Astrophotography to Astrophysics

July and August have been extremely busy and eventful months. While Texas weather has been unbearably hot, we have enjoyed plenty of clear nights for astrophotography. That has allowed me to image targets like the Lagoon Nebula (M8), Triffid Nebula (M20), the Eagle Nebula (M16), Cygnus Wall within the North American Nebula (NGC7000), amongst many others.

Along with all of this imaging and processing time, I’ve put a lot of thought into what drives me and what is my passion. Astronomy and astrophotography is a hobby I’ve been passionate about for years, but I’ve also loved reading book and listening to podcast about astrophysics and cosmology. I’d like to understand the math behind the observations and be able to add to the collective knowledge of the cosmos.

For years I’ve said, “If I could do it all over again, I’d go to school for astronomy and astrophysics.” Now that I’m 40, I’ve come to the realization that I don’t want to be saying the same thing when I’m 50. It is time to do something.

So I looked around for part-time astrophysics programs which would allow me to continue my current career in public finance/civil service, but allow me to learn about the inner workings of the cosmos. I stumbled along Arizona State University’s degree in Astronomical and Planetary Sciences. As I was reading about the program I was hoping for something a little more in-depth, but then noticed they were starting a brand-new program concentrating in astrophysics!

I immediately applied for the program and within a few weeks was accepted into this new program. This week I begin my studies to earn a new undergraduate degree in astrophysics! I hope this is the launching point which will allow me over the next 13 to earn a masters and perhaps PhD in astrophysics before I’m eligible to retire from state service at the young age of 53. Then in “retirement” I can pursue a life/passion of research and maybe teaching. It’s an ambitious plan, but one I’m truly looking forward to traversing.

Back to Astrophotography

The first image to share is a repeat from last month, the Eagle Nebula (M16). This time I shot the nebula on my Apertura 60EDR / ASI533MC Pro camera combo mounted on my Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer GTi. The sensor is a higher quality than the Seestar S50 and it’s a dedicated astronomy cooling camera which eliminates noise from temperature variations.

After stacking the data in Siril using Naz’s OSC stacking script, I processed the image in PixInsight. I used the RC Astro suite for deconvolution, star removal, and noise reduction. Like most of my images, I used DBXtract to breakout the Ha and OIII channels which were recombined after stretching using the Foraxx Utility script and applied narrowband normalization to achieve an SHO palette. From there I used color masks to further process the image with curves adjustments. Finally the images recombined using the Image Blend utility script.

The next image is the Lagoon Nebula (M20) shot on the same telescope, camera, mount combo. For both of these images I used my Optolong l-eNhance filter to image the nebula in narrowband. This means the filter block most light except for light emitted from Hydrogen alpha and Oxygen III wavelengths.

I was only able to get a 2 hours on this nebula as it is obscured by rooflines and dastardly trees. I’m still really happy with the resulting image! You can see a ton of dust clouds both in and around the core of the nebula.

Located very near the Lagoon Nebula is M20, the Triffid Nebula. What’s neat about the nebula is there are three types of nebula represented. The dust lanes in front of the central core is a dark nebula, the bright center is an emission nebula where new starts are being born, and the blue outside is a reflection nebula. I have not posted the full resolution image as I’m still working on the target with my Seestar S50.

Here’s a wider mosaic view of the pair shot on my Dwarf 3. Again I have not posted the full resolution image yet as I’m still working through some adjustments.

As I get more time on the Cygnus Wall and Veil Nebula I’ll post those. While it’s forecasted to be a million degrees in Texas for the foreseeable future, at least our nights have been very favorable for astronomy. I’m sure in up coming post I’ll get these items finished and give an update on the new astrophysics program.

Clear skies!