Horticultural Braggery - 04/26/2014

Here are some plants.

Nepenthes singalana x clipeata

Notes: I got this plant from Leilani Nepenthes at the 2012 ICPS convention. It took a good while (like, two years? Not too shabby...) to get established in my collection and start producing pitchers that were bigger than the ones on the plant when I bought it. In retrospect, feeding it probably would've yielded faster growth, but who has time for that?

Nepenthes talangensis x veitchii

Notes: This plant appears to have plateaued (the highest form of flattery) in terms of size or growth development or anything related to it being larger than when I got it. This pitcher is a bit bigger than the ones before it though, so that's good. I got the plant from Best Carnivorous Plants back in 2012.

Drosera aliciae "Silvermine RSA"

Notes: I got this plant from another grower a while back. It grows well and I can't complain about anything in particular. Can't get it to flower, but that's the plant's choice and I can't do anything about it. It's a lot shinier and fuller than previous forms of the plant I've grown, modern media leads me to believe this is because of Mabelline branded products. 

Utricularia sandersonii

Notes: I've grown this plant for what seems like forever, or I've grown versions of it for that long, I might have killed it a few times in between. It's one of the easiest Utricularia to grow, and it has neat looking flowers that look a bit like angry rabbits. It also makes fantastic ground cover in the pots where it grows, as well as sprouting annoying little runners all over the place and invading all the other pots of plants surrounding it. They really are the plant equivalent of rabbits. 

Drosera graomogolensis "Itacaramba, Minas Geras, Brazil"

Notes: I got a bunch of these (several hundred, actually. I really like this plant) from Best Carnivorous Plants back in 2012. I still have three or four pots overflowing with the things, which rates highly among my best decisions in plant keeping. This species is as easy as they come, and as glorious as they get. Because I like it so much here are some more pictures of the same plant.

Trichomes on the flowerstalk

Stalked glands, which are the responsible for the whole "bug killing" thing that the PR guys won't let us talk about

That's all for today, hopefully the plants continue growing regardless of my bumbling attempts at care, and I can brag about them more in the future.

Dormitory Microfauna - Part 1

It's a commonly held opinion that bugs are gross.

I tend to disagree with this, I think insects are great and interesting subjects for reading, research, or art.

Unless they're in my house.

I'm okay with encountering pretty much any species of insect in the wilds of a garden or forest, but once I find a bug in my house and look at it through the viewfinder of my camera I can't help wondering if the damned thing is going to crawl into my mouth while I'm sleeping. 

I currently live in the main dormitory of a rather large university, and my room seems to suffer from an odd population of pest insects which run around doing their thing (whatever that is, probably eating stuff or wondering where the hell they are) while I work/blog/procrastinate.

I've actually taken to keeping a small checklist of the insect species that I've observed living in my residence. Included below for your reading pleasure. 

Houseflies - √

Silverfish - √

Yeah, that's t it.

Anyways, these two species, as well as being maligned pests, are also kinda nasty when you look at them up close. Or at least that's what I thought.

I'm going to divide this post into two parts, mostly because I've got a test I need to write tomorrow, but also because I like to brag about how many pageviews my blog receives, and brutally bifurcating my posts usually ends up doubling that number.


So, with the introduction complete, here's part one of "Dormitory Microfauna" or, as alternatively titled, "Gross stuff that lives in my room"

Silverfish

Silverfish, also known as Lepisma saccharina, are a common household insect often associated with moist dark areas, like basements and bathrooms.

They're known as sliverfish because they're silver and look a bit like a fish. As a footnote, it bewilders me that, it boggles my mind that someone studying to receive a biology degree can go from such startling terms as "Oxidative Phosphorylation" to "Silverfish". Biologists are weird. 

Craig the dorm room silverfish

My hypothesis as to the startling appearance of a rather large silverfish in my room around midnight on a Thursday is that it somehow traveled from the washroom across the hall, to my room, which is neither moist nor dark, and as such, is an unsuitable habitat for such a mystical creature.

This silverfish was a sketchy one, he showed up on my ceiling near where my fire alarm is, and ran around up there for a while. I contemplated the possibility of catching him and taking a photo but since he wasn't going anywhere, I instead named him Craig and let him run around for a while.

After about an hour of letting Craig explore my ceiling, I decided to move him to the piece of printer paper I had prepared for him on my desk. It turned out that Craig disagreed with this decision, and decided instead to run around for a bit while I questioned my life choices.

Eventually I caught the thing, took a picture, and promptly let him escape.

So now Craig is somewhere on my floor, disguised by the unpleasant tones of the ugly grey carpet that was presumably installed to disguise my dorm's silverfish problem.

Anyways, the picture turned out alright. My camera revealed some lovely iridescence that wasn't originally visible, as well as a tiny little walrus moustache that looks pretty funny.


