Blog - Galactic Images

Saturn’s Rings are tilting

By John Chumack|2024-08-15T20:40:54+00:00August 15th, 2024|Tags: #ChumackObservatories, #cosmos, #GalacticImages, #JohnChumack, #natgeo, #QHYCCD, #Saturn2024, #Saturnsrings, #skyatnight, #solarsystem, #universe, #Universetoday, Astronomy, Planets, Saturn, Space|

Saturn’s Rings will disappear from sight in March of 2025, but only for a few months.

During Saturn’s 29.5 year orbit around our Sun, the planet Saturn presents a ring plane crossing every 14-15 years as seen from Earth.

In reality, it all has to do with planetary alignments.
As Saturn and Earth orbit the Sun, the two planets align in such way that gives us these wonderful views of
Saturn’s majestic rings and the tilting/ring plane cycle.

This is what I really like about Saturn, that every year I can look and see the rings tilted at a slightly different angle than the previous year, but when it goes edge on and vanishes, it looks really strange!!…as we are so accustomed to seeing the ring system around the planet.

Saturn’s rings are so thin (30ft up to 2 miles thick in some places) when viewed from Earth, that they seemingly vanish when viewed edge-on, due to our distance from Saturn.

The distance of Saturn from Earth is currently 1.3 billion kilometers (~ 812.5 million miles), the reflected light takes 1 hours, 12 minutes and 41.6580 seconds to travel from Saturn and arrive to us on Earth.

Now you may still see the ring’s shadow cast upon the planet’s disk, but the rings will become invisible to your eyes or cameras when looking or shooting through the telescope come March of 2025.

Capture details:
C-11 SCT telescope, ADC, 2x Barlow, QHY462C Cmos Camera,
Fire-Capture Software, SER file, 60FPS, 17 ms exposures, stacked 50% of 5,000 frames.
Astrosurface, Registax6, and Adobe Raw CC.
High haze and poor seeing, but I managed to pull this image out of the muck.
Captured from my backyard observatory in Dayton, Ohio on 08-15-2024 at 05:59 UT

Best Regards,
John Chumack
www.galacticimages.com

Perseid Meteors on 08-12-2024

By John Chumack|2024-08-14T15:06:06+00:00August 14th, 2024|Tags: #ChumackObservatories, #cosmos, #GalacticImages, #JohnChumack, #meteors, #natgeo, #perseidmeteors, #perseus, #skyatnight, #solarsystem, #universe, #Universetoday, Astronomy, Space|

Perseid Meteor on 08-12-2024
Here is a nice one…the original wider angle image shows Cassiopeia and Perseus constellations rising in the Northeastern sky above my backyard observatory dome.

The second close-up image of the Perseid Meteor.
The color of a meteor depends on its chemical composition.
Note the nice colors in my close-up shot of this Perseid Meteor.
Some common meteor colors are: Orange-yellow (sodium), Yellow (iron), Blue-green (magnesium), Violet (calcium), and Red (atmospheric nitrogen and oxygen).
These are the typical colors of meteors as they burn up entering the Earth’s atmosphere, with the meteors moving at an average speed of 133,200 mph (214,365 kph).

Best Regards,
John Chumack
www.galacticimages.com

Northern Lights Visits Dayton Ohio on 08-12-2024

By John Chumack|2024-08-14T11:44:54+00:00August 14th, 2024|Tags: #Aurora, #auroraborealis, #ChumackObservatories, #cosmos, #GalacticImages, #JohnChumack, #natgeo, #northernlights, #skyatnight, #SolarActivity, #solarsystem, #universe, #Universetoday, Astronomy, Space|

While watching and capturing the Perseid Meteor shower last night, the Aurora made an appearance above my backyard Observatory in Dayton.
Aurora Borealis In Dayton, Ohio on 08-12-2024 02:00 LT. Canon 6D DSLR, 16mm F2.8, ISO 800, 5 second exposure.

