University of Minnesota Morris Astronomical Observatory

Astro Gallery

M3 Globular Cluster in Canes Venatici, July 2, 2025

16-inch LX200. QHY268M with filterwheel. Bahtinov mask used to focus.

M3. Single-frame full-visible spectrum exposure (top); Livestack of 21 frames in visible spectrum (center); Combination of 3 single frames in red, green, blue (bottom).

Orion Nebula and first attempts at image stacking, 2-17-2025

On the night of February 27, Sb spent three hours in the observatory to photograph the Orion Nebula. This is a region about 1300-1500 light years away, filled with gas and dust. New stars are forming there, inducing light emission in the surrounding hydrogen gas. We see it as the middle part of Orion's sword , with bare eye. Visually, through the telescope, the Orion Nebula is spectacular. Our camera is a monochrome camera (QHY268M), spectral ranges are selected with filters. We use SharpCap as the control software, and have still a long learning curve ahead.

Part of the Orion Nebula, green

This is a stack of 25 3.00-second exposures using a green filter. The green filter does not let the red hydrogen radiation pass, and reveals some details within the interstellar cloud.

Part of the Orion Nebula, H-alpha

This is a stack of 10 8.00-second exposures of the hydrogen alpha line (red). The interstellar gas is excited by radiation from the young stars in the cloud and emits a deep red light, making this image bright in regions that appear dark with the green filter.

Jupiter and the Galilean moons

From bottom to top: Callisto, Ganymede, Io, Europa. This is a single exposure of 2 seconds.

Color image of the Orion Nebula

This is the Orion Nebula in color, taken with a QHY268M CMOS camera and color filters through the LX200 SCT in the University of Minnesota Morris Observatory last night, February 27, 2025. Each color channel is a stack of 25 3-second exposures. The red, green, and blue filtered images were then combined into one image, using a home-made Python snippet.

First solar images taken with the QHY268M camera (the "CMOS"), 10-27-2024

There are challenges in photographing the sun. Of course, the big solar filter is mounted on the front of the telescope to tune down intensity. This huge sunspot group was located at the eastern limb of the solar disk, just turning into view since two days earlier. The images are oriented with East upward.

Hydrogen

H-alpha filter, 1.0-second exposure, offset 24, gain 45

Sulphur

SII filter, 1.0 second exposure, offset 0, gain 34

Color Combination

A combination of RGB filtered images at 570 ms exposure, offset 0, gain 20

Saturn, September 5 2024

Finally, the planets start to come back into our view in the evening. Saturn's rings are currently oriented in plane with our line of view. The image appears noisy - partially due to low resolution, but also due to atmospheric turbulence. Saturn is low in the sky, and its light has a long optical path through the atmosphere. Currently, Saturn is about 8.7 Au away from the earth. Its closest approach is about 8.1 AU. We can try two things: take images later in the year, at a southerly position, and use the common technique of image stacking to work out details such as Saturn's jet streams and moons. Phot was taken during the first meeting of the Observatory squad: Ethan Schmitz, Josh Johnson, Caden Brown, Nova Austin, and Sylke Boyd.

Sunspots, September 23 2024

Taken with cell phone LG5 camera through eye piece. The mylar filter allows most of the visual spectrum through. Next stop: Using the CMOS with H-alpha filter.

Observers: Josh Johnson and Sylke Boyd.

M51 Whirlpool Galaxy, August 1, 2024

This is M51 and M51a, the Whirlpool Galaxy interacting with a small elliptical galaxy in Ursa Major, taken through the UMM telescope with a QHY CMOS camera. This is our first true galaxy image. We need to learn to work the gain properly, and get the timing better.

Photographers: Ethan Schmitz and Sylke Boyd.

[QHY268M]

Capture Area=6280x4210

Colour Space=MONO16

Gain=150

Exposure=60.000s

QHY On-Camera Filter Wheel=RGB R2

TimeStamp=2024-08-02T03:54:02.4964980Z

M13 Hercules Globular Cluster, July 24, 2024

Hercules Globular cluster. It took us a solid two hours to get the cluster into the view and focus it as best as we could. At this time, the telescope alignment was off by about 0.5 degrees, and we needed to use several steps in astrometry.net to find M13. This also was taken before the new focuser was installed. The observing night started with music from the marching bands over in the stadium. Later, we heard coyotes. And then, there was the clapping cheer when we finally got the cluster into the picture.

Photographers: Ethan Schmitz and Sylke Boyd

[QHY268M]

Gain=150

Exposure=15.000s

QHY On-Camera Filter Wheel=UV-IR block

TimeStamp=2024-07-25T04:49:29.7569174Z

Moon, July 15, 2024

First moon shots with the CMOS. Despite shaky focusing and inadequate telescope alignment, this was a true success. We are looking at the southwestern pat of the Moon, crater Tycho prominent in upper left. The terminator is aligned with the upper edge of the image.

Photographers: Ethan Schmitz, Joseph Erdrich, and Sylke Boyd

Moon, July 15, 2024

First moon shots with the CMOS. Southwestern limb of the moon.

Photographers: Ethan Schmitz, Joseph Erdrich, and Sylke Boyd

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