Image of the moon from earlier this evening around 5:50 pm MST, lunation 3.78.
Here in Louisville, the turbulence not great, maybe 5/10, sky was clear, 3-4 mph wind, and very thin haze with temperature about 40°F. Image taken with Celestron Nexstar11 telescope with F6.3 focal reducer and Canon Xti camera at 1/320 sec and ASA 400. Registax3 used to stack 25 of 50 images, wavelet sharpened and resized.
The Orion nebula is the brightest nebula visible from Earth and is always a treat to visit in a scope of any size or binoculars. In this image, M42 is the bright butterfly shape surrounding the trapezium. Messier 43 is directly above M42. It appears as roundish neblosity surrounding star NU Orionis. Dark lanes can be seen extending southward toward M42. Toward the top center of the image, the shape of the running man can just barely be distinguished above 3 bright stars. With the naked eye these stars appear as a single star just above the Orion Nebua.
Images were taken with Stellarvue A1010 80mm refractor and Canon Xti camera. Camera was set at ASA 400 with separate exposures of 30 seconds and 120 seconds. The Stellarvue A1010 was mounted on a Losmandy rail on top of a Celestron Nexstar11. The Nexstar11 was guided using a Stellacam II video camera and PHD Guiding software. Sky was clear, no clouds, temperature was 37°F, transparency was very good, and turbulence was around 5/10 though sometimes a bit better.
Comet C/2006P1 (McNaught) from earlier this evening shortly after sunset. I’ve tried finding it both in the morning and the evenings during the past week and failed until this evening. It is actually quite bright. Mike and I could both see it naked eye (barely) this evening around 5:20pm. I didn’t realize a comet could be both a morning and evening object on the same day, but this comet is. The sun and the comet are nearly the same right ascension (within 5′) and the comet is about 12 degrees further north in altitude. Thus the comet just barely manages to appear before sunrise and after sunset. A clear view of the western (or eastern) horizon is necessary to see this comet. For us in Colorado right now it is only about 6 degrees above the horizon when it becomes visible 20-30 minutes after sunset. Also, depending how near you are to the foothills to the west you may lose much of that. I increased my search time window this evening by about 15 minutes by setting up on a hill in Broomfield about 10 miles east of here.
Image taken from Broomfield, CO at at 5:28pm MST with Stellarvue A1010 80mm refractor telescope and Canon Xti camera. (1/5th sec shutter at ASA 800 — slightly overexposed). Single image cropped and brightness reduced with Photoshop, noise filtered. I got to the site late and didn’t have time to setup notebook to check focus and exposure. Settings were close but not as good as they should have been. Image taken 2 minutes before it disappeared behind the foothils. Some blur due to poor focus and some due to tracking. Maybe I’ll get another try tomorrow before yet another blizzard moves into our area on Thursday.