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All the material on this website is copyrighted to J-P Metsavainio, if not otherwise stated. Any content on this website may not be reproduced without the author’s permission.

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Thursday, September 30, 2010

Animated 3D from two targets, the "Tarantula" & the "Wizard"


Animations are made by creating artificial parallax to an image. Then two images are animated together by using conversion web service, Start3D. There can be some artifacts in images, due the experimental nature of this work! The volumetric models are based on some known facts and an artistic impression.

Please, let the images load for few seconds to see them animated!
The "Tarantula Nebula"


Other 3D-formats can be found here:
Original 2D-image and details:


The "Wizard Nebula"




Other 3D-formats can be found here:
Original 2D-image and details:

NOTE! This 3D-study is a personal vision about forms and shapes, based on some known facts and an artistic impression.

Stereo pairs of two nebulae, the "Tarantula" & the "Wizard"




The "tarantula Nebula"


Parallel vision


Cross vision

Other 3D-formats can be found here:
Original 2D-image and details:


The "Wizard Nebula"


Parallel vision


Cross vision


Other 3D-formats can be found here:
Original 2D-image and details:

NOTE! This 3D-study is a personal vision about forms and shapes, based on some known facts and an artistic impression.
Viewing instructions can be found from a Right hand side menu.


Anaglyph 3D from two targets, the "Tarantula" & the "Wizard"



The "Tarantula Nebula"

You'll need Red/Cyan Eyeglasses to be able to see this image right.
Note, if you have a Red and Blue filters, you can use them! Red goes to Left eye





Other 3D-formats can be found here:
Original 2D-image and details:



The "Wizard Nebula"



Other 3D-formats can be found here:
Original 2D-image and details:


NOTE! This 3D-study is a personal vision about forms and shapes, based on some known facts and an artistic impression.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

A star suppression example






Image and video hosting by TinyPic
An animated image of the star and starless versions of the "Wizard Nebula"

I often use a starless image in one of the processing steps of the astronomical image.
Sometimes I publish the starless version too, it looks kind of nice, or spooky, that's a matter of taste.

If there is a dense star-field, nebula itself could be hard to detect. When stars are suppressed, the nebula can be seen better due the fact, that human brains tend to form false shapes from the cloud of dots.

Here is an example of my "Tone Mapping" technique: 

A PDF-tutorial can be found behind this link:




M57, the "Ring Nebula", a new imaging project





M57, NGC 6822, the "Ring Nebula", locates in constellation Lyra and the distance is about 2300 light years.

Last night I started a new imaging project with the M57. I'm targeting to expose outer shells of this planetary nebula. There is two layers of outer shells, both very dim. In this image the first shell is visible clearly and there is a hint of the second one. There is now 2h 40min. of H-alpha exposures, least ten more hours is needed to show the structure in H-a light.
The, 1.2 solar masses,  white dwarf in the center of the nebula has visual magnitude 15,75. It can't be seen in a H-alpha light image, it will be interesting to see, if it'll shows at O-III channel I'm gonna shoot later.
Too bad, that I'm not able to shoot any broad band luminance data due my intense light pollution, with H-a, needed exposure time will be very long..

This target is not very high, here at 65N. Maximum elevation is about 50 degrees and after two and half hours, it was only about 30. Since this is a small target, good seeing and reasonable altitude is needed to show any details.

Technical details:

processing work flow:
Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07.
Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack.
Levels and curves in PS CS3.

Telescope, Meade LX200 GPS 12" @ f5
Camera, QHY9 Guiding, SXV-AO @ 10Hz
Image Scale, 0,75 arcseconds/pixel
Exposures H-alpha 7x1200s, binned 1x1





Monday, September 27, 2010

Sh2-142, the "Wizard Nebula"





Sh2-142 alias NGC 7380, in HST-palette, (HST=Hubble Space Telescope)
from the emission of ionized elements, R=Sulfur, G=Hydrogen and B=Oxygen.



An experimental image of Sh2-142, with suppressed stars.
I use a starless image in one of the processing steps. Sometimes I publish it, since the actual nebula can be better seen by this way.  


Natural color composition from the emission of ionized elements, R=80%Hydrogen+20%Sulfur, G=100%Oxygen and B=85%Oxygen+15%Hydrogen to compensate otherwise missing H-beta emission. This composition is very close to a visual spectrum.


NGC 7380 is a catalog number of  the open star cluster inside Wizard nebula, SH2-142.
Nebula locates in constellation Cepheus, about 7000 light years from my home. 


A closeup

Technical details:

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" @ f5
Camera, QHY9 Guiding, SXV-AO @ 6,5Hz
Image Scale, 0,75 arcseconds/pixel
Exposures H-alpha 15x1200s, binned 1x1
S-II 1x1200s, binned 4x4
O-III 1x1200s, binned 4x4
I have used color data from an older, 2008,  wide field image of Sh2-142.

