A collection of various astro-images by AAA members over the years.
(Click on photos to enlarge)
33 Hour, 57 minute old moon
My wife and I were taking pictures of the sunset over the Catskills last December 28th at about 5:00pm and as the colors faded I noticed a very thin white slice of light hanging on the horizon. It was the new moon, new at 7:22 am EST on Saturday morning December 27th. So at 5:19 PM on Sunday, when this picture was taken, the moon was 33 hours, 57 minutes old.
Don’t know if this is a record or not.. but it’s the newest moon I think I’ve ever seen. In this photo it’s just right of the last tree near the center of the field.Òš –Michael O’Gara
Asteroid Vesta
I did manage to image our ò??11th planetò?? on December 27, 2005 when I was upstate. Castor and Pollux are to the left, and the asteroid Vesta is between the hash marks. (Three days earlier, it almost occulted the star to its lower left.) Those little strands to the right of Pollux and above arenò??t noise, nor are they superstrings; they are illuminated tree branches.Òš –Tony Hoffman
Sketch of M81/M82
Sketch of the M81/M82 galaxy group as seen through my 6″ f/5 Newtonian telescope in a very dark Vermont mountain sky. I have included a low-power view (30x through a 26 mm PlÓÆssl) to show both galaxies together in the same telescopic field and detail views of each at the bottom (60x through a 13 mm PlÓÆssl).
On the lower right, note the bright, concentrated nucleus of M81, which harbors a supermassive black hole. Just the faintest hint is the most I can see of the spiral-arm structure in my 6″ telescope. These galaxies are about 11 million light-years away in the direction of Ursa Major. That makes them among the very closest galaxies to our own Local Group.Òš –Bruce Kamiat
Chi Cygni in outburst
As you may know, the Mira-type variable Chi ß? Cygni is near maximum, and is unusually bright at about magnitude 3.5. (Notice its orange tint.) Hereò??s a picture I took of Cygnus in August 2006, showing Chi (note its orange color).Òš –Tony Hoffman
Conjunction of Venus and Jupiter
From Brooklyn Heights, Sept. 1, 2005
Cassiopeia
The Cassiopeia photos were taken from my backyard in Santa Fe using a Nikon D80 and an old manual-focus Nikkor 50mm f1.4 lens stopped down to f2.8. The exposure was 4 minutes at ISO 800. The camera was piggy- backed on the a very old Meade Newtonian on an equatorial mount. I did an inexact polar alignment and there was no guiding.– John Swierzbin
The Milky Way
The Milky Way photographed by AAA member John Swierzbin from his Santa Fe home. The image is a three minute exposure. His camera was piggy-backed on a motor-driven equatorial mount.
Manhattenhenge from 57th Street, May 31, 2007
Views from Central Park
AAA member Tom Mcintyre with three remarkable images from Central Park.
Occultation of the Pleiades by the moon, April 1, 2006
Seen from Brooklyn Heights
The moon by AAA member Alice Barner