Why a drone?

My new “Blueangel” is a drone!

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My previous “Blueangel” was a Piper Cherokee 180 which needed to be registered with the FAA. It had propellers, gps nav system, 50 gallon gas tank, altimeter, and various other instruments, but no belly cam and no autopilot.  It required expensive AV fuel, upgrades, repairs, insurance, a hangar and flight lessons. I could fly it and land it  at airports. My life was in jeopardy every time I took off or landed it. After buying it, it’s ongoing costs were at least $1000/mo.  What is the cost to replace the propeller at a certified repair location?  Don’t ask!   I named it “blueangel” because of its color scheme. It was a blast to fly, but I sold it when I moved to Prescott.

My new “Blueangel” drone needs a new blue decal that was provided in the package to have the correct blueangel color scheme, but so far it has not been installed.  It also needs to be registered with the FAA.  It has many of the same instruments as the Piper Cherokee as well as an outstanding belly cam that shoots 4K video or 12 megapixel stills, an autopilot, and a lithium battery to replace the 50 gallon gas tank. It required a carrying case and in the rare event that it crashes, I will not be in it. No flight lessons were needed, but it can be flown virtually on my IPAD. After buying it, the ongoing expenses are close to zero.  What is the cost to replace a propeller?  It can be self installed for $3.50.  It cannot take off or land within 5 miles of an airport, but it does not need one.   It is also a blast to fly.

What is not to like?

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M33 – Triangulum Galaxy

It is a little easier to image galaxies since you can use simple RGB filters.  This was done with a Luminance filter and I plan to add the red, green and blue later.  M33 is a part of the local group of Galaxies which includes Andromeda.  It is “only” about 3 million light years from earth.  The total of the stacked exposures was about five hours.

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Elephant Trunks Nebula – IC 1396 – Color

My earlier greyscale photo of this nebula was derived from 15 one hour exposures through an H-Alpha filter which were used as the red channel in this color image.. An additional 11 half hour images were taken through an OIII filter for the blue channel. An RGB color image usually uses three different monochrome images. In this case, however, the third color (green) was synthesized from the first two red and blue channels. That saves the time that would be necessary to take images through a third filter and not much is lost since most of the detail in this nebula can be found in the H-alpha and OIII wavelengths. It would be ideal to have a few more images to stack for a smoother image, but this nebula is now in an area of the sky where long imaging sessions are no longer feasible. I may have to wait until next year to obtain more depth in this image.

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