A belated Christmas gift brought the redundantly named Dwarf Mini smart telescope my way. You can see more information about this scope here. I was interested in this telescope due to its extreme portability and the ability to get a wider field of view compared to my Seestar S50.
Weather here this Winter has been below average in temperature and overcast. When it does clear, it has been very cold and windy. Here are some sample photos I managed to get processed with only the Stellar Studio software in the Dwarflabs app. Most of these stellar objects here have been featured in this blog before. Total integration time for most targets was about 1-2 hours.
M31, the Andromeda GalaxyM45, the PleiadesM33, the Triangulum GalaxyC19, the Cocoon NebulaM44, the Beehive ClusterM35, the Shoe Buckle Cluster with NGC 2158 in the lower rightThe Eastern Veil Nebula in Cygnus
The scenic vista on McCalls Dam Road in Clinton County provided a good overview of the area’s fall foliage. I felt this year’s foliage was not spectacular, but still nice, perhaps due to warm and dry conditions in the preceding weeks. This vista sits above Raymond B. Winter State Park, and the road is paved from that park to this location. It is also south of McCalls Dam State Park on the same road. Confusingly, there is no longer a dam at McCalls Dam. The small park is adjacent to White Deer Creek, and the surrounding forest contains pines, hemlocks, maples, and oaks. There is a small picnic area with picnic tables and and a bench next to the creek. The park also provides access to hunting, fishing and hiking.
Here is an actual dam at Raymond B. Winter State Park.
I made a quick stop at Ravensburg State Park on my way home from the Pine Creek area because I realized I had missed most of its features on my first trip. Ravensburg is small wooded park with picnicking, hiking, hunting and fishing, and a rustic campground. The campground was already closed for the season in mid-October.
The park lies in a cozy, steep-walled gorge carved by Rauchtown Run through the side of Nippenose Mountain. A northern hardwood forest blankets the bottomland along this spring-fed stream.
Talus (rock) covered slopes and interesting rock formations are interspersed among a stunted oak forest growing on the steep mountainsides and ridges. This pretty valley is especially beautiful when the mountain laurel blooms during late June and during the fall foliage of October.
I was surprised to find a small cemetery next to my yurt at the Little Pine State Park campground.
It seems this cemetery was part of the town of English Mills. As is sadly the case with many large reservoirs and lakes in the state, communities are flooded to make way for them.
During 1782, the first American settlers in the Little Pine Valley were brothers John and James English. These brothers built two sawmills along Little Pine Creek in 1809, one of which was at the southern end of the present park boundary. The village of English Mills was established in 1816 and housed the families of the loggers, occupying what is now the park campground. The cemetery of English Mills is on a small knoll in the middle of the campground.
Another prominent name in local history is Robert Carson. He was the first of his line to settle in the Little Pine Valley, and his descendants, who made homes near his homestead, gave rise to the village of Carsontown. Robert Carson was one of the first farmers in the area, and also operated a sawmill. The Carsontown cemetery can be found at the northern end of the park.
Some other views around the campground.These trees seem much taller than when I first visited the area and largely obscure the view of the dam from the campground.Views of the yurt and the interior (below).The neighbors.
In celebration of the season, let’s take a look at a celestial Christmas Tree in two different edits (in which I switched the red and green channels). Which one looks better?
NGC 2264
NGC 2264, also known as the “Christmas Tree Cluster,” shows the shape of a cosmic tree with the glow of stellar lights. NGC 2264 is, in fact, a cluster of young stars — with ages between about one and five million years old — in our Milky Way about 2,500 light-years away from Earth. The stars in NGC 2264 are both smaller and larger than the Sun, ranging from some with less than a tenth the mass of the Sun to others containing about seven solar masses.
I will take a break from posting this Sunday due to the holidays.
At this time of year, skiing is now on people’s mind. Ski Sawmill Family Resort, located in Tioga County, offers a family atmosphere and a range of options for skiers and snowboarders of all skill levels. The ski rea has 12 slopes and 3 lifts.
The resort’s peak elevation reaches 2,215 feet, with a base elevation of 1,770 feet, providing a 515-foot vertical drop. For those seeking even more excitement, the terrain park, conveniently located adjacent to the double chairlift, offers a variety of features for freestyle enthusiasts. There are also a variety of casual lodging offering onsite, a retail store and main lodge.
The Morris location of the Oregon Hill Winery is a short distance down the road. The Winery produces award-winning “Pennsylvania Mountain Wines.” Since 1983, our family-owned winery has been creating a variety of wines from bold, oaky reds to crisp, blush wines, as well as sweet fruit wines. The actual Winery is located in Wellsboro .
December marks the final month of the Hubble 35th Anniversary Challenge. More about the challenge can be found on the Night Sky page.
The first target is a familiar one – even to those who view the night sky with their naked eyes – the Pleiades, also known as Seven Sisters and Messier 45 (M45). It is an asterism of an open star cluster containing young B-type stars in the northwest of the constellation Taurus. At a distance of about 444 light-years, it is among the nearest star clusters to Earth and the nearest Messier object to Earth, being the most obvious star cluster to the naked eye in the night sky. It contains the reflection nebulae NGC 1432, an HII region, and NGC 1435, known as the Merope Nebula. Around 2330 BC the Pleiades marked the vernal point. Due to the brightness of its stars, the Pleiades is viewable from most areas on Earth, even in locations with significant light pollution.
