Several years ago I wondered if you could image a stellar jet with a backyard telescope. I sent out emails and made some phone calls and was told that you pretty much had to have a 20″+ scope to do it. Dr. Pat Hartigan from Rice University studies these stars and suggested imaging HH1 in Orion. Earlier I found an image of HH1 and it’s jet taken by a guy with a 20″ RC in 1999 at a professional level facility. He did an image comprised of 2×10 minute exposures. So March 23, 2012, I took a series of images of HH1 with a V filter (to much hassle to change it to clear then refocus!) a 8″ F/4 telescope and a ST-7 camera. They were essentially 20 images exposed for 2 minutes and stacked to form one image. I wasn’t sure it worked until I processed it (deconvolved) it and saw the jet pop out. I sent a copy of this image to Dr. Hartigan and his reply was very interesting. He suggested that an R filter would be much better to use for this project than a V. So the fact that I got anything at all is pretty good!
