Wiser: 2020 In Hindsight

Comet Neowise seen in the wee hours of morning shortly before sunrise on July 12, 2020. The picture was taken from my second floor guest room window looking north east using a camera with a telephoto lens. This was my first "naked eye" comet and possibly the last in its class I would actually see in my lifetime. I had not been able to see the comparable Halley's comet when I was 10 years old, and don't expect to see it return when I'd be 86 either. Thanks to this cosmic visitor, I also unearthed an unexpected connection, from about 55 years ago.

 

Trifid: Three in One.

Visible in binoculars as a tiny region of fuzziness at the top of the spout of the "tea pot" (the Sagittarius constellation), the Trifid nebula has been described as the site of "unspeakable beauty and unimaginable bedlam" simultaneously showing colors and chaos of star birth and evolution. The light we see today from this region 50 light years across, is about 3000 years old.

As I set out to image this for the first time ever, I felt a bit like fish out of water all over again. Knowing visual observation would be underwhelming, and wanting to do several targets in one night - I started with imaging right away. The scope alignment, go-to accuracy and focus test using Jupiter checked out fine. But once I slewed to Trifid and took the first shot, I couldn't trust if I really had it in the frame. There was something there obviously, but I didn't know what it was. The little fuzziness in the star field didn't look anything like the images on the internet. It was too small, and for all I knew, I could be shooting a random nondescript object in the region. To make matters worse, the minute long exposures were beginning to show star trails which I knew would be kicked out by the stacking software.  It was also the first half of July, too early for an August target after all. Despite all these ifs and buts, I decided to make some compromising tweaks to the setup and power through the imaging.

Fortunately, Trifid did not disappoint. In the image above, I got some natural colors - a dash of red here and bit of blue there, and of course the ominous dark "Y" that is the hallmark of Trifid. 

Mission accomplished. 

Eclipse on Jupiter

Io, one of the Galilean moons, casts a shadow on the disc of Jupiter as it makes a transit on the night of June 29, 2020. Also visible among the cloud bands is the Great Red Spot - a giant storm bigger than the size of the earth, raging on for over 300 years. 

Galileo discovered four of the Jovian moons. These were the first celestial objects to be the recognized as not orbiting earth. For promoting the heliocentric view, Galileo was placed under house arrest for life accused of heresy. 

Four centuries later, our view of the universe has changed much, but our struggles with the status quo continues quite the same. 

Freedom is (still) not free.

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Equipment: 1500 mm Mak Cass with 8-24 mm eyepiece and DSLR in eyepiece projection

Post processed in PIPP, AutoStakkert and Registax.