| Description | First observation of the evening starting with Astronomical Dusk. Altitude just under 40° at start and setting. This is a relatively large and bright object that appeared almost immediately in SharpCap. Note Arp comparison, inverted, and Hubble image are rotated 180° to match Arp's original image. I frankly struggled to figure out what was the "fragment". Initially I thought it was the tapering dust at the bottom (west) of the close-up images. But in reviewing the capture prior to submission I re-thought that conclusion and started researching. The first clue was found in Hubble's remarks which I have recently learned to access on the CalTech website: "Similar nebulosity about one diameter further east." This drew my attention to the top of the image, and I noticed a slight separation and cant to the left of a gray-blue elliptical shape in my original capture that I had not noticed at the time. This became somewhat more evident when I re-processed my original SharpCap capture, converting it to grayscale and mono-stretched it. Thiese are the second and third images in the gallery (positive and inverted, respectively). Again, this is something I learned to do during this process. Finally, I ran into the Hubble image, which colors "1023A" in blue, which I've attached 4th in the gallery. An interesting example of how going through this process has sharpened my observing skills. |
