Blog - Galactic Images

Jupiter with moons Io & Europa captured on 10-08-2024 at 10:20 UT

By John Chumack|2024-11-05T13:30:46+00:00November 5th, 2024|Tags: #ChumackObservatories, #cosmos, #GalacticImages, #JohnChumack, #joviansystem, #natgeo, #QHYCCD, #skyatnight, #solarsystem, #universe, #Universetoday, Astronomy, Europa, Io, Jupiter|

Jupiter with moons Io & Europa captured on 10-08-2024 at 10:20 UT from my backyard observatory in Dayton, Ohio. The Seeing was 8/10, so I got some decent cloud top details.

C-11 SCT Telescope, Bisque MyT Mount, QHY462MC Cmos Camera, 2x Barlow, ADC, Fire-Capture Software, SER Video File Captured, 6ms exposures,

3,100 frames stacked out of 7,300, Processing in Astrosurface, Registax6, Adobe Raw CC 2025.

Best Regards,

John Chumack

www.galacticimages.com

Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) on 10-19-2024

By John Chumack|2024-11-02T16:15:31+00:00November 2nd, 2024|Tags: #ChumackObservatories, #comet, #Comet 2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, #cometA3, #cosmos, #GalacticImages, #JohnChumack, #natgeo, #skyatnight, #solarsystem, #universe, #Universetoday, Space|

Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) on 10-19-2024,

Canon 6D DSLR Camera, Celestron AVX Tracking Mount, 4 inch diameter ES F7 Triplet APO refractor Telescope, tracking the nucleus, ISO 2000, 24 x 15 second exposures, 6 minute total exposure time.

Captured from Fairborn/Enon, Twin Towers County Park, Bath Township, Ohio USA.

The comet is dimming a bit, but it is still visible in binoculars, and climbing higher everyday, and now the moon is out of the way for a little bit too, it should be easier to see in Binoculars or telescopes.

Best Regards,

John Chumack

www.galacticimages.com

C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS) on 10-18-2024 – A Close-up

By John Chumack|2024-11-01T11:40:01+00:00November 1st, 2024|Tags: #C/2023A3TsuchinshanATLAS, #ChumackObservatories, #comet, #Comets, #cosmos, #GalacticImages, #JohnChumack, #natgeo, #skyatnight, #solarsystem, #universe, #Universetoday, #ZWO, Space|

C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS) on 10-18-2024, A Close-up with one of my Seestar 50s Portable Telescopes.

5 x 2 minute subs stacked on the Comet’s Nucleus, 10 minutes total exposure time. You can see the Comet’s Anti-tail as well.

Best Regards,

John Chumack

www.galacticimages.com

Comet 2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS on 10-15-2024

By John Chumack|2024-10-29T11:10:30+00:00October 29th, 2024|Tags: #ChumackObservatories, #comet, #Comet 2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, #Comets, #cosmos, #GalacticImages, #JohnChumack, #natgeo, #skyatnight, #solarsystem, #universe, #Universetoday, Astronomy|

Here is my first shot of the Comet 2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, shot it from the Community Park in Fairborn, Ohio. After chasing holes in clouds, I finally ended up there. It cleared enough for me to nab this shot when the comet got real low around 8:30pm….I did get some nice ones wider angle through clouds too, but those will come later.

the little fuzzy patch to the right of the comet just above the tree is Globular Star Cluster M5.

Capture details:

Comet 2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS

Canon 6D DSLR, Sigma 150mmm-600mm, set to 260mm, F5, camera on a tripod, ISO 2000, a single 4 second exposure

Best Regards,

John Chumack

www.galacticimages.com

Comet 2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS on 10-16-2024

By John Chumack|2024-10-28T15:10:03+00:00October 28th, 2024|Tags: #ChumackObservatories, #cosmos, #GalacticImages, #JohnChumack, #natgeo, #skyatnight, #solarsystem, #universe, #Universetoday, Space|

Finally after clouds /rain and more clouds, I capture a shot I’m happy with! Comet 2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS on 10-16-2024 with whitetail deer, and a satellite trail near the top of the frame. The constellation Corona Borealis is at the top of the frame above the house in the field. No T-Cr b did not go into outburst yet!

