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Wednesday, December 18, 2013

A start of the new project, Cepheus mosaic part1



I'm about to make a similar mosaic out of constellation Cepheus, than I made out of constellation Cygnus.
The first part is ready now. It's a four panel mosaic showing two main objects, IC 1396 and the Sharpless 129 (Sh2-129). I managed to get visible an extremely dim planetary nebula candidate, OU4, inside the Sharpless 129.

Cepheus Mosaic part 1, four panels
Note. A largish image, 3MB and 1700 x 1300 pixels

Mapped colors from the emission of ionized elements,
R=Sulfur, G=Hydrogen and B=Oxygen.
Buy a photographic print from HERE

At this first part of the Cepheus mosaic, there are four individual panels stitched together. At lower right corner, there  is the Sharpless object 129 (Sh2-129). The blueish area, inside Sh2-129, is a recently found plaentary nebula candidate, OU4. The famous astrophotographer, Nicolas Outters, has made this discovery, HERE is a paper about it. OU4 is an extremely dim formation. 11h of O-III light with very fast Canon 200mm EF f1.8 camera lens, was needed to have some hint about it. 

I will continue this project, as soon as weather allows. The final mosaic will be 10-14 panels larg

Mosaic in visual spectrum
Note. A largish image, 3MB and 1700x1300 pixels

Image is in Natural color palette from the emission of ionized elements, 
R=Hydrogen + Sulfur, G=Oxygen and B=Oxygen + Hydrogen.
 Buy a photographic print from HERE

A closeup of Sh2-129 and OU4

Image is in Natural color palette from the emission of ionized elements, 
R=Hydrogen + Sulfur, G=Oxygen and B=Oxygen + Hydrogen.
 Buy a photographic print from HERE


Technical details

Processing work flow:
Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07.
Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack2.
Deconvolution with a CCDStack2 Positive Constraint, 33 iterations, added at 50% weight
Levels, curves and color combine in PS CS3.

Optics, Canon EF 200mm camera lens at f1.8
Camera, QHY9
Guiding, Meade LX200 GPS 12" and a Lodestar guider
Image Scale, ~5 arcseconds/pixel
Exposures for H-alpha:
3x1200s for each panel,
Exposures for O-III:
33x1200s for Sh2-129 area
1x1200s/panel, for a star color.

The data from my older images are used for this mosaic
IC 1396, http://astroanarchy.blogspot.fi/2011/10/ic-1396-home-of-elephants-trunk-nebula.html
Sh2-129: http://astroanarchy.blogspot.fi/2011/06/panorama-mosaic-from-ic1396-to.html


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