ARKYD Space Telescopes - affordable mini-Hubble?

Planetary Resources is a company in Bellevue, WA that is working on developing small space telescopes which will be used for finding near Earth asteroids.  Mainly for future resource mining, but also for tracking the dangerous ones that could impact the Earth, such as the one that hit Chelyabinsk a few months back.  It will also be used to find planets around stars, which is probably needed soon with the recent problems with the Kepler spacecraft currently scanning the sky between Lyra and Cygnus. At this time, 132 planets have been found.

Alex, we're in space!

Although, I think the really exciting thing about these spacecraft is the fact that they will be publicly available for astronomical imaging currently through Kickstarter.com where they are taking pledges to reach a $1 Million goal.  $200 will get you a chance to point it at an object of your choice, and $25 will get you an image of a photo you send up with the Earth in the background.  I did donate $25 to the program so I can get my own "selfie" photo as they call them, your photo with the Earth in the background (See my sample above).  The fee of $200 is a reasonable deal to get permission to point a space telescope above the clouds/smog/turbulent atmosphere and get a photo of M-51. (If you are a reader of my blog, you probably figured out that is my favorite target to image!)
The telescope is 200mm so that is somewhere between a Meade ETX-125 and LX-90 in equivalent aperture, but this is a fast scope at f/4 focal ratio.  The ETX is a fairly small scope, but above the atmosphere and light pollution for $200?  It's like a mini Hubble!
Here are the techie details about the telescope: (it's got some nice filters on board that I'd love to try here in my own backyard!)

• Primary Optic: 200 mm aperture, f/4 primary optic
• Resolving capability: ~ 1 arcsecond
• Detection capability: to visual magnitude 19
• 5 MP+ image sensor
• Wavelength range: 200 nm to 1100 nm
• Available filters: UV bandpass (< 300 nm), B, V, R, OIII, Hα, 1 μm bandpass, Luminence (Clear)
• Active image stabilization

I did send Planetary Resources a letter and resume for a "General Space Nut" job position they offered.  I'm a perfect fit for a job like that.
Hey, Planetary Resources! Please take a moment to view my resume,  cover letter and LinkedIn page please call me anytime. I'd be very interested in talking to you about any job that I might be a fit for.

| Kickstarter.com - register your selfie or telescope time |

| Planetary Resources |

Tidying up cables for the clear nights

Cameras in place

Showers were forecast today, but nothing happened rather than a windy day with big clouds and sun so it was a good day to work on the Astro-Shack.
I fit the new camera on the scope and got it all in place.  I finally did something I should have done years ago - put some tidy wrapping around the camera and other cables.  I found some wire wrapping stuff at Fry's and put that on.  Why? To make it look cool, and most of all, sometimes when slewing the telescope it will bog down and I'll look over and see that it's trying to strangle itself in it's own cables.  Ouch.
I left a large loop in the cable bundle now, so hopefully that problem is minimized.  Kind of clear tonight, but terribly twinkly from the winds, and drifting high clouds.  Just not very good.  So I wait again for a good night to try test run #2 of the camera and new cabling.

Tidy cable loop

In the left photo you can see the camera arrangement.  I have the Orion Starshoot auto-guide camera on the refractor, and the new Canon 60Da mounted on the LX200.  I would have tried a solar image today, but looking at the current sunspot data, there wasn't much there right now so I didn't try.
I also swapped out some speakers so I now have some great sounding Pandora streaming out there now too!

If nothing else, it looks pretty cool!

First light with new improved camera.

The 60Da.

I came across a great deal on Craigslist (thanks for finding that Traci!), on a Canon 60Da camera.  I won't mention the price, but I saved a lot of money on it. This camera is Canon's latest step back into DSLR Astro-capable cameras after about 7 years since they first came out with the short lived, but still popular, 20Da (the "a" is for astro).  So what sets this apart from a normal 60D?  This version has about 3x the IR/Red channel gathering ability (at least from what I read), and it has a super low noise ratio also for those long exposures.

