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Thursday, November 2, 2017

First light for the Autumn season 2017, finally!


This Autumn season has been the most cloudy one, I have never publish my first light so late.
We have had only one clear night plus two nights with opening at clouds for few hours.  

My first light for the Autumn season 2017  shows a rare and exotic target at Cygnus. It's a largely unknown Wolf-Rayet shell around the star WR 134.
I noticed this formation at first time in my large 18-panels mosaic of Cygnus. It's clearly visible, specially at Ionised oxygen channel (O-III)


A three frame mosaic of WR 134
 Click for a large image.

The Wolf-Rayet shell can be seen as an oval shape at center up. There is a strong emission from ionized oxygen, O-III, it can be seen as blue color. 
Image is in mapped colours, from the emission of ionized elements, R=Sulphur, G=Hydrogen and B=Oxygen.


WR 134
Wolf-Rayet shell around WR 134 in Cygnus, click for a large image.


A starless version
Click for a large image.


The structure and shapes in ionized gas are easier to see in this experimental starless version.
(Note. the straight line at  seven o'clock is not an artefact but a real shape.)

Orientation in Cygnus
Click for a large image.

The area of WR 134 is marked as a white rectangle at middle right.
Info about this large mosaic image can be seen HERE

INFO

This image covers a field of view about one square degree in the constellation Cygnus. It highlights the bright edge of a ring-like nebula traced by the glow of ionized hydrogen and oxygen gas. Embedded in the region's interstellar clouds of gas and dust, the complex, glowing arcs are sections of bubbles or shells of material swept up by the wind from Wolf-Rayet star WR 134, brightest star near the center of the frame. Distance estimates put WR 134 about 6,000 light-years away, making the frame over 100 light-years across. Shedding their outer envelopes in powerful stellar winds, massive Wolf-Rayet stars have burned through their nuclear fuel at a prodigious rate and end this final phase of massive star evolution in a spectacular supernova explosion. The stellar winds and final supernovae enrich the interstellar material with heavy elements to be incorporated in future generations of stars. (Source, NASA APOD, https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120621.html )


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
Color combine in PS CS3
Levels and curves in PS CS3.

Imaging optics
Celestron Edge HD 1100 @ f10 with 0,7 focal reducer for Edge HD 1100 telescope

Mount
10-micron 1000

Cameras and filters
Imaging camera Apogee Alta U16 and Apogee seven slot filter wheel
Guider camera, Lodestar x 2 and SXV-AOL

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

Exposure times

H-alpha, 21x 1200s, binned 2x2 = 7h
O-III, 9 x 1200s binned 4x4 = 3h 
S-II,  9 x 1200s binned 4x4 = 3h 
Total 13h


Uncropped, calibrated and stretched single 20 min. H-alpha frame as it comes from the camera



Uncropped, calibrated and stretched single 20 min. O-III frame as it comes from the camera






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