Blog - Galactic Images

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

Solar Activity with Sunspot/Active groups, Filaments on 04-20-2024

By John Chumack|2024-04-21T21:36:07+00:00April 20th, 2024|Tags: #ChumackObservatories, #cosmos, #GalacticImages, #JohnChumack, #luntsolarsystems, #natgeo, #QHYCCD, #skyatnight, #SolarActivity, #solarfilaments, #solarflares, #solarsurface, #solarsystem, #universe, #Universetoday, Space, Sunspots|

Good seeing, a large amount of Sunspots/Active regions and Filaments on the Sun’s Surface today. Captured from my backyard observatory in Dayton on 04-20-2024. Major active Regions 3645 and 15 other active sunspot regions.
Lunt 60mm/50F HA scope, Bisque MyT mount and QHY290 Cmos camera for this close-up. 1.1 ms exposures Fire Capture Software, 500 out of 1033 frames, AS3, Registax6, Adobe Raw CC 2024.

The full Disk shot was captured with the QHY5IIL Cmos Camera, 70ms exposure and 750 frames stacked in AS4, Registax6, Adobe Raw CC 2024.

Best Regards,
John Chumack
www.galacticimages.com

Comet P12 Pons Brooks on 04-07-2024

By John Chumack|2024-04-17T11:18:06+00:00April 17th, 2024|Tags: #ASIAIR, #ChumackObservatories, #comet, #Comet12P, #comettails, #cosmos, #GalacticImages, #JohnChumack, #natgeo, #RASA8, #skyatnight, #solarsystem, #universe, #Universetoday, #ZWO, #ZWO294MC, Astronomy, Nucleus, Space|

Here is one of my shots of the Comet 12P Pons-Brooks, captured during my trip to South Texas.
I captured it from outside Uvalde, Texas on 04-07-2024 using my 8 inch F2.2 RASA Telescope, AM5 Mount, and ZWO 294 MC cooled Cmos Camera, Optolong L-Quad Filter,
For an 8 minute total integration time. (16 x 30 second sub exposures), stacked in DSS, processed in Pixinsight and Adobe Raw CC.

It was only 12 degrees off the horizon , very low in the southwest, some very thin cirrus clouds were floating through during Civil/Nautical twilight ,
Difficult to see this low from Ohio, I was happy to still be able to capture it before it set below the horizon that night in Texas.
Also I was bombarded with a lot of satellite traffic during this short imaging session, but was able to remove traces of most of them after stacking.

The comet was shining at Magnitude 4.4, and had recently brighten up from mag 5.4., a very active nucleus is creating some nice tail features.
I noticed that the Comet’s Coma is sporting a nice hood and each night the tail seems to changes shapes, and on this night I see a large disconnection event near the end of the tail, giving a forked or mermaid / fish shaped tail…my previous shot with the Seestar shows in just two days dramatically different tail morphology.

I wish I was still in South Texas, so I could continue to monitor it each night, but I am happy to have captured of it.

Best Regards,
John Chumack
www.galacticimages.com