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Thursday, February 26, 2009

Cone and Rosette Nebula mosaic!



Cone and Rosette in HST-palette. Image spans horizontally 10 degrees.


Same image with reduced stars to show the nebulosity better.
Area in "natural" colors. Mixed from narrowband data; Red=70%H-a + 30%S-II, Green=100%=-III and Blue=85%O-III+15%H-a - -

At night of 24.02. I shot this data before a Comet Lulin in previous post. I allway wanted to show this interesting area between Rosette and Cone. As can be seen in the image, they both are part of same large nebula complex.

A horizontal versions Are for your viewing pleasure. Here is a real postion in the Sky, North up. This area is sometimes called as a "Christmas Tree Cluster". Now I can see why! With current equipments I can have both, highresolution and wide field. - - IMAGING DATA: Camera QHY9 Guiding QHY5 Optics Canon EF 200mm f1.8 lens Platform LX200 GPS 12" - Exposures for Cone Nebula part: H-a = 2 x 1200s S-II = 2 x 600s O-II = 2 x 600s - Exposures for Rosette Nebula part: H-a = 3 x 1200s S-II = 2 x 600s O-III = 2 x 600s - Final image is 7000 x 2500 pixels and the resolution is 5,5 pixels/arc second

Cone and Rosette mosaic as a Stereo pair

Here we go again.
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Parallel Vision
Cross Vision

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Comet Lulin

Two panel mosaic, the bright planet, in upper part of image, is Saturn.
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It seems, that there is lots of ionized gas in the comet Lulin.
I was litle sceptical about using narrowband filters to a broadband target, like a comet.
After all, there was plenty of signal from all three bands, S-II, H-a and O-III, there is even large differenses between differnt bands (look for the last image of this post)
Colors are mixed isn HST (Hubble Space Telescope) palette.
With extermely fast f1.8 200mm lens I used exposures from UHC-s filter's 30s
to 600s for Hydrogen alpha filter.
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comet with starfield
The field of view is about five degrees!
The tail in the image is about 2.2 degrees
A starless version

This is a fast comet, exposure time about an hour. - Eguipments: Canon EF 200mm @ f1.8 camera, QHY9 Guiding, QHY5 and PHD-guiding Exposures, H-a, S-II, O-III and UHC, total five hours.

Saturn & Comet Lulin as a Stereo Pair

Saturn is a bright planet in the upper part of the image. There is two moons visible next to saturn, Lapetus (upper one) and the Hyperion. Other moons can not be seen, since they are under the extence glow from the Saturn.
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Parallel Vision version Cross Vision version

Comet Lulin animation

Click the image to see it animated.
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Animation of Comet Lulin shows its movement in an one hour.
25 x 100s exposures with UHC-s filter.
Colors are imaged with H-a, S-II and O-III filters and HST-palette is used.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

5. Universe Today article

A new article by Tammy Plotner in Universe Today:
I turned this Hubble Heritage image of the "Ring Nebula" to the Spatial format.



Cross Vision version
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Distances and shapes in 3D-image are visualizations, since we don't have enough information to buil an accurate model. However, the 3D-model of the target is not only a lucky guess as there is many known "anchor points" in the image, witch can be used to estimate the actual forms and the relative distances.
Parallel Vision version

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Cone Nebula area, NGC2264

This H-alpha narrowband image from last night, shows a large area around
the "Cone Nebula". Lots of nebulosity around there.
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Cone Nebula, H-alpha

Note the "Hubble's Variable Nebula" at Five a clock position.

(A small cometlike dot in the image)

A Starless version to show the nebulosity better.
False color H-alpha version.
A grop from the center. This lens is very sharp, even full open @f1.8
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Weather in this winter has been #&%@$£2 and last night was no exception.
After four hours I managed to save four 20 min. exposures,
others were ruined by the speeding clouds.
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IMAGING DETAILS:
Optics, Canon FD 200mm f1.8 @ 1.8
Camera, QHY9 astro camera
Guiding, QHY5 and PHD-Guiding on LX200 GPS 12"
Exposures, 4x1200s +darks, bias and flats
Filter, Baader 7nm H-alpha

Monday, February 16, 2009

IC443 in HST-palette

Last night was clear for a long time, I used it to shot
IC443 Supernove remnant. This was a first light for my new Observatory,
POD (Personal observatory Dome).
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The O-III signal is weak. After some extreme stretching of the data
there was plenty of it after all. I have not noticed before how far it continues
outside of the Hydrogen alpha area. O-III can be now seen at seven a
clock from the main formation and some faint areas in upper left corner with H-alpha.
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Exposures: -H-alpha 8x1200s binned 1x1
-S-II 4x600s binned 2x2 -O-III 5x600s binned 2x2 Optics: Tokina 300mm TX f2.8 @ f2.8 Camera: QHY9 @ -50 C Guiding: Lx200 GPS 12" + LQHY5 and PHD-Guiding
Grop from the center, not bad details for a 300mm camera lens. IC443 as a natural color version, mixed from narrowband channels. H-alpha 100% + 35%S-II = RED, O-III = GREEN and O-III 100% + 30%H-alpha = BLUE.
A Starless version to show the nebulosity better.
Note an extended Triple Ionized Oxygen outburst in lover left from main feature in middle.

