Monday, October 12, 2009
NGC 6888, Reprocessed
I reprocessed image of NGC 6888.
Colors are now more vivid and details are even more visible.
Original images and imaging details can be found here:
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Sunday, October 11, 2009
New project, The Tulip Nebula
I have started a new project with a Sh2-101, the Tulip Nebula.
So far, from three nights, I have only four twenty minutes exposures. Weather has been very volatile up here.
I will shoot more H-alpha and other channels for this object later.
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Two color chemes, HST Palette as S-II=Red, H-a=Green and O-III=Blue.
Second image is in natural colors composed from narrowband data.
Channels are balanced so, that image match to visible spectrum,
H-a + 24%S-II=Red, O-III=Green and O-III + 15%H-alpha=Blue.
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Processing work flow:
Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07.
Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack.
Deconvolution with a CCDSharp, 30 iterations.
Levels, curves and color combine in PS CS3.
Telescope, Meade LX200 GPS 12" @ f4.65
Camera, QHY9 Guiding, SXV-AO @ 11Hz
Exposures:
H-alpha 4x1200s Binned 1x1
Color information is taken from much wider fiels image of Tulip Nebula.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
The Bubble Nbula as a Stereogram
Parallel Vision, HST-palette 
Cross Vision, HST-palette 
Parallel Vision, Natural-palette 
Cross Vision, Natural-palette
- NOTE!
This is a personal vision about forms and shapes, based on some known facts and artistic impression.
Wieving instructions can be found from a Right hand side menu.
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Original Image with details can be found HERE.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Bubble Nebula finalized
Now I have data for all the channels, H-alpha, S-II and O-III.Even though signal from S-II was very weak it was clearly there, I managed to balance it with stronge channels.
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Two color chemes, HST Palette as S-II=Red, H-a=Green and O-III=Blue.
Second image is in natural colors composed from narrowband data.
Channels are balanced so, that image match to visible spectrum,
H-a + 24%S-II=Red, O-III=Green and O-III + 15%H-alpha=Blue.
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Processing work flow: Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07. Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack. Deconvolution with a CCDSharp, 30 iterations. Levels, curves and color combine in PS CS3. - Imaeged in three nights between 27.09 - 04-09 2009, seeing varys between 4-2,5 FWHM - Telescope, Meade LX200 GPS 12" @ f4.65 Camera, QHY9 Guiding, SXV-AO @ 11Hz
Exposures:
H-alpha 21x1200s Binned 1x1 = 7h
S-II 10x600s Binned 3x3
O-III 5x600s Binned 3x3
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Here is a total captured Field of View, image size is about 3500 x2300 pixels.
Image turned to be a very high resolution one. Image scale is 0.8 arc seconds/pixel.
Seeing wasn't that good (2,5 FWHM at best) but slightly oversampled image is very good for Deconvolution algorithms. After deconvolution the FWHM was 1.9.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Bubble Nebula in a H-alpha light
I have started again a new imaging project.
Image is exposed 7 hours so far, 21 x 1200s.
The RGB data in color image was imaged in 2007 with a QHY8 camera.
Image is gropped from large image and scaled down about 50%.
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Processing work flow:
Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07.
Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack.
Deconvolution with a CCDSharp, 30 iterations.
Levels, curves and color combine in PS CS3.
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Imeged in two nights, seeing varys between 4-2,5 FWHM
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Telescope, Meade LX200 GPS 12" @ f4.65
Camera, QHY9
Guiding, SXV-AO @ 11Hz
Saturday, September 26, 2009
NGC 6888 in National Geographic's "Daily Dozen"
My image of the "crescent Nebula", NGC6888, was selected in a "Daily Dozen" of National Geographic Magazine's webpage.
