Owl Mountain Observatory

Approaching weather is nice to know when doing astrophotography and trends in atmospheric pressure are especially good to know. Not being able to find a reliable source of trending pressure readings I rolled my own mini weather station using a dual core Pico W microcontroller ($10 each). After I do a few weeks of testing I'll design a case for it. The tiny board collects data, displays it locally and is also a web server using the on board wifi.

This is a 16x10 degree ultra widefield image of several constellations including Carina at its center surrounded by neighboring Centaurus, Vela, Pictor and Volans. Zoom in on the plate solved image and explore the many fascinating structures which dominate the southern celestial hemisphere.

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The Whirlpool Galaxy, a.k.a. Messier 51 is an interacting grand-design spiral galaxy in Canes Venatici, at a distance of ~23.5 million light-years.

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IC 417, a.k.a. the Spider Nebula, is an emission nebula in Auriga ~10,000 light-years distant.

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NGC 1291 is a barred ring galaxy located ~33 million light-years distant in Eridanus. Other than the unusually shaped inner bar the galaxy is rather plain in the visual spectrum.

The galaxy does however take on a much different appearance when viewed in the infrared spectrum as shown in the Spitzer Space Telescope image. The outer fiery ring is filled with new stars that are igniting and heating up as the dust glows with infrared light.

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Great Total Eclipse of 2024 from Owl Mountain Observatory and from geosynchronous orbit 22,000 miles up! We now return you to our regularly scheduled programming! 🤣

Integrated flux nebulosity (IFN) is a relatively new astronomical phenomenon that consists of a faint glow caused by the combined light of millions of stars in the Milky Way reflected and re-emitted by interstellar gas and dust. IFNs are located several hundred light years above the plane of the Milky Way.

This is a wide field image of the IFN surrounding Bode’s Galaxy (Messier 81).

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The Owl Mountain Observatory AllSky camera is fully functional and permanently mounted. The constellation overlay is spot on but will still require a little bit of tweaking after the mounting this afternoon. I'm not sure if perfection is possible due to the distortion of the fisheye lens, but it's pretty darn close.

The keograms tell a lot in a single image. The keogram is composed of one vertical line from each image taken during the night. The darker the better.

There is a small bug in the program that doesn't refresh the timelapse, keogram and startrails archives. If you go to any of the archives do a refresh/reload in order to see all of them. These images are produced each morning just after sunrise.

Only time, torrential rains and heat will tell how well everything holds up! 🤣

Here's the web address: http://136.53.68.0/allsky/index.php

At 52 million light-years distance NGC 4435 is one of the more bizarre galaxy clusters in Virgo.

NGC 4435 is a barred lenticular galaxy which interacts with NGC 4438. The interaction between the two galaxies causes compression of gas and dust triggering areas of star creation.

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NGC 1097 is a barred spiral galaxy ~45 million light years distant in Fornax.

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Cederblad 51 consists of a blue reflection nebulae surrounded by the red emission nebula GN 05.30.0 in Orion.

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Sharpless 240, a.k.a the Spaghetti Nebula, is a supernova remnant straddling the border between the constellations Auriga and Ta**us at a distance of ~3,000 light-years.

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RCW 89 is an extremely energetic pulsar spinning around 7 times/second. The pulsar shapes the expanding supernova remnant with its energetic winds. RCW 89 is located ~17,000 light-years distant in the constellation Circinus.

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The Antennae Galaxies, NGC 4038/NGC 4039, are interacting galaxies in Corvus at a distance of ~50 million light-years.

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This is a deep exposure showing many smaller galaxies in the area about NGC 891. NGC 891 is an edge-on unbarred spiral galaxy ~30 million light-years distant in Andromeda.

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IC 2944, a.k.a. the Running Chicken Nebula, is an open cluster and emission nebula in Centaurus ~6,500 light-years distant.

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This image of NGC 6231 highlights some of the dark nebulae within the open cluster. NGC 6231 is located in Scorpius at a distance of ~5,600 light-years.

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SH2-224 is an extremely dim supernova remnant in the constellation Auriga ~14,700 light-years distant. This image was processed from 24+ hours of data collected over three years.

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NGC 1232, a.k.a. the "Eye of God Galaxy" is a spiral galaxy ~62 million light-years distant in Eridanus.

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NGC 602 and its companions are young, open clusters of stars located in the Small Magellanic Cloud.

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NGC 6744 is an intermediate spiral galaxy ~30 million light-years distant in the constellation Pavo (The Peacock). I have two versions. One widefield view from some old data and the closer view using data recently collected.

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Here is another "context" image containing a good portion of the galactic southern hemisphere. The image is a five panel mosaic and spans an area of 31 x 11 degrees. Within the image you'll find the Coalsack, Running Chicken and Eta Carina nebulae. The bright star just to the right of the Coalsack is the bright magnitude 1.25 base star of the Southern Cross Acrux. Acrux is the brightest star in the constellation Crux (Latin for the Cross) hence the "A" designation. Acrux appears to be a single star, but is actually a multiple star system containing six stars.

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NGC 346 along with its companions NGC 371 and NGC 395 are active star-forming regions and young open star clusters in the Small Magellanic Cloud. They are just around the galactic corner at only ~200,000 light-years distance!

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NGC 660 is a polar-ring galaxy and most likely the result of a collision of two galaxies. It's located in Pisces ~45 million light-years distant.

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IC 2948, a.k.a the Running Chicken Nebula, is an emission nebula in Centaurus ~6,500 light-years distant.

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Lynds' Bright Nebula 1068 in Canis Major. This is a quick reprocess to add more data and bring out some more detail.

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NGC 1672 is a barred spiral galaxy ~52 million light-years distant in Dorado.

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