Best Regards,
John Chumack
www.galacticimages.com

M27 The Dumbbell Nebula with the Seestar 50s scope

By John Chumack|2024-08-11T15:55:04+00:00August 11th, 2024|Tags: #ChumackObservatories, #cosmos, #DyingStar, #GalacticImages, #JohnChumack, #m27, #messier 27, #natgeo, #planetarynebula, #skyatnight, #universe, #Universetoday, #vulpecula, #ZWO, Astronomy, Space|

M27 The Dumbbell Nebula with the Seestar 50s scope
M27 is located 900 light years away in Vulpecula, The Dumbbell Nebula (also known as the Apple Core Nebula, Messier 27, and NGC 6853) is a planetary nebula or a dying star blowing off its outer atmosphere.
You can see this nebulosity surrounding a white dwarf in the constellation Vulpecula,
The Dumbbell Nebula is located at a distance of about 1200 light-years away from Earth.
Shining at Magnitude 7.5 it is one of the brightest PN and easily visible in any telescope and it’s diameter is about 8 Arc-minutes.

Watching for early Perseid meteors/Exhausted I fell asleep in my observing chair and when I finally woke up,
I realized that both scopes had gone for longer than I was planning, thus the field rotation reduced my FOV significantly, causing me to have to crop to the center of the chip, but the image still came out nice, even if a bit closer up than I was originally shooting for.
Captured with Two ZWO Seestars 50s Automated scopes/ZWO Sony 462 Chip cameras.
2 hour total integration time. Stacked in Nebulosity 4,
Pixinsight and Adobe Raw CC for post processing.
Captured from my backyard in Dayton, Ohio on 08/09/2024.

Best Regards,
John Chumack
www.galacticimages.com

Sunspot Activity on 08-04-2024

By John Chumack|2024-08-04T22:50:14+00:00August 4th, 2024|Tags: #ChumackObservatories, #cosmos, #GalacticImages, #JohnChumack, #natgeo, #QHYCCD, #skyatnight, #SolarActivity, #solarsystem, #sunspot, #universe, #Universetoday, Astronomy, Space, Sun|

Here is my latest of the very active Sun on with Sunspots/Active Regions AR3769, AR3774, AR3775, AR3776, AR3777
and a very Large Sunspot/Active Region is just now coming around the Sun’s Southeastern Limb,
and it had been flaring while on the back side.
I was surprised that it came out as well as it did, considering the High amount of water vapor in the sky, plus shooting in between thick passing clouds.

Here are my shot details for the
Solar Activity on 08-04-2024.
Lunt 60mm/50F HA telescope, QHY290 Cmos camera, Bisque MyT mount, 2.3ms exposures. Fire-Capture Software,
1200 frames stacked in AS4, processed in Adobe CS Raw.
Captured from my backyard observatory in Dayton, Ohio.

Best Regards,
John Chumack
www.galacticimages.com

Lunar / Planetary/Aldebaran Conjunction on 07-31-2024

By John Chumack|2024-08-01T11:50:29+00:00August 1st, 2024|Tags: #aldebaran, #ChumackObservatories, #cosmos, #GalacticImages, #JohnChumack, #natgeo, #skyatnight, #solarsystem, #universe, #Universetoday, Conjunction, Jupiter, Mars, Moon, Space|

Lunar/Planetary/Aldebaran Conjunction on 07-31-2024
Just after T-storms overnight, I look East around 6:00am to see the clouds moving out…revealing the Conjunction again….and a little Pareidolia……does that cloud just to the right of Aldebaran look like a profile of Santa?…and I guess he likes looking at the conjunctions. 🤩 Captured with my I-phone from my driveway while on my way to work that morning. 7.5mm, 1/15th second exp, ISO 640.

Best Regards,
John Chumack
www.galacticimages.com

The Full Buck Moon 07-21-2024

By John Chumack|2024-07-30T12:17:22+00:00July 30th, 2024|Tags: #ChumackObservatories, #fullbuckmoon, #fullmoon, #GalacticImages, #JohnChumack, #natgeo, #skyatnight, #Universetoday, Moon, Space|

I had been gone for the last 6 weeks, traveling to shows(working), vacation, and etc. After finishing up my Ann Arbor, Michigan show, I spent the night at my very good friend’s place in Saline, Michigan, and yes I brought the Portable Seestar scope up there with me and took this shot for them of the Full Buck Moon on 07-21-2024. Despite being wiped out from the 6 weeks of shows back to back/travel as well as the high haze and cirrus clouds floating through, I managed to get a decent shot for them.