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The Pelican Nebula as a Stereo Pair
Parallel Vision 
Cross Vision - -
NOTE! This is a personal vision about forms and shapes, based on some known facts and artistic impression. Wieving instructions can be found from a Right hand side menu. - Original 2D-image and details, HERE
Friday, September 25, 2009
Pelican Project, Grande finale
Nebula in HST-palette, S-II = Red, H-alpha = Green and O-III = Blue
A Grop from the bigger image
A Grop from the bigger image 
H-alpha + 20%S-II = Red, O-III = Green and O-III + 15% H-alpha = Blue
Nebula in H-alpha light (Ionized Hydrogen)
Nebula in H-alpha light (Ionized Hydrogen)
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Now I have S-II (Ionized Sulfur) and O-III (Ionized Oxygen) channels, so making fullcolor image is possible
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Camera QHY9, Optics Meade LX200 GPS 12" forced to @ f4.65 Guiding with SXV-AO active optics unit 11Hz Filters Baader H-alpha 7nm, 6h, 20 min subs Baader O-III 8,5nm 1h, 10 min. subs binned 3x3 S-II 1h 40, 10 min subs binned 3x3 - Note. a special technique of mine is used to balance weaker channels with Hydrogen alpha. Information about that tech. can be found HERE
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Pelican project continues
Last night I was able to capture more lights for the target.
Now there is 18 x 1200s H-alpha filteret light, Six hours.
I place here a small preview gropped from the image.
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Next I'll shoot O-III and S-II channels for the color image,
Weather doesn't look too good now though.
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Camera QHY9,
Optics Meade LX200 GPS 12" forced to @ f4.65
Guiding with SXV-AO active optics unit 11Hz
Filter Baader H-alpha 7nm
Exposures 18x1200 s.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Pelican Nebula, start of the project
So far, not a very lucky start.
I have spend four nights with this target and the result is only five 20min. frames.
The see is open and it keeps sending clouds of mist night after a night.
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Image is kind of noisy, doe too few light frames, but I'll post it here to wait more to come.
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Camera QHY9,
Optics Meade LX200 GPS 12" forced to @ f4.65
Guiding with SXV-AO active optics unit 11Hz
Filter Baader H-alpha 7nm
Exposures 5x1200 s.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
NGC 6888, deconvolution test
A fellow astro imager, Neil Fleming, in Yahoo group "astro_narrowband"
give me an idea about using more deconvolution algorithm to this image.
Thanks a lot Neil!
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After testing several softwares, I found CCDSharp giving me best resul in this case.
( CCDSharp is a freeware from Sbig )
33 iterations of Lucy-Richardson deconvolution.
The Stars came out just fine, so no separate processing for them.
Final result was way more better than I was expecting!
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You can compare those images to a previous ones, HERE in a HST-plalette and HERE in a Natural colors.
Imaging details can be found behind the links too.
Hydroge alpha channel aloneSaturday, September 19, 2009
NGC 6888 as a Stereo Pair
A Parallel Vision version 
A Cross Vision version -
NOTE! This is a personal vision about forms and shapes, based on some known facts and artistic impression. Wieving instructions can be found from a Right hand side menu.
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Original 2D-image and details, HERE
Friday, September 18, 2009
NGC 6888 in HST-palette
Last night I got S-II (ionized Sulfur) for the NGC 6888, the Crescent Nebula.
Now it was possible to compose a HST version (Hubble Space Telescope palette).
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Camera QHY9,
Optics Meade LX200 GPS 12" forced to @ f4.65
Guiding with SXV-AO active optics unit 11Hz
Filters
Baader H-alpha 7nm, 4.5h 20min subs
Baader O-III 8,5nm 2h 40min 20min subs binned 2x2
S-II 1h 5 min subs binned 3x3
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Note. a special technique of mine is used to balance weaker channels with Hydrogen alpha.
Information about that tech. can be found HERE
Thursday, September 17, 2009
NGC 6888 in H-alpha and O-III light.
This was hard to process...
I have problems to have images calibrated with Flats, Bias and Darks, so much extra work there to have images balanced.
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O-III, ionized Oxygen, really add forms to this image.
I will shoot S-II, even though there is much that in the Crescent itself.
I'll like to make this image to HST-palette as well.
- Camera QHY9, Optics Meade LX200 GPS 12" forced to @ f4.65 Guiding with SXV-AO active optics unit 11Hz Filter Baader H-alpha 7nm
H-alpha 4.5h 20min subs
O-III 2h 40min 20 min subs
A new project, NGC 6888
I have started a new project with the NGC 6888.