Technical details for image used for colors:





Sunday, September 26, 2010

NGC 2070, the "Tarantula Nebula"





NGC 2070 in HST-palette, (HST=Hubble Space Telescope)
from the emission of ionized elements, R=Sulfur, G=Hydrogen and B=Oxygen.



Natural color composition from the emission of ionized elements, R=80%Hydrogen+20%Sulfur, G=100%Oxygen and B=85%Oxygen+15%Hydrogen to compensate otherwise missing H-beta emission.

This composition is very close to a visual spectrum.

Tarantula nebula, NGC 2070, also known as 30 Doradus, is an ionized Hydrogen region in the Large Magellanic cloud, visible in southern hemisphere. Distance from Earth is about 160.000 light years.

A closeup of Tarantula Nebula


The telescope and technical information:

16" RCOS ja Apogee U9000 camera. 
LRGB combo.
H-alpha 5x1200s, Dark and artificial Flat calibrated.
2 x O-III 1200s and 5 x 900s Dark and artificial Flat calibrated.
2 x S-II 1200s, Dark and artificial Flat calibrated.
Raw data is shared with "Team Finland"


Processing workflow:
Image acquisition, MaxiDL v4.xxx
Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack.
Deconvolution with a CCDSharp, 30 iterations added 50% to non convoluted data
Levels, curves and color combine in PS CS3.


Tuesday, September 21, 2010

NGC 7380 and the "Wizard Nebula", start of the new project





NGC 7380, Sh2-142 , the "Wizard Nebula", locates in constellation Cepheus about 7000 light years from Oulu, Finland. The open star cluster has a catalog number NGC 7380. It's a relatively young cluster, about 5 million years. Nebula spans some 110 light years.

There is only 1h 20 min. H-a light for the object, due some technical problems. Ones again, I spend most of the night by fixing my ***** scope.
Seeing was better than usually, FWHM about 2,5".
I'll shoot much more H-alpha data and other NB channels, S-II and O-III later.
Image is very noisy due the short exposure time.

Technical details:

processing work flow:
Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07.
Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack.
Levels and curves  in PS CS3.

Telescope, Meade LX200 GPS 12" @ f5
Camera, QHY9 Guiding, SXV-AO @ 6Hz
Image Scale, 0,75 arcseconds/pixel
Exposures H-alpha 4x1200s, binned 1x1

Monday, September 20, 2010

NGC 7000 closeup, HST-palette preview





NGC 7000 in HST-palette from the emission of ionized elements, R=Sulfur, G=Hydrogen and B=Oxygen.

This is kind of preview image, since HST-palette colors are borrowed from an older, wide field image of North America nebula. I'll shoot new, high resolution, color channels for O-III and S-II, when ever weather up here allows me to do so. 
Technical details for the older image, from 2008, can be found here: http://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2008/09/my-first-ever-narrowband-color-image.html
(This is actually my first ever narrow band color image!)


Colors are taken from this image of North America and Pelican nebulae.



More "Monitor friendly" orientation.

Technical details for closeup:

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" @ f5
Camera, QHY9 Guiding, SXV-AO @ 6Hz
Image Scale, 0,75 arcseconds/pixel
Exposures H-alpha 15x1200s, binned 1x1=5h
O-III 1x1200s binned 3x3

Technical details for wide field image:

Tokina AT-X 300mm f2.8 manual focus lens.
This is a very modest example of three colur narrowband image. But I place it here, since it's my first one. At 11.09. I mainly shoot H-alpha, but before clouds rolled in I managed to capture 4 x 900s O-III and only single shot of S-II, 900s. I will shoot more O-III and S-III when ever weather allows me to do so. In this image the "Hubble paletete" is used where S-II = Red, H-alpha = Green and O-III = Blue
-
NOTE

This image is taken by using QHY8 cooled 6.1mb color camera. Its not an ideal tool for narrowband imaging.
Each color channel is shooted trough separate filter, this means, that only 1/4 pixels are used for H-alpha and S-II. O-III goes mainly to the Green and Blue pixels of the Bayer matrix array, so about 3/4 of the pixels are used in this case. How ever, very high quality narrowband images has been taken by using color cameras.


Sunday, September 19, 2010

NGC 7000 closeup as an animation, new edition





Animations are made by creating artificial parallax to an image. Then two images are animated together by using conversion web service, Start3D. There can be some artifacts in images, due the experimental nature of this work! The volumetric models are based on some known facts and an artistic impression.
Please, let the images load for few seconds to see them animated!


Other 3D-formats can be found here:
Original 2D-image and details:

NOTE! This 3D-study is a personal vision about forms and shapes, based on some known facts and an artistic impression.

NGC 7000 as a Stereo pair, second edition




Parallel vision


Cross vision


Other 3D-formats can be found here:



NOTE! This 3D-study is a personal vision about forms and shapes, based on some known facts and an artistic impression.
Viewing instructions can be found from a Right hand side menu.