The cluster is dominated by hot blue luminous stars that have formed within the last 100 million years. Reflection nebulae around the brightest stars were once thought to be leftover material from their formation, but are now considered likely to be an unrelated dust cloud in the interstellar medium through which the stars are currently passing. Computer simulations have shown that the Pleiades were probably formed from a compact configuration that once resembled the Orion Nebula.
Together with the open star cluster of the Hyades, the Pleiades form the Golden Gate of the Ecliptic. The Pleiades have been said to “resemble a tiny dipper,” and should not be confused with the “Little Dipper,” or Ursa Minor. The cluster has been of considerable cultural and practical importance around the Earth for millennia.
M45 – The Pleiades, the blue nebulousness around the stars is apparent.
The remaining targets are significantly smaller when viewed in the night sky. Messier 77 (M77), also known as NGC 1068 or the Squid Galaxy, is a barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Cetus. It is about 47 million light-years (14 Mpc) away from Earth, and was discovered by Pierre Méchain in 1780, who originally described it as a nebula. Méchain then communicated his discovery to Charles Messier, who subsequently listed the object in his catalog. Both Messier and William Herschel described this galaxy as a star cluster. Today, however, the object is known to be a galaxy. It is one of the Seyfert galaxies featured this month. Seyfert galaxies are one of the two largest groups of active galaxies, along with quasar host galaxies. They have quasar-like nuclei (very luminous sources of electromagnetic radiation that are outside of our own galaxy) with very high surface brightness whose spectra reveal strong, high-ionization emission lines, but unlike quasars, their host galaxies are clearly detectable. M77 is one of the brightest Seyfert galaxies visible from Earth and has a diameter of about 27.70 kiloparsecs (90,000 light-years).
In a smart telescope, it appears as a roundish, hazy smudge with a bright core.
M77
Next up is Caldwell 67. NGC 1097 (also known as Caldwell 67 or C67) is a barred spiral galaxy about 45 million light years away in the constellation Fornax. It was discovered by William Herschel on 9 October 1790. It is a severely interacting galaxy with obvious tidal debris and distortions caused by interaction with the companion galaxy NGC 1097A. C67 is also a Seyfert galaxy. Deep photographs revealed four narrow optical jets that appear to emanate from the nucleus. These have been interpreted as manifestations of the (currently weak) active nucleus. The optical jets are in fact composed of stars. The failure to detect atomic hydrogen gas in the jets with the Very Large Array radio telescope and numerical simulations led to the current interpretation that the jets are actually the shattered remains of a cannibalized dwarf galaxy. C67 has a supermassive black hole at its center, which is 140 million times the mass of the Sun.
Here C67 appears as an almost edge-on galaxy, a faint elongated smudge with a bright core.
C67
Finally, we come to C24. NGC 1275 (also known as Perseus A or Caldwell 24) is a type 1.5 Seyfert galaxy located around 225 million light-years away from Earth in the direction of the constellation of Perseus. C24 is a member of the large Perseus Cluster of galaxies. It was discovered by German-British astronomer William Herschel on 17 October 1786.
C24 consists of two galaxies, a central type-cD galaxy in the Perseus Cluster, and a so-called high velocity system (HVS) which lies in front of it. The HVS is moving at 3000 km/s towards the dominant system, and is believed to be merging with the Perseus Cluster. The HVS is not affecting the cD galaxy as it lies at least 200 thousand light years from it. However tidal interactions are disrupting it and the ram pressure produced by its interaction with the intra-cluster medium of Perseus is stripping its gas as well as producing large amounts of star formation within it.
In the photo below, the monster galaxy appears as a roundish smudge near the center. There is a parallelogram shape of four bright smudges. C24 is the lower left member of this group of four.
Pine Creek Gorge is a 47-mile (76 km) gorge carved into the Allegheny Plateau by Pine Creek in north-central Pennsylvania. It sits in about 160,000 acres (650 km2) of the Tioga State Forest. The gorge begins south of Ansonia, near Wellsboro, along U.S. Route 6 and continues south. Its deepest point is 1,450 feet (440 m) at Waterville, near the southern end.
The Gorge has the unfortunate nickname of “The Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania.” Not only is this a wild exaggeration, but the area’s unique beauty deserves to stand on its own and does not require comparison. The area most associated with the Gorge is near Leonard Harrison and Colton Point State Parks, where it is more than 800 feet (240 m) deep and the distance rim-to-rim is about 4,000 feet (1,200 m). I visited Leonard Harrison in October.
The Visitor’s CenterThe view down into the Gorge.That’s Pine Creek down there.
Near Waterville, Route 414 turns north up the Pine Creek valley. The southern part of this valley feels wider and has more towns along the banks of the stream. Most of this area is still in Lycoming County until just south of Blackwell. The Pine Creek area was the site of major logging activity from the late 18th through early 20th century and is now a major hub for recreation. Much of the now second-growth forest is protected by a network of parks, state game lands and state forest,
The aptly named “Bottom Lodge.”There are several points to launch small boats into Pine Creek and access the Rail Trail.From the bridge at Slate RunHilborn Iron Bridge
