Winter Night Sky

from Payson

Uploaded 3/2/08

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Non Clickable selected sub frames
Auriga
Beehive cluster
Canis Major
Cassiopiea
Hayades/M44
California neb/Comet Holmes M44
Orion
Perseus/Holmes/Calif Double cluster

 Weather lately has been touch and go, and I wanted to get a wide eye shot of the winter Milkyway before it went behind the house. This image, although short in duration shows off the decent optical quality of the Sigma lens and is a useful tool for all sky surveys for aurora, zodiacal light and airglow.

Image Features

From Canis Major in the south at the bottom of the frame, to the pole star to the north top of the frame, the visible part of the sky from our balcony is shown. On the lower right edge is the roof of the house, and just above it is the zodiacal light cone. The skyglow of Phoenix is below the house, and the entire bottom and left edge of the frame had extensive skyglow from Payson.

Also shown below the main image is small snippets of the original frame to show individual features, including one with the California nebula and the now barely visible Comet Holmes, near a magnitude of 5.5 or so.

Instrument: Sigma 8mm f/3.5 fish eye lens at f/4 Platform: Robotic Barn Door Mount Camera: Hutech Modified Canon XTi @ ISO800 Exposure: 10m Filters: None Location: Payson, Arizona Elevation: 5150 ft. Sky: Seeing 2/10, Transparency 6/10 Outside Temperature: 45F Processing Tools: Photoshop CS2, Maxim DSLR HOME GALAXIES EMISSION NEBS REFLECTION NEBS COMETS GLOBULARS OPEN CLUST PLANETARIES LINKS FastCounter by bCentral