I'd like to apologize to anyone who thought they would learn anything from this post, it was meant to be completely comedic in nature, and I'm pretty sure I didn't even get that right. Seriously, read the Wikipedia article, it's both more informative, and funnier.

Messier 5 - Globular Cluster in Serpens

Messier 5 is a Globular Cluster located in Serpens. It was discovered in 1702 by German astronomer Gottfried Kirch. At 165 light years across, and 15 billion years old, M5 is one of the largest, as well as one of the oldest globular clusters associated with the Milky Way. It has an apparent magnitude of +6.65, placing it as one of the brighter globulars in the northern hemisphere.

M5 - Globular Cluster in Serpens

Acquisition Details: 

Camera: Nikon D5100

Lens: 300mm f/5.6

Mount: iOptron SkyTracker mounted on Manfrotto 190XB

Image capture controlled with Aputure External Intervalometer

ISO: 800

Stack of 15 30s exposures, totalling 7'30"

5x Darks

Stacked in DSS and processed in Lightroom

This image isn't perfect, the focus is a fair bit off, but it doesn't look horrible. I mostly posted it because it's my first globular, and I'm happy with how the processing worked out. This is probably one of the first times I've been able to successfully remove the influence of light pollution. Here's hoping I'm able to do the same in the future!

SN2014J in Messier 82

SN 2014J is a type-la supernova that appeared in Messier 82 in mid-January of 2014. The supernova was accidentally discovered by a group of observers at the University of London Observatory, and is the closest supernova of its type observed in the past 42 years. 

This supernova is being heavily imaged by both amateur and professional astrophotographers and astronomers, and is also being observed by many backyard astronomers, as it is visible in many smaller telescopes.

As for myself, heavy cloud cover and cold temperatures have prevented me from imaging the object with my own equipment, but I was lucky enough to order an exposure of M82 on January 13th 2014 from MicroObservatory. The image I received was captured two days before the supernova first appeared, and although it did not feature the supernova, it did inspire me to create my first .gif of the event on the 22nd of January when the astronomy community was first alerted to the presence of the supernova. I ordered another frame from MicroObservatory, but I was not fully satisfied with simply showing the SN disappearing and reappearing in two frames taken days apart.

MicroObservatory features several user controlled telescopes which can be used by the public to image an object of their choice from a list of objects curated by OWN. OWN also maintains a full catalogue of images taken within the past two weeks, including both FITS and .gif files.

In order to get enough material to produce a relatively smooth animation of the progress of the supernova, I sifted through the public requests in order to find daily images of M82 starting from the 14th of January, and collecting images up until March 3rd. I was able to collect 40 frames in total, and only missed a few days where images were unavailable or unusable.

The final image demonstrates the initial rise in brightness (maxing out on the 29th of January) and the following decrease (the supernova is still visible, although it is becoming dimmer).

The resulting image is displayed below:

Processing:

The image is a bit jumpy, and the brightness of both the supernova and the galaxy vary a bit between frames. The majority of these issues were caused by problems with atmospheric clarity and misalignment between telescopes.

First of all, I imported all the FITS frames I had downloaded from MicroObservatory into their custom software MicroObservatory Image, which I used to bring the images to an approximate level of brightness, then to export into individual .gif frames.

Then I imported all 40 frames into GIMP, and ordered them correctly.

I then made sure that the galaxy and background looked approximately the same in all the images (getting all the frames perfect was pretty much impossible), and aligned the images so the galaxy would stay in approximately the same spot (the tracking on the MO telescopes isn't perfect, and there's usually a fairly large difference between frames with several days between them).

Once this was done, I added the date markers to the bottom right of the image, and added the frame with the correct attributions and labelling.

All in all, this project probably took me 4-5 hours in total to complete, but the final result does exactly what I wanted it to, so I say, time well wasted!


Please take the time to check out MicroObservatory if you have an interest in astronomy or astrophotography! It's a fantastic way to get good data and get started in the hobby!

Another shout out to /r/astrophotography, which has proven to be a wonderful resource for a learning astrophotographer like myself! It's populated by helpful people, and a ton of fantastic imagers!

Drosera schizandra flower

Drosera schizandra is a member of the "Three Sisters" group of Australian Drosera native to the rainforests of Queensland.

D. schizandra is also the first of the three sisters to have successfully flowered in my collection. I've grown all three, and although schizandra can be temperamental at times, I find it to be the least prone to sudden die-outs as long as conditions are kept fairly stable. It's also an incredibly beautiful plant once it grows to a certain size, at which point it vaguely resembles a head of carnivorous lettuce.

D. schizandra flower

The plant itself is rather small, with a diameter not exceeding that of a pringles can, although I have heard of plants becoming larger, mine probably remains small due to a lack of feeding. In comparison, the flower is rather large, being slightly smaller than a dime.

Flowerstalk emerging from the plant in early December

For more information on all the three sisters, please visit the ICPS cultivation page.