Canon 6D DSLR on a Tripod, 24mm-105mm lens, set to 24mm, F4.0, ISO 1600, a single 4 second exposure, just after clouds started to clear.

The strong moonlight from the rising Full Moon made it look like daylight and lit up the field and the Whitetail Deer, the moon and the Park was at my back, moonlight was coming through the trees and casting shadows onto the road in front of me. This was captured just outside of John Bryan State Park in Yellow Springs, Ohio.

Best Regards,

John Chumack

www.galacticimages.com

Jupiter and the Jovian Atmosphere on 10-08-2024

By John Chumack|2024-10-10T01:13:48+00:00October 10th, 2024|Tags: #ChumackObservatories, #cosmos, #GalacticImages, #JohnChumack, #joviansystem, #JupitersAtmosphere, #natgeo, #QHYCCD, #skyatnight, #solarsystem, #universe, #Universetoday, Jupiter, Planets, Space|

Had some good stable seeing early this morning from my backyard in Dayton, Ohio.
Jupiter on 10-08-2024 at 10:24 UT
My old Orange tube C-11 Telescope, Bisque MyT Mount, QHY462MC Cmos Camera, 2.5x barlow, ADC,
Fire-Capture Software, 6ms exposures, SER Video File, 9,000 frames stacked.
Astrosurface, Registax6, Adobe Raw CC 2025

Best Regards,

John Chumack

www.galacticimages.com

The Planet Mars on 09-16-2024

By John Chumack|2024-09-26T18:55:17+00:00September 26th, 2024|Tags: #ChumackObservatories, #cosmos, #GalacticImages, #JohnChumack, #natgeo, #QHYCCD, #Redplanet, #skyatnight, #solarsystem, #universe, #Universetoday, Astronomy, Mars, Planet, Space|

Here is a shot of Mars that I captured in the early morning of 16 September 2024 at 09:23 UT, while it was only 7 arc seconds across, and the lit phase was only 41%.

You can see the North Polar Cap shrouded in clouds, at the bottom you can see the darker surface feature of Terra Meridiani.
Despite its tiny size at the moment, there are still larger details to be seen and captured. Mars is currently shining at 0.54 magnitude
Light takes 10 minutes and 38.9422 seconds to travel from Mars and arrive to us.
The distance of Mars from Earth is currently 119,023,676.728 miles (191,550,040 kilometers).

This image was captured from my backyard observatory in Dayton, Ohio with my C-11 SCT scope, Bisque MyT Robotic Mount, QHY462mc Cmos color Camera, 2x Barlow, ADC, Captured with Fire-Capture Software as a SER Video File, 4ms exposure, stacked 6000 frames out of 14,000, Astrosurface, Registax6, and Adobe Raw CC 2025.

Best Regards,
John Chumack

www.galacticimages.com

A Piper Warrior Airplane flying in front of the Moon

By John Chumack|2024-09-18T18:48:54+00:00September 18th, 2024|Tags: #aircraft, #ChumackObservatories, #cosmos, #GalacticImages, #JohnChumack, #natgeo, #piperwarrior, #seestar, #skyatnight, #solarsystem, #universe, #Universetoday, #ZWO, Astronomy, Moon, Space|

A Piper Warrior Airplane flying toward and crossing in front of the Moon on 09-14-2024 10:44pm EST

Seestar 50S Telescope, live video capture at the MVAS/John Bryan State Park Stargaze, in Yellow Springs, Ohio

during NASA’s “International Observe the Moon Night”

I saw it heading towards the Moon it happened so fast I hit the video and record button on the Seestar,

but didn’t have time to hit the high res raw button, so the Seestar captured it as an MP4 video file instead,

but at least i got it on video, and I was able to print the best frame from the video capturing the Aircraft with its white

light at the top of the rudder.

The Aircraft silhouette is as seen from behind, even though sometimes you look at the image and it will seem like its coming toward you.

We all watched it last night as it was flying toward the Moon.

The Aircraft was pretty low while flying over John Bryan State Park likely coming in for a landing in Xenia, Ohio.

Great Job MVAS at JBSPO we had a record breaking turn out.

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