filter. sqml=19.8

Cor Caroli consists of two visual components of magnitudes 2.9 and 5.5 separated by 19 arcsec. Mizar is the brightest of the Mizar-Alcor pair that can be seen without a telescope.  With a telescope, Mizar presents as two stars of magnitudes 2.2 and 3.9, separated by 15 arcsec.

In each case, the two visual components are also spectroscopic binaries, meaning that both pairs are actually four-star systems.

Cor Caroli A+B.  Celestron C6 + Olympus E-M5iii. ISO 400, 1 sec.

 The two components of Cor Caroli are also designated α¹ and α², with α¹ being the fainter of the pair.  

 

Mizar A+B.  Celestron C6, ISO 400, 1/3 sec.

 I was able to split both of these doubles using a 50mm f/4 refractor at 20x with some careful concentration.  Both of them were easily split at 40x with no effort.

The telescope in the picture below is a TS-Optics 50mm f/4 ED refractor with a GSO Amici-prism diagonal and a Celestron XCel-LX 5mm eyepiece (approx 40x).  This setup perfectly matches the description of "small telescope".

 

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Star Landscape mode with the Canon G9X Mark II

 The Canon G9X-II pocket camera has three astrophotography modes: "Star Portrait", "Star Landscape", and "Star Trails".  In the previous post an example of the "Star Trails" mode was shown.  This post will show results from the "Star Landscape" mode.  This mode has more user-adjustable parameters.  The ISO was set to 800 and the exposure was 15 sec at f/2.  The camera was mounted on a Vixen Polarie star tracker.

Star Landscape: Orion, the Winter Triangle, and Jupiter.

The "Winter Triangle" asterism comprises Sirius (lower left), Procyon (upper left), and Betelgeuse (center).  Jupiter is the bright star at right center edge.  

The G9X offers three options for star processing: Sharp, Off, and Soft.  The above image was obtained using the "Soft" setting.  This mimics the effect of a diffusion filter and is supposed to give a better representation of relative star brightness.

The next three images show the effect of the three settings:

"Sharp" setting

"Off"

"Soft"

There is some astigmatism visible around the edges at f/2, but no worse than many lenses used on interchangable-lens cameras.

Sirius ("Sharp" setting)

 

Sirius ("Soft" setting)

Star trails with a pocket camera

 The Canon G9X Mark II pocket camera was released in 2017.  My copy was purchased in 2020.  It has several astronomy-related scene modes which I have never utilized, until now.  The three modes are "Star Portrait", "Star Nightscape", and "Star Trails".  The latter mode is very similar to the "Live Composite" shooting mode offered by some Olympus (now OM-System) cameras.  

The Canon "Star Trails" mode does not offer much in terms of user-adjustable settings.  The exposure time from 10 minutes to 2 hr (in 10-min increments) and AF/MF are about the only choices.  For this test I set up the camera on a tripod pointing north, chose "60 min" for the exposure, pressed the shutter button, and walked away.

Crescent Venus

 At magnitude -4.6, Venus is the brightest object in the sky after the Sun and the Moon.  It is currently in its crescent phase, 22% illuminated.  The crescent phase is easlly observed with a small telescope.

These images were obtained during twilight at 6 pm on 20 Feb  while the planet was 32° above the horizon. The equipment used was a Celestron C6 SCT and an Olympus E-M5iii camera.  Exposure was 1/1600 sec at ISO 400. 

The best single image.

A stack of the three best images.

six-image animation.

This six-image animation shows the effect of atmospheric turbulence.  Dedicated planetary-photography practitioners will typically record a video consisting of hundreds (or more) frames, then select the sharpest fraction of that total to stack into a final image, with results that can be spectacular.  I am not a dedicated practitioner.

How far away is the Moon?

 Yesterday (12 Feb) was the February full moon, traditionally known as the "Snow Moon".  The clear sky provided an opportunity for a fun experiment: measure the distance to the moon.

The idea is simple.  Take a picture of the rising moon, and with the same equipment take another picture near midnight.  The moon will appear bigger at midnight because we are then closer by some fraction (depends on latitude) of the earth's radius.  If you know the radius of the earth, then the ratio of the two moon sizes and some simple math gives the distance to the moon.  The size of the earth was first measured in 240 BC by Eratosthenes, to an accuracy better than 1%.

The equipment used was an Astro-Tech AT72EDII f/6 refractor and field flattener with an Olympus E-M5iii camera.

The Snow Moon rising over the Sangre de Cristo mountain ridgeline.

It's hard to avoid utility lines when you live in the city.

Color balance adjusted to remove atmospheric color.

Approaching midnight (11:15 pm)

The moon near midnight was about 8 ± 1 pixels wider (1.4%) than the moon as it rose above the distant hills.  Taking into account the latitude of Santa Fe (35.7 deg) only, and ignoring the declination of the moon (12.3 deg),  the derived geocentric distance is L = 234,900 mi (378,00 km).   The ephemeris distance extracted from SkySafari was 242,028 mi (389,508 km).  This simple measurement therefore agrees with the known distance to within 3% (but with 13% uncertainty).

This technique could be improved by using a longer focal length scope to increase the pixel difference between the rising and transiting images.  Stacking images of the moon would also average out the blurring caused by atmospheric turbulence, particularly near the horizon.  But that's a lot more work, so yeah, I'm not going to do that.

Stars and planets putting on a show

The moon passed in front of the Pleiades star cluster on Wednesday night, 05 Feb.  That occultation did not begin until about midnight.  An image taken at 10:47 pm shows the moon approaching the cluster.

This was a 1-sec exposure at ISO 400 with a Nikon 180mm f/2.8 ED Ai-S lens.  This was a diffucult image to capture because of the large difference in brightness between the stars and the moon. Here is a version (ISO 1600) that shows more stars, but a vastly overexposed moon:

Jupiter is currently close to the Hyades Cluster:

Olympus 75mm f/1.8, Kase Astroblast filter.  ISO 400, 15 sec.

Aldebaran is a very red star, but it looks greenish (teal?) here, which is completely unnatural.  My best guess is that the diffusion filter is causing the longitudinal chromatic aberration (purple fringing) from the lens to be emphasized more than the saturated color at the core of the star image.  The deep blue sky from scattered moonlight may also be a factor.

Without the diffusion filter, two moons of Jupiter were resolved by the camera:

The two stars closest to Jupiter are the Galilean moons Callisto (left) and Ganymede (right).  The other two Galilean moons (Io and Europa) are lost in the glare of Jupiter.

Mars is making a bright triangle with Castor and Pollux in Gemini.

Olympus 75mm f/1.8.  Kase Astroblast filter.

The third star labeled in this image is Wasat, Delta Geminorum.  It is a nice double star for small telescopes.  The two components are magnitude 3.6 and 8.2, separated by 5.6 arcsec.  I was able to separate the pair photographically with the Celestron C6 and a 2.5x Powermate:

This image is a stack of eight exposures, 1/3 sec, ISO 1600.  A digital filter helps make the dim companion stand out better: