The Backyard Stargazer

Jellyfish Nebula, originally uploaded by david parmet.

The Boy Genius and I were visiting my neighbor Doug Baum the other night. Doug is the inventor of the BIPH – aka the Binocular Photon Machine – a light amplification device that brings jaw-dropping views to even the most mundane telescopes.

Doug, his own Boy Genius, my Boy Genius and I retired to Doug’s observatory to do some astrophotography. Doug’s got a Takahashi FSQ-106 set up purely for CCD astronomy. You can see some of his photos here.

The above image was created by my little guy with some encouragement from Doug and his guy. It’s a five minute exposure with some refinement and polishing post-processing. The Jellyfish – IC 443 – is 2,000 light years from Earth.

One of the true revolutionary trends in amateur astronomy is the availability of inexpensive and high-quality CCD cameras – leading to pictures that rival those created by the professional astronomers of only a few decades ago. Just compare the above image to the one on the Wikipedia entry (link above). Imagine what we could have done if we had a half hour.

Now that I’m using an LX-200, I can understand the logic of setting up a semi-permanent (or permanent) structure to house a telescope and accessories. It’s certainly easier on the back.

DSC_0040, originally uploaded by david parmet.

Orion is chock full of interesting things to look at. Everyone knows the Great Nebula – M42 and it’s neighbor M42, but there’s also the Flame and Horsehead Nebulea as well as a host of interesting stars, star clusters and other things to look for.

You can scan the region of Orion’s belt and sword (pictured above) with a good pair of binoculars and see the Great Nebula. Orion is up in the East this time of year – you can catch it just after sunset right above the horizon.

Moon-1.31.10, originally uploaded by david parmet.

You might have noticed that the Moon looks awfully large this week. In fact you are correct. The Moon is at perigee – at the point in its orbit that it is closest to the Earth.

At this point, the Moon is a couple ten thousand miles closer than it is at apogee, the furthest from Earth. And its roughly 14% larger than normal.

So if you felt a bit loony this week, blame the Moon.

More information at Moon Connection.