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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.

Have a visit in my portfolio

Sunday, February 27, 2022

Cederblad 214, the Cosmic Question Mark

I have published this photo back in February 2020 but I have done some reprocessing and repost this image now since this photo of Cosmic Question Mark has symbolic value to me. A cosmic curiosity is the very reason I'm doing this difficult, and sometimes frustrating, form of nature photographing art.

Cederblad 214, the Cosmic Question Mark
Click for a large image

Image info, technical data and more images of this object, https://tinyurl.com/yeykd3wc








Friday, February 25, 2022

4K HYPER Zoom to the Milky Way and a Bubble Nebula

I have made couple of 4K videos out of my massive 145 degree Milky Way panorama. In the video you can see the actual resolution of this massive image. This time I'm zooming into the Bubble Nebula in cassiopeia at distance of about 12.000 light years.


Super Zoom to The Bubble nebula (44 seconds)

Best seen as a full screen and better yet, with a 4K display, direct link to the YouTube: 
https://youtu.be/HZrcwxeFLYs



Info about the large panorama of the Milky Way
(Click the image to enter)

Over a decade, 1500 exposure hours and 301 individual frames visible in one image
NOTE, image of the Full Moon as a scale in lover left corner.


Info about the Bubble Nebula
(Click the image to enter)





Thursday, February 24, 2022

4K zoom in the Milky Way

 I made a 4K video out of my massive 145 degree Milky Way panorama. In the video you can see the actual resolution of this massive image when it zoom in to IC 1396 in constellation Cepheus


Super Zoom to IC 1396

Best seen as full screen and 4K display, direct link to the YouTube: 
https://youtu.be/weeA-jEzezA



Info about the large panorama of Milky Way:

Wednesday, February 23, 2022

It's beautiful because it's true

 


My deepest motivation to keep doing this slow artform


Super Zoom to my photo, the Grand Mosaic of the Milky Way Revision 2