IC443 as a Stereo Pair

Parallel vision version
Cross vision version - -
IC443 with some volume.
The result is more or less an educational guess about real 3D appearance of this formation. - Two versions, first for Parallel Vision , and the second for Cross Vision method. - The original image and the image information can be found here: http://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2009/02/ic443-in-hst-palette.html

Sunday, February 15, 2009

4. Universe Today article


At this time I turned the Hubble Space Telescopes image of V838, in Monocerotis, to the spatial format. -



Cross Vision version
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Distances and shapes in 3D-image are visualizations, since we don't have enough information to buil an accurate model. However, the 3D-model of the target is not only a lucky guess as there is many known "anchor points" in the image, witch can be used to estimate the actual forms and the relative distances.
Parallel Vision version

Thursday, February 12, 2009

A POD

As seen in the image, my Observatory locates in very light polluted location.
I bought this observatory dome from Ian - Altair Astro UK.
The POD (Persomnal Observatory Dome) is manufactured by a
Canadian company, SkyShed Obsevatories,
After long thinkikg I ended up to this model.
Mainly becouse there was much good feed back about the system.
the other reason was the reasonable price and easy assembly.
Becouse I'm imaging from midle of the town, the outlook of the tower is important too.
I don't want people to complain about ugly shed in the roof deck in the midle of town.
(It's clearly visible to the opposite park)
Inside the dome, there is a 12" Meade LX200GPS on the 700mm steal pier
and lots of assesories.
Even though, there is plenty of space to walk around the scope.
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The model of the observatory is somewhere between traditional dome and roll off shed.
I have tested it under cloudy sky and it will give a really good protection against winds.
An other great thing is, that now I can just close the dome and leave everythin ready for the next imaging session.
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In this type of observatory, there is a problem with imagingn directly to the Zenith.
I solved this problem by a simple modification.
Instead placing telescope pier off center, I made the whole dome to slide away
to clear the Zenith view.
When access to the Zenith is not needed the dome can be pulled back to maximize
the wind protection.
In this image the slideing system is visible. It's a very simple solution where slit
in the plywood works as a guide and everything can be locked down by a wing nut attached to an
anchor bolt.

In near future I will attach six wheels under the dome to make it move smoothly.

In above image is a principle, how standard furniture whells will be placed.

Main dimensions of the POD ( Inches)

3. Universe Today article

s

A new article by Tammy Plotner in Universe Today:
At this time I turned the Hubble Space Telescopes image of "Cat's eye" Nebula
to the spatial format.
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At the article, there was a comment about error in the original image pair by B. Crumb.
He wrote:
"The axis of the bipolar flow of the planetary nebula doesn't look quite right to me. It doesn't seem to match the velocity measures made of various features within the nebulosity, nor the calculated about 32 degrees to the line of sight. With blunt criticism, Jukka Metsavainio might just like to check a few paper on the morphology of planetary nebula (G.Pascoli work of 1999 comes to mind.), to make sure the stereo images show what has already been derived.Nice pic though."
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I have fixed the image pair after the previous comment, thanks B. Crumb.
The Parallel Vision version of fixed Cat's eye Nebula. Hubble Heritage image edited by me.


Tuesday, February 3, 2009

2. Universe Today article

It looks like Tammy Plotner and I will work together for some time.
Yesterday there was a new article in Universe Today by Tammy.
This time I turned one of the Hubble Heritage images,
MGC281, to a Stereo Pair format.
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Distances and shapes in 3D-image are visualizations,
since we don't have enough information to buil an accurate model.
However, the 3D-model of the target is not only
a lucky guess as there is many known "anchor points" in the image,
witch can be used to estimate the actual forms
and the relative distances.
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You can read the article from:

Sunday, February 1, 2009

The heart & Soul Nebula as an Stereo Pair.



Ones again, I turned this image of "Heart & Soul" Nebula to a Stereo pair format by adding some volume. The result is more or less an educational guess about real 3D appearance of this formation. - Two versions, first for Parallel Vision , and the second for Cross Vision method.
I made this stereo pair to show the "real" nature of this target. The gas and stars are floating in three dimensional space forming three dimensional forms, rather than being a 2D painting on the canvas.
The "Soul" part of the Nebula (Left) seems to be closer to us
by some sources, some other sources states, that it has a same distance as
the "heart" (Right).
In this Stereo precentation the previous option is realized.
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The original image and the imaging information can be found here:
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Viewing instructions, please, look for the Right hand side menu.