NGC 7000 as an anaglyph 3D, second edition



You'll need Red/Cyan Eyeglasses to be able to see this image right.
Note, if you have a Red and Blue filters, you can use them! Red goes to Left eye







Other 3D-formats can be found here:
 
Original 2D-image and details:
 
 
NOTE! This 3D-study is a personal vision about forms and shapes, based on some known facts and an artistic impression.

Saturday, September 18, 2010

NGC 7000, the "North America" nebula reprocessed



I did this one again. I carried away with processing of the first version in previous post.
I never should do processing after a sleepless night of imaging!

NOTE. Less compressed images in my portfolio:
(Google blog compress images a lot and coursing artifacts.) 


Close up of the NGC 7000, the "North America" nebula.
Image is composed from O-III and H-a narrowband channels to a bi-color image.
This palette is close to a visiblel spectrum.
I'll shoot more O-III and S-II for this, to build a HST-palette image, later.


An experimental starless image. Stars are removed in one processing step and placed back with zero data lost. Sometimes I publish an image with a reduced stars to show the actual nebula better. It looks kind of nice, or spooky, that's a matter of taste.

A wide field image of NGC 7000 complex, the area of interest is marked with a gray border.


Closeup

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" @ f5 
Camera, QHY9 Guiding, SXV-AO @ 6Hz 
Image Scale, 0,75 arcseconds/pixel 
Exposures H-alpha 15x1200s, binned 1x1=5h
O-III 1x1200s binned 3x3


Friday, September 17, 2010

NGC 7000, the "North America" nebula closeup, second round





Close up of the NGC 7000, the "North America" nebula.
Image is composed from O-III and H-a narrowband channels to a bi-color image.
This palette is close to a visiblel spectrum.
I'll shoot more O-III and S-II for this, to build a HST-palette image, later.

I managed to solve the orthogonality problem between the optical path and the CCD. Now stars are as good as they can in my imaging system. I have reduced Meade LX200 GPS 12" f10 to f5 by misusing a Celestron f6.3 reducer by placing it at longer distance from CCD and hence grove the reduction factor.
The price is coma at both ends of the image but I can live with it. This system gives me about 30* field and a spatial resolution of 0,75 arc seconds/pixel. 

An experimental starless image. Stars are removed in one processing step and placed back with zero data lost. Sometimes I publish an image with a reduced stars to show the actual nebula better. It looks kind of nice, or spooky, that's a matter of taste.




Closeup

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" @ f5 
Camera, QHY9 Guiding, SXV-AO @ 6Hz 
Image Scale, 0,75 arcseconds/pixel 
Exposures H-alpha 15x1200s, binned 1x1=5h
O-III 1x1200s binned 3x3



Wednesday, September 15, 2010

NGC 55, irregular galaxy in constellation Sulptor



Note. Color balance edited 16.09.

NGC 55, barred irregular galaxy in constellation Sculptor. Distance about 7 million light years.



Closeup

When I was stacking the Luminance channel of NGC55, I noticed two moving objects in a field.
I made animations of them to show the movement. It could be nice to know, what they are. When I'll find out,
I'll post the information here!
UPDATE
A friend in Finnish astronomical group, "Astronetti", found the information for objects by using the "Minor Planet Checker"  Here is the information for both objects:

Object designation         R.A.           Decl.         V       Offsets          Motion/hr   Orbit  Further observations?
 (20031) 1992 OO         00 14 06.8  -39 17 11  15.7   9.0W    5.4S    20-    35-   12o  None needed at this time.
 
  2005 UD530               00 13 51.8  -39 13 53  19.7  11.9W   2.1S    33-     0+    3o  Desirable between 2010 Sept.            
  15-Oct. 15.


Animated areas are marked in this single 600s luminance frame.

Information:
Location, Brisbane Australia
Date, 14.09.2010
Time Zone, UTC +10h
The animation has13 x 600s frames, taken between 10:25 and 13:31 UTC.



The whole field animated showing both moving objects. First object at Two a clock position and the second one at Eight a clock position.


Closeup animation of first object.



An animated closeup of the second object.


It's always fascinating to see something moving in a deep space! An other part of fun is trying to find out, what it might be.


Technical details:

16" RCOS ja Apogee U9000 camera. 
LRGB combo. An Australian remote telescope
13x600s for the Luminance and 3x600s / RGB-channel . Dark, Bias and Flat calibrated.
Raw data is shared by Petri Kehusmaa and J-P Metsavainio

Processing workflow:
Image acquisition, MaxiDL v4.xxx
Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack.
Deconvolution with a CCDSharp, 30 iterations.
Levels, curves and color combine in PS CS3.

A general note:
Seeing was really bad during the imaging sequence, FWHM varied between 8" -5,5"