The flip out screen - so nice!

I got lucky last night and actually had a chance with some clear skies.  Transparency was kind of lousy, and clouds rolled in as I was taking the 6th image, but I got enough for a quick image stack and processing to see what it can do.  I also bought a registration for a cool imaging software called "Backyard EOS" which has a lot of really nice features, and it's super easy to use.  I really like the auto-dithering feature it has with Phd Guider.  That's really slick.  It will move the scope a few pixels between frames to minimize the repeating noise.  As for noise, I was quickly impressed with how little background noise was seen even after a 3 minute exposure at ISO 1000.  Very clean data.  I didn't take any dark/flat frames in this test run, but it came out looking really great.  I did have some errors in autoguiding, which caused the elongated stars, but that's another issue.
Focusing this camera is going to be a HUGE time saver!  It has a live video mode so you get a live image on the screen. Combine that with the remote focusing from the computer and I had the image focused in just a couple minutes.  Usually, with the old camera, I would take a shot, focus, take another, focus, swear a bit since I went the wrong way, focus - and repeat until I was there.   A Bahtinov mask and a couple minutes and it's ready!
The camera has a few different RAW modes with maximum resolution a massive 18 mega pixels!  I'll need to invest in a bigger hard drive for my data.
So here it is, the "first light" image from the observatory armed with the new 60Da.

• M-27 Dumbell nebula
• Camera: 60Da
• Filter: CLS
• Scope: Meade LX200 at f/6.3
• ISO: 1000   |  Exposures:  6 |  Time:  3 minute each

As always, click for full size

Bowie in Space.

Not quite David Bowie, but pretty darn cool otherwise.  Not the first music video from space, but probably the most appropriate.  Chris Hadfield performed this video just before he left the station "close the Soyuz hatch and put your helmet on..."

A couple clear nights in Renton.

Yes, I'll admit once again I've been slacking on new blog content here. Do I really have loyal readers of this that get a *Ding!* new entry to the Astro-Blog? I guess I should hope so. I have unintentionally come into some more free time lately when the loss of yet another job about a month ago, so I'm wandering around looking for a job on the internet, and getting things done around the house these days. The job hunting has been pretty bleak once again. Anyway, I've had time to get some more work done on the sticky observatory dome, cussed at Windows some more (that's pretty normal), and have done a little imaging this last week in our warm weather.
First image is what the observatory looks like on a nice, stable, clear night.  Sure, there is a bit of light pollution to the west from the city of Renton, but at least it's not bouncing off the bottom of clouds for a rare change in scenery.
Next, we have a shot of the NGC4565 Galaxy.  It's a nice example of an edge-on galaxy.  It's easy to see the center of the galaxy and the dust lanes through it as we see it from the edge.  The galaxy is 50 million light years away, so I feel honored that those wee little ancient photons made that long trip just to be sucked into my camera and preserved forever.  Just like a spider captured in a jar?
The techie details for those who care:

• Scope: Meade LX200 Classic at f/6.3
• Camera: Canon 350D (modified).  ISO800
• Images: 21 exposures at 5 minutes each stacked and tweaked with Images Plus

Next is the familiar M51 Whirlpool Galaxy.  If you follow this blog and your computer goes *ding!* you probably know that I have taken many images of this one.  It's probably still my favorite and it's nicely located almost straight up this time of year.   I'm still working on getting the ultimate shot of this thing, and never quite satisfied.
Again the techie info:

• Scope: Meade LX200 Classic at f/6.3
• Camera: Canon 350D (IR modified).  ISO800
• Images: 12 exposures at 5 minutes each stacked with Images Plus

As always, click the small images to see these in full size. 

That's it for now, more later hopefully!

ISS images of Earth.

we can never have too many of these kind of videos can we? A nice 16 minute video of Don Pettit's photography from his time on the ISS. Go full screen with HD resolution if you have the bandwidth!

