Aretemis 1 is finally headed to the moon

After a long delay and a hold on the countdown, Artemis 1 had a very exciting launch into space. SLS took off at 1:47 AM from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

It also marks a major success for NASA’s Artemis program to return to the Moon, which has been plagued by years of delays, development mishaps, and billions of dollars in budget overruns. During the past few months, both hurricanes and technical difficulties caused launch delays — including two scrubs. Then, tonight, engineers managed to fix both an intermittent hydrogen leak and a “bad ethernet switch” in the hours just before launch.

Originally reported on The Verge

NASA’s Artemis is hours from launch (maybe)

NASA mission management have stated that the Artemis 1 launch is a go. This will a test of the SLS rocket to test readiness to bring Astronauts back to the moon in a few years.

A successful launch would be a key milestone for NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to put the first woman and first person of color on the lunar surface. The agency has not launched a space vehicle designed to send astronauts to the moon since 1972.

The initial launch was scheduled for August, which got called off for a faulty engine sensor.

Originally reported on NPR. Featured image taken from article.

Super secret space plane returns to earth after 908 days in orbit

The Boeing X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle which looks like a mini space shuttle has landed at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. The space plane spent, 908 days in space. This was its sixth mission.

“Since the X-37B’s first launch in 2010, it has shattered records and provided our nation with an unrivaled capability to rapidly test and integrate new space technologies,” said Jim Chilton, a senior vice president for Boeing, its developer.

The previous mission lasted 780 days.

Originally reported on AP. Featured image taken from article

NASA says its SLS rocket is good to go for a launch attempt next Wednesday

I’ve been eagerly waiting to see the SLS rocket launch. This has been plagued by multiple delays, the latest of which was due to hurricane Nicole.

The next launch is scheduled for the morning of November 16. This will be the third attempt to launch Artemis. Artemis Program is an attempt to for humans to go back to the moon for the first time since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972

A preliminary inspection of the rocket on Thursday night and Friday night after the storm had passed revealed only some very minor issues, most of which had already been addressed by Friday afternoon when Free spoke to reporters during a teleconference. “We design it to be out there,” Free said of the rocket, noting Kennedy Space Center’s exposure to hurricanes on Florida’s Atlantic coast. “If we didn’t design it to be out there in harsh weather, we picked the wrong launch spot.”

Originally reported on Ars Technica. Featured image by Trevor Mahlmann on Ars Technica

Messier 81 & 82, with surrounding IFN

This is M81 & M82, also known as Bode’s and the Cigar Galaxy. This is a pair of beautiful galaxies in Ursa Major. Also in this image, is NGC3077. This is my longest image to date. I spent most of the time with the luminance filter. I was trying to capture the IFN that’s surrounding the region in the sky.

This group of galaxies is the closest galaxy group to our own very local group of galaxies which include the Milky Way

This was a total of 43 hours and 4 minutes of exposure time.

Click here for more details.

NGC281 (Pacman Nebula)

NGC281 is also known as the Pacman Nebula. This was my second attempt with this target, but my first with narrowband filters.

I tried to do a blend and get an RGB look with this. I, however, do not remember the exact pixel math formulas I used to get this result.

I’ll try again in the future to add more data to this and see if I can come up with more details on this image. Maybe even add some RGB data for star color.

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VdB 152 (The Cosmic Penguin)

This is my longest project to date—32 HOURS OF DATA over nine nights. I originally planned on taking 50 hours, but the weather and moon got in the way of what I aimed for. I’m still thrilled with the progress. I learned a lot during this image, and I’m glad I took on this challenge.

I got about 8 hours of RGB data supplemented by around 17 hours of Ha and 2 hours of Oiii, along with another 4 hours of luminance data. 

This is VdB152, it doesn’t have a common name, but a friend called it ‘The Cosmic Penguin.’ There are multiple nebulae in this image. A Dark nebula, LDN 1217, forms the thick pillar. There is the reflection nebula along the bottom called LBN538. Not to mention the whisps of Ha going along the corners of the nebula.

This will continue to be a project for me, and I’ll collect some data over the next couple of years and get more detail.

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IC63 (The Ghost of Cassiopeia)

IC63 Ghost of CassiopeiaJust in time for halloween. This is IC63 The Ghost of Cassiopeia. IC63 is 500 light-years away. The highly bright star Gamma Cassiopeia’s interaction with the nebula is slowly eroding the structure out.

This image was my second attempt at this target and I hope to try this again in the future to get more detail.

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Messier 31 (Andromeda Galaxy)

M31 (Andromeda Galaxy) is the galaxy closest to us. This is a very bright object which can be observed with our naked eye.

This is my third attempt at our closest neighbor. I took this while I was at Cherry Springs State Park for the Black Forest Star Party.

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IC1396 (The Elephant Trunk Nebula)

IC1396, also known as The Elephant’s Trunk Nebula, is a region full of installer gas and dust. Elephant’s Trunk Nebula is a star-forming region with several young stars.

This was my first attempt at a Hubble Palette false-color image. It’s not exactly a perfect representation of an SHO image, but I’m quite happy with how this came out.

I did not do a write-up on this target yet, but I will do it soon. This is my third attempt with this target, the previous attempts are documented below

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