黃昏月、秋冬銀河、C/2023 H2彗星、女巫頭星雲 (IC2118)

11/17

今日因為想先拍彗星，所以五點左右就上山了，經過巴拉卡的觀景太時看到黃昏的霧靄中的台北盆地的景色很美，便停下來拍了幾張照片。

初五的黃昏月（夕月夜）

秋季銀河與夏季大三角（Samyang 8mm, Pentax K3II ASTROTRACER 120sec）

在拍攝彗星的當下幾位認識的同好也陸續上來了。小觀音山電視台的光明燈整晚一直沒滅，對眼視的話影響會很大，希望這只是暫時，不然美好的鞍部眼視觀星環境恐怕要消失了。（今晚發現該電視台多了兩支電波塔，因為有新的兩盞高聳的橘紅色的警示燈，所以有可能是電台在施工？）

I went up the mountain around 5:00 pm to shoot the H2 comet. As I passed the viewing platform of Balaka, I saw the beautiful view of Taipei Basin in the fog of the dusk, so I stopped to take a few photos.

When shooting the comet, my friends I met also came up one after another. The shooting lasted until about 8:30 pm when the comet sank into the woods in the southwest. Then I continued to accumulate exposure of Sh2-129 for two hours.

In the first half of the night, the autumn Milky Way stretched across the northern night sky, and the summer triangle gradually disappeared behind Mount Datun.

Tonight, I brought instant noodles for dinner for the first time. This beef vermicelli is pretty good.

The transparency tonight is quite good. The orange-yellow starlight of several supergiants is clear and dazzling. The winter Milky Way is faintly visible to the naked eye. At around 2:30 am  in the morning, the winter triangle hangs high in the south, and the Milky Way cuts through it. It extends from the southeast horizon to the zenith, passing through the other peak of the large ellipse, the Capella in the constellation Auriga , to the northwest horizon.

In the cold, I exposed the Witch Head, which is next to Betelgeuse in the constellation Orion, for two hours. It is equipped with an L3 IR cut filter (even if you shoot continuous light objects in the Anbu, you don't need to add a light pollution filter). This target is expected to accumulate ten hours to improve the signal-to-noise ratio. Although there were occasional gusts of wind, the guiding for two hours was still stable.

While shooting deep sky object with a telescope, I also used a Samyang 8mm fisheye lens with ASTROTRACER to expose the winter Milky Way and the winter triangle for two minutes (at aperture F6.5. to me This lens can only be used at an aperture smaller than F6.5 . The large aperture has serious optical aberration.  next time I will try Pentax's 10-17 ).

The lowest temperature tonight was around 7 degrees Celsius, which was super cold. I went home to hide in the quilt at 3:00 am.

C/2023 H2彗星，螺旋星雲 Helix

11/9

C/2023 H2彗星目前 6.5~7等，這陣子會是它最亮的時期。看預報台北天氣即將轉差，所以趁天氣尚可的傍晚上來鞍部曝了18分鐘，不久後天空便從西南方飄來一陣陣雲，不過因為時間還早，所以又在雲縫間拍了三十分鐘的Helix 螺旋星雲 (NGC7293)才收拾設備回家看電視。

2minx9

Pentax 75SDHF +0.72減焦鏡, Pentax k5 (NKIR改全光譜), AstronomiK L3濾鏡, 高橋EM-2s 赤道儀（台灣艾里改雙軸導星）, MGENII 自動導星控制器

PS 拍攝H2彗星的最好時機是在11/20 日以前

NB1 filter 5minx6

象鼻 (IC1396) 、馬頭、海鷗等星雲/ 秋季銀河/ MGENII 導星參數優化/ 以及星友的Seestar 與 eVscope2

11/05~06 

IC 1396（象鼻星雲）5min x32 共 160分鐘

Pentax 75SDHF +0.72減焦鏡, Pentax k5 (NKIR改全光譜), IDAS NB1三波段窄頻濾鏡 (Hb,OII,Ha), 高橋EM-2s 赤道儀（台灣艾里改雙軸導星）, MGENII 自動導星控制器

黑色的一條一條的類似象鼻形狀的暗星雲被通稱作 elephant trunk  （象鼻管），由星際雲氣與塵埃組成，是恆星密集誕生的區域。背景的土色亦是分子雲等星際物質的聚集，只是相較之下象鼻更為緻密。

今天天氣很好（明天天氣就要轉差了），晚上七點多就到了山上來架設器材，校正好極軸之後便瞄準仙王座的 μ Cephei  （Garnet，石榴星）， 是一顆超紅巨星，從相機的liveview 就可以明顯看到橘紅的顏色。今晚主要目標是拍攝仙王座的 IC 1396星雲（象鼻星雲是其中一條暗星雲），Garnet星正好在它的邊緣。接著花了些時間轉動相機調整構圖，也將我的MGENII的導星參數再進行優化，然後開始拍攝。沒多久文正兄跟另外一位星友也上來了，我原以為他們是一起上來的（結果並不是），因為他們都各帶一台Seestar，最近似乎興起了一陣智慧天文望遠鏡狂熱，而Seestar CP值非常高。

小觀音山的電視台的那盞超級亮的廣場燈入夜後又開啟了，還好近9點時便熄滅了，在我午夜下山前都未再看到它亮起。不太清楚那照明的作用，因為當它亮著時似乎沒有聽到任何施工的聲音。它非常亮，如果一直開著影響極大。最近它開啟的次數越來越頻繁了，真令人擔心。

Sunday was a beautiful day (the weather will be changing tomorrow), so I arrived on the mountain around 7pm to set up my equipment. After aligning the polaris, I aimed at μ Cephei (Garnet, a red supergiant star) in Cepheus. The orange-red color of the star was clearly visible from the camera's live view. My main goal for tonight was to image the IC 1396 nebula in Cepheus (the elephant's trunk nebula is one of the dark nebulae in it). Garnet star is just at its edge.

I then spent some time rotating the camera to adjust the composition, and also optimized the guiding parameters of my MGENII, before starting to shoot. Soon, Eric Wang and another star friend came up. I thought they came up together because they both brought a Seestar. Recently, there has been a surge in popularity of smart astronomy telescopes, and Seestar is very cost-effective.

The super-bright plaza light of the television station on Xiaoguanyin Mountain was turned on again after dark, but fortunately it was turned off around 9pm. I didn't see it turn on again before I went down the mountain at midnight. I'm not sure what the lighting is for, because I didn't hear any construction noises when it was on. It's very bright, and it would have a big impact if it stayed on all the time. Recently, it has been turned on more and more frequently, which is really worrying.

文正兄與他的Seestar 跟 eVscope2；秋季銀河橫亙於北方夜空。