So far there is 4,5h of H-alpha.
Image going to be a three band narrowband image, I have allready 4,5h O-III light for this.
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Camera QHY9,
Optics Meade LX200 GPS 12" forced to @ f4.65
Guiding with SXV-AO active optics unit 11Hz
Filter Baader H-alpha 7nm
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Tuesday, September 15, 2009
M27 as a Stereo Pair
Parallel Vision version 
Cross Vision version - NOTE! This is a personal vision about forms and shapes, based on some known facts and artistic impression. Wieving instructions can be found from a Right hand side menu. Sunday, September 13, 2009
M27 in two palettes
Natural colors 
I was able to shoot data for other channels and more lights for H-alpha, last night.
Same data than H-alpha version in last post.
Additional two hours for H-a, now 4,5h together,
6x600s, binned 2x2, for O-III and 2x600s, binned 3x3, for S-II.
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More information about the target HERE.
O-III channel is very strong. Note. there is interesting looking shadow at three a clock position.Hint of an other shadow can be seen in a nine a clock position too.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Firs light for the new season
M27, Planetary nebula, was my first target for this new season.
After a long mandatory pause, I feel like a novice.
My location is not good for this object, since it stays under 40 degrees from horizont.
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At last season I shot lots of shor focal lenght images.
this time I like to shoot some smaller targets with longer FL.
I have a wonderfull device from Strarlight Express, SXV-AO, active optics unit.
It makes my LX200 GPS 12" Meade work like a 20.000€ mount!
Guiding error was between 0.1 -0.2 pixels all the time at Focal lenght 1500mm and frequency 13Hz.
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Unfortunatetly I was able to soot only 2,5 h of lights doe the clouds.
I'll shoot more H-alpha and other channels later.
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Outer shell can be seen even now.
A close up
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Details;
-Camera, QHY9
- Optics, Meade LX200 GPS 12" @ f4.65
- Guiding, Lodestar and SXV-AO @ 13Hz
- Exposures, 4x1200s with 7nm H-alpha filter and 7x600 Binned 2x2 . - image scale is 0.8 arcsecond/pixel
Active otics and Meade LX200 GPS 12"
I have made some experiments wirh SXV-AO and QHY9.
Since QHY9 has a very small pixels, 5,4microns, there will be serious over sampling with LX200.
I do have a f6.3 reducer/flattener but even eith f6.3 image scale is oversampled.
I tested to increase the distance between QHY9 and a reducer, it seems that I'm able to
go up to f4.65 focal lenght by this method!
There is some wignetting, but not very serious. Some distortion with stars can be seen in outer corners, but I'm able to live with that.
I didn't think it's possible to turn f10 telescope toreltively fast f4.65 scope.
QHY9 has a lightly smaller chip than APS-size in QHY8, that heps a litle.
Images, taken with this imaging configuration, can be seen here:
http://astroanarchy.blogspot.fi/search/label/Images%20with%20Active%20Optics%20%28SXV-AO%29
Click "Older Posts" at the end of the page to see more.
Images, taken with this imaging configuration, can be seen here:
http://astroanarchy.blogspot.fi/search/label/Images%20with%20Active%20Optics%20%28SXV-AO%29
Click "Older Posts" at the end of the page to see more.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
California Nebula get published in S&T
In July 2009 issue of Sky & Telescope magazine's Gallery, in page 78,
is a full page image of NGC 1499, the "California Nebula" by me.
Total exposure time is 18 hours.
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The original post can be seen HERE.
Monday, July 6, 2009
"Elphants Trunk Nebula" as a Stereo Pair.
Parallel Vision 
Cross Vision -
I turned an older image, from 2007, to a Spatial format. As usally, this is a personal vision about forms and shapes, based on some known facts and artistic impression. Viewing istructions can be found in Right hand side menu.
Friday, July 3, 2009
13. Universe Today article
"Fly me to the Moon" An article by Tammy Plotner, based on my experiments with animatedstereo pairs of the Moon.
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