BLAZING NIGHT SKY

Summers of the past

Obeisance to the higher realms.

It all started in the year 2017. I was casually scrolling the amazon app for deals, when I stumbled upon Celestron 130eq astromaster reflector telescope. Universe was always an intriguing chapter in the science textbook back in the school days. Even after school, I used to keep track on the astronomy news and photos captured by the Hubble telescope. But, the thought of buying a telescope and start imaging somehow never occurred to me then. I did some research on it and bought the telescope, initially, only for visual astronomy. Here follows filmy but a true story.

After 1-2 months of watching lunar craters and learning the basics, one night I saw a bright star in the East. At first, I did not know what it was. I had manually slewed the scope and tried to center the star in my eyepiece, which roughly took 10 minutes. The moment it was centered and focused, I could literally see the bands on the Jupiter along with its 4 moons. A perfect visual!! At that moment, I did not have an app on the phone which could have shown me what it was beforehand, and I am so glad I had not downloaded it. This element of surprise is what I cherish the most about this experience and it’s forever etched in my memory. That was the first time I had seen Jupiter. As far as i remember, the eyepiece I had used was 15mm or 20mm, giving a brilliant wide view of the planet with its moons.

After couple of nights, I had downloaded the app SkyPortal and it helped me locate Saturn. It took even more time to center the planet in the eyepiece since the mount was a manual one. The very sight of these two giants was worth the pain of slewing the scope on manual equatorial mount. I had many failed attempts at capturing the planets with a DSLR camera since the objects could not be centered. That’s when I decided to go for a new telescope with a longer focal length (Celestron 127SLT Maksutov) with a computerised mount and a planetary camera, by exhausting most of my savings.

Below are some of my best planetary captures till date using a Celestron 127SLT Maksutov (5″) coupled with ZWO

Just how a Guru protects his disciples, the same way Jupiter also watches over Earth and protects her by deflecting comets and asteroids through its gravitational power. Image (1) features one moon viz. Europa with Jupiter, and Image (2) features the iconic GRS (Great Red Spot). I was fortunate to get a clear view of the Great Red Spot on Jupiter, which is a giant storm. The bands we see on the planet are in fact series of clouds, as the planet is perpetually engulfed with storm. In the same image, there are two moons of Jupiter viz., io and europa (from left to right).

Let’s fly a bit further to the crown jewel of our cosmic family.

It only took a ring consisting of icy particles, rocks and dust, to make this planet look so majestic. I am forever grateful for this view. After all these years, I still wouldn’t miss a chance for visual astronomy. It’s a lifetime experience. When we look farther out into space, we actually look farther back in time. Did you know, Saturn is so far away that it takes roughly 80 minutes for the light to travel from Saturn to our eyes? That’s how massive our solar system is!

Below is the image that required more efforts than usual to bring out the faint moons of Saturn during post processing. I had captured 2 separate videos i.e., one with proper exposure for the planet and other one with longer exposure for the moons because they are too faint. I had later on combined the 2 final outputs and blended them as layers in photoshop. It was a tedious process, but I can feel the satisfaction even today. I had captured this in 2021.

The Omen

The great conjunction of 21st December, 2020 was a spectacle for spiritually uninitiated, but bad omen for the learned sages. Unknowing the truth, we were all waiting for that day to arrive and see the two planets come so close to each other that they appeared as a single star to the unaided eye. The results of this conjunction cannot be ruled out plainly, because of the devastating events that followed in 2021 and thereafter, has been etched in time.

Nevertheless, I had witnessed this celestial event and captured it at the right time. It was indeed wonderful to see both the giants in one frame together.

In the midst of two giants, let’s not forget about who the mightiest of all is! That’s right. The ancient cultures in the world have associated this planet with war, aggression, anger, prowess, leadership, etc. A very influential planet. According to the scientists, this planet was once habitable roughly 3 billion years ago until the climate changed. Even today, the scientists have confirmed the presence of liquid water beneath its surface by using imaging spectrometer. Here’s to the Mighty Mars! A home to the legendary green, black-eyed alien species in comics and movies.

The fact that we could image the surface details of a planet which is millions of kilometres away from us, is still indigestible. In the above 2 images, you can spot a white dot on the southern side; that’s polar ice cap on the planet. The challenges faced in capturing this are that the planet is smaller in size and so is my telescope; plus, the planet approaches close to earth every 2 years. Mars opposition happens every two years as Earth’s orbit catches up to Mars’s orbit, and Sun, Earth and Mars aligns in the straight line. Once the close approach of Mars is done, we have to wait for 2 years to get a closer look because Earth’s orbit is smaller than Mars’s.

One Cosmic family

The joy of manifesting what I had studied in the science textbook back in school days, in the form of pixels, is overwhelming. It was an exciting way to start the book with a chapter called ‘The Universe’. My dream was a very simple one, to look at these celestial worlds through a telescope, small or big didn’t matter; I just wanted to look at them! It was a simple wish. But, never did I imagine that a day would come when I would be owning a telescope and at the same time imaging these worlds.

Here’s our family. The Sun, Mercury, Venus, Moon, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. All the images have been captured individually by me and just to present it in a single frame, I have pasted all the individual images into one canvas. Sorry Pluto, but you are too far and small for my telescope. The outer planets viz., Uranus and Neptune were very difficult to capture because of the distance. I had to shoot up the exposure to collect as much data as I could. Neptune skulks at the edge of our solar system. It’s a dark, cold and enigmatic world. It’s 4 times larger than Earth and is at the distance of 4.5 billion kms. It took quite the number of attempts to capture this planet since it is not bright because of the huge distance.

Venus looks prettiest when it is in the crescent phase. It has various phases similar to our Moon and as it catches up to Earth in its inner orbit, the planet’s unlit side faces towards the Earth. As it passes by us, the planet’s illumination keeps on increasing, until it reaches at its fullest on the other side of the Sun.

Well, that would be all for now. Someday, I will get a telescope with longer focal length and aperture, specifically for planetary observations and imaging, which will allow me to get more details on the planet. The season for Jupiter and Saturn has already started and I don’t want to waste clear nights. You shouldn’t either. It’s a blessing to even have it in the first place in this age. So, act now! Keep looking up, not only to image them; it will change you and the way you look at everything around. Perspective is everything.

Clear skies to all!