Asteroid solution - last desperate attempt.

Just a funny that I came across this evening!

Space rocks thrown at Earth.

The recent space rock sizes. The one that hit Russia, and the other bigger one (asteroid 2012 DA14)  that fortunately passed us.  Either way, if the little one didn't blow up high in the atmosphere and hit Chelyabinsk directly it would have been a major disaster - more than just broken windows and confused Russians with their car cameras.  If the big one smacked us.....well, you just guess!

Deep Sea Treasures

First there was the discovery of the lost Titanic, then Gus Grissom's lost Liberty Bell 7 spacecraft, now Amazon rich guy Jeff Bezos has found one of the ultimate in lost treasures. A couple of F-1 engines from Apollo 11's S-IC first stage! It may or may not be from Apollo 11 since it seems they still need to confirm serial numbers, but it's definitely from a Saturn V. But wait....it gets even better! Jeff, being a local Seattle guy and the owner of one of the upcoming private sector spacecraft companies (Blue Origin), is hoping to have one of the two engines on display at the Museum of Flight in Seattle.  Woo hoo!
Blue Origin already has their Charon test vehicle on display there, a vertical takeoff and landing vehicle with a bunch of jet engines.

| CollectSpace article |

 | Bezos Expeditions |

Spring!

Happy first day of spring!  Although here in Seattle, it starts out stormy with 40+ kt gust winds, lowered freezing level, heavy rain, and no view of Comet PanSTARRS.  Typical spring for the last 4 years now.  Global warming?  Nah...I call it more like "global climate shift".  
How many times have I had the Astro-Shack dome open since I built it last summer?  Uh....3 times maybe?

Anyway, here is a nifty video showing the seasons of Earth from above.  Spring/fall is when the terminator is straight up and down.

Comet PANSTARRS

Now the frustration for Seattle astronomers can get started.  Early in March Comet PANSTARRS will be visible in the western skies after sunset.  When was the last time we saw a good sunset?  I think I remember one about 3 weeks ago.
The comet was giving some great views in the Southern skies - it is summer in Australia right now, and they have had their fair share of good comets over the years, so it's our turn now for us northern dwellers!
Keep looking west over the next weeks and if it's clear we may get lucky and see something.

| PanSTARRS info from Astronomy Magazine |

Global warming = less clear nights?

Last week I received an email from Allison who was working on an infographic on the problem of global warming.  I looked it over and it looks pretty good, so I'm sharing it on my blog at her request.

(Click to see infographic)

I often get emails to our club site from people asking "when is your next star party?" I never have a really good answer for them other than nicely saying something like "we don't even try anymore since we'll end up with more cancelled events rather than viewings."  If scheduling a public viewing would cause skies to clear, we would do it a couple times a month!  But again, even during the summers over the last several years, we hardly get reliable weather to do this.  A couple summers ago, I worked for about a month to do a star party for a school group in Maple Valley - in early summer even - and after 4 tries had to give up due to weather.

I think I like to call this a "global climate shift" which I think describes the problem clearer than "global warming".  With all the harsh winters on the East coast over the last years (this winter is another bad one), and here in Seattle the last few years our summers haven't really started on the usual July 5th date when summer usually starts (no, I'm not joking about July 5th either - ask any native here!). I've also noticed with great disgust and frustration that the number of clear skies at night has decreased noticeably over the last 4 years or so.  Just a few years ago, we would have many clear winter nights (very cold of course, but very clear and stable atmosphere) with many chances to observe the winter skies visually or through astrophotography.  This winter is no exception, I've had our observatory open twice over the last 3 months - and even then conditions were not ideal, but it's all I've had.  Could it simply be the "new toy curse" that seems to plaque astronomers whenever they buy a nice piece of gear to try out?


Anyway, read the infographic link below to see the full size view and see if you agree also.  I think I would add a line to that says "less clear nights for Northwest Astronomers" to that graphic!

| Full size infographic |

| More on the LearnStuff.com site |