Best Regards,
John Chumack
www.galacticimages.com

Monster Sunspot /Active Region 3664 on 05-10-2024

By John Chumack|2024-05-14T14:59:03+00:00May 14th, 2024|Tags: #Aurora, #auroraborealis, #ChumackObservatories, #cosmos, #GalacticImages, #JohnChumack, #natgeo, #northernlights, #Prominence, #QHYCCD, #skyatnight, #SolarActivity, #solarflare, #solarflares, #solarsystem, #Sunspot3664, #universe, #Universetoday, Space|

The Monster Sunspot/Active Region 3664 that gave us that Incredible Aurora display Friday night.
Here is my image of the beast
Sunspot Group / Active Region #3664 and as a bonus a very Large Prominence on the South western Edge of the Sun.
I ran home at lunch time on Friday to image the Sun, since it finally was clear here in Ohio.
The Sunspot group was 15 Earth’s Wide (120,000 miles wide) so you can imagine how big that Prominence on the edge is.
A solar prominence (also known as a filament when viewed against the solar disk)

This Active Sunspot 3664 region had produced at least Six separate X-ray class flares last week,
which created the Geo-Magnetic Storm, Aurora Borealis, aka Northern Lights we all recently got to witness.

Lunt 60mm/50F H-Alpha Solar telescope, Bisque MyT Mount, QHY290M Cmos Camera, 9ms exp., 70fps, Fire-Capture SER Video,
1800 frames stacked in AS4, Registax6, Adobe Raw CC 2024.

Best Regards,
John Chumack
www.galacticimages.com

Amazing Aurora in Ohio Friday night on 10 May 2024

By John Chumack|2024-05-13T11:40:05+00:00May 13th, 2024|Tags: #Aurora, #auroraborealis, #ChumackObservatories, #cosmos, #GalacticImages, #JohnChumack, #natgeo, #northernlights, #skyatnight, #SolarActivity, #solarsystem, #sunspot, #universe, #Universetoday, Astronomy, Space|

Crazy Good Northern Lights started right at civil twilight, then just kept getting better as it got darker, I shot for several hours, and its still going strong…I also shot the Massive Sunspot & Solar Activity that caused all these light, will share that later this week.
Here are two examples of the hundreds of shots I captured, more to come later.
Captured in front of my observatory Domes at JBSPO in Yellow Springs. 10 May 2024.
It literally covered the entire sky!!!

Best Regards,
John Chumack
www.galacticimages.com

The Seagull Nebula in Monoceros, IC 2177 also known as GUM 1

By John Chumack|2024-05-04T00:12:08+00:00May 4th, 2024|Tags: #ASIAIR, #ChumackObservatories, #cosmos, #GalacticImages, #Gum1, #IC2177, #JohnChumack, #natgeo, #nebula, #NGC2335, #NGC2343, #Seagullnebula, #skyatnight, #universe, #Universetoday, #ZWO, #ZWO294MC, Astronomy, Astrophotography, Space|

Here is another shot I captured while down in South Texas last month.
IC 2177 also known as GUM 1, Sh2-292, The Seagull Nebula in Monoceros,
IC 2177 is a region of nebulosity that lies along the border between the constellations Monoceros and Canis Major.

The head of the Seagull is a roughly circular H II region centered on the Be star HD 53367.
The region includes the open clusters NGC 2335 and NGC 2343.
You will find some blue reflection nebula and dark nebulae amongst the strong red Emission Nebula.
This stellar Nursery is located 3,653 light years from Earth.

I captured this image from outside of Uvalde, Texas on 04-07-2024.
Using my RASA 8 F2.2 Scope, AM5 Mount, ZWO 294MC cooled Cmos Camera, Optolong L-Quad Filter, ASI Air Plus, Wi-Fi to IPAD,
(14 x 300 sec. Subs) 80 Minutes total integration time.

Best Regards,
John Chumack
www.galacticimages.com