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Friday, January 17, 2025

Cederbald 214

 This winter season I have shot some of my old targets again with my new imaging system. It takes some time to get familiar with a new system and get everything out of them technically.
I have been really happy with the optical quality of my 142 Celestron EDGE telescope, specially with the secondary mirror focuser does the trick, no more mirror flops since main mirror is locked down all the time. Mesu mount Mark II has served well as a very solid imaging platform.


CEDERBLAD 214
Click for a full size, 2000x2000 pixels

A mapped color image from a light emitted by an ionized elements, 
sulfur=red, hydrogen=green and oxygen=blue



A full Resolution Closeup
Click for a full size, 2000x2000 pixels






Structure Study of the Cederblad 214

All pillar like formations are pointing to a source of ionization, the open cluster NGC 7822. There are some dense areas in a gas able to resist the radiation pressure from young star cluster. Those dense areas, at a tip of the pillars, are also potential places for the formations of the new stars.




INFO

Source: NASA APOD

Towering pillars of cold gas and dark dust adorn the center star forming region of Sharpless 171. An open cluster of stars is forming there from the gas in cold molecular clouds. As energetic light emitted by young massive stars boils away the opaque dust, the region fragments and picturesque pillars of the remnant gas and dust form and slowly evaporate. The energetic light also illuminates the surrounding hydrogen gas, causing it to glow as an emission nebula. Pictured above is the active central region of the Sharpless 171 greater emission nebula. Sharpless 171 incorporates NGC 7822 and the active region Cederblad 214, much of which is imaged above. The area above spans about 20 light years, lies about 3,000 light years away, and can be seen with a telescope toward the northern constellation of the King of Ethiopia (Cepheus).






Cederblad 214 in a large context

Image details here, https://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2020/02/new-photo-of-cederblad-214-cosmic.html



Technical details

Processing workflow

Image acquisition, MaximDL v5.07.
Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack2.
Deconvolution with a CCDStack2 Positive Constraint, 27 iterations, added at 50% weight
Color combine in PS CS3
Levels and curves in PS CS3.

Imaging optics, 
Celestron EDGE 14" with 0.7 Focal reducer

Mount, 
MesuMount Mark II

Cameras, 
Imaging camera Apogee Alta U9000M and Apogee seven slot filter wheel
Guider camera, Lodestar x 2 and SXV-AO Active Optics @ 5hz

filters, 
Astrodon 5nm H-alpha, 3nm S-II and 3nm O-III

Total exposure time 9h
H-alpha, 15 x 1200 x, binned 1x1 = 5h
O-III,9x 1200 s, binned 2x2 = 2h
S-II, 9 x 1200 s. binned 2x2 = 2h



A single calibrated 20 min exposure of H-alpha, Bin 1x1
 Click for a full size image.




Wednesday, January 8, 2025

Sharpless 132 as four panel mosaic

 I have originally published this four panel mosaic photo back in February 2019. I have added new data to it and generally reprocessed the whole thing, it's funny how much an old guy can learn in few years.

You can see the old version here: https://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2019/02/sharpless-132-sh2-132.html
It's not bad by any means but new version reveals so much more. The central part of the mosaic is new data from autumn season 2024, it's better processed and has a better overall resolution due to new imaging setup

High res mosaic image of Sharpless 132
Click for a full size, 2700x2400 pixels

A mapped color image from a light emitted by an ionized elements, 
sulfur=red, hydrogen=green and oxygen=blue

A Closeup
Click for a full size

New data from December 2024, more info HERE


Sh2-132 in a large context
Please, click for a large image


Technical details

Info about the 2019 version of the four panel mosaic here:


Total exposure time 27 hours


Saturday, January 4, 2025

New photo of NGC 281


This photo is made by combining 10 h of new H-alpha exposures to a 10 h of exposures with my older long focal length telescope from 2015. Beside that, there are 5 hours of data taken with Tokina AT-x 300mm f2.8 camera lens back in 2020. Very dim background mist comes mainly from camera lens data.
With 3 h S-II and O-III exposures the total exposure time was 31 hours.

Deep view to the NGC 281
Click for a full size, 2700x2500 pixels

A mapped color image from a light emitted by an ionized elements, 
sulfur=red, hydrogen=green and oxygen=blue



A Portion of the Full Resolution Photo

I haven't noticed before that there is a triple star system at the star cluster IC 1590
The seeing wasn't very good so I couldn't quite split the two of the stars but it can be seen, that there are two stars very close to each other visually.




NGC 281 in visual palette
Click for a full size, 2700x2500 pixels

Visual color version of Sh2-115 glows mostly in red from a light emitted by an ionized elements,
sulfur=red, hydrogen=red and oxygen=blue, this combination is very close to a natural color palette.



SIAMESE FIGHTING FISH NEBULA

When I was processing the data for this photo I had a feeling that I have seen this shape and color combination before, soon it hit me, it was a picture of Siamese Fighting Fish 

INFO

NGC 281 is a busy workshop of star formation. Prominent features include a small open cluster of stars, a diffuse red-glowing emission nebula, large lanes of obscuring gas and dust, and dense knots of dust and gas in which stars may still be forming. The open cluster of stars IC 1590 visible around the center has formed only in the last few million years. The brightest member of this cluster is actually a multiple-star system shining light that helps ionize the nebula's gas, causing the red glow visible throughout. The lanes of dust visible below the center are likely homes of future star formation. Particularly striking in the above photograph are the dark Bok globules visible against the bright nebula. Stars are surely forming there right now. The entire NGC 281 system lies about 10 thousand light years distant. (Source, NASA APOD)

With my new imaging system I can get deeper with a good resolution, than my old long focal length toolset was able to. The secondary mirror focusing system takes care of focusing and temperature compensation, I can keep the heavy main mirror locked down all the time.  Heavy mirror has a tendency to move a bit when the scope moves and that can mess up the collimation. 
The current system keeps collimation perfect all the time.

An other great accessory is the Active Optics Unit from Starlight Xpress. It's as easy to use as any OAG, the good update speed to a 11 mag star is around 8Hz. The AO-unit removes all the minor tracking errors very fast. The Mesu Mount Mark II has a periodic error under four arcseconds and that's a very small error, even so, AO unit gives a better image quality since the corrections are made by moving a light weight piece of glass, the heavy load of the scope and accessories doesn't need to move for corrections.

Structure study of the NGC 281

Pillar like formations in the gas cloud are forming when the radiation pressure (Solar Wind) from the open cluster IC 1590 blows the gas and dust away and  coursing some parts of the gas collapse.Due to that, they all are pointing to the source of the solar wind, open cluster IC 1590, as I have shown in the image above.


NGC 281 in a large context
Please, click for a large image

NGC 281 can be seen in this wide field mosaic image of the constellation Cassiopeia at bottom center.
This photo is also a small part of a massive mosaic image of the Northern Milky Way Galaxy.


Technical details

Processing workflow

Image acquisition, MaximDL v5.07.
Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack2.
Deconvolution with a CCDStack2 Positive Constraint, 27 iterations, added at 50% weight
Color combine in PS CS3
Levels and curves in PS CS3.

Imaging optics, 
Celestron EDGE 14" with 0.7 Focal reducer

Mount, 
MesuMount Mark II

Cameras, 
Imaging camera Apogee Alta U9000M and Apogee seven slot filter wheel
Guider camera, Lodestar x 2 and SXV-AO Active Optics @ 5hz

filters, 
Astrodon 5nm H-alpha, 3nm S-II and 3nm O-III

Total exposure time 31h
H-alpha, 30 x 1200 s, binned 1x1 = 10 h (14" Celestron EDGE)
H-alpha, 30 x 1200 s, binned 1x1 = 10 h (11" Celestron EDGE, shot at 2015)
H-alpha, 15 x 1200 x, binned 1x1 = 5h (Tokina AT-x 300mm f2.8, shot at 2020)
O-III,9x 1200 s, binned 2x2 = 3h (11" Celestron EDGE, shot at 2015)
S-II, 9 x 1200 s. binned 2x2 = 3h (11" Celestron EDGE, shot at 2015)


A single calibrated 20 min exposure of 
H-alpha, Bin 1x1
 Click for a full size image.



Tuesday, December 31, 2024

My photo was selected as a cover picture of the Official Year Calendar of Vatican Observatory 2025

The Vatican observatory selected my photo of Sharpless 157 as a cover picture of an Official Calendar of the Vatican Observatory.
I have had my photos in this yearly published calendar about ten times and this is a second time my photo was selected as a cover, first time was back in 2019, the cover picture can be seen here: https://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2018/12/astro-anarchy-gets-published-cover.html


Sharpless 157, the Cover Picture of the Vatican Observatory Calendar


Here is a link to blog post about this photo there are all the technical details and more info about this target: https://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2018/02/sharpless-157-in-cassiopeia-project.html


You can buy the Vatican Observatory Calendar from here:

https://www.vaticanobservatory.org/product/2025-vatican-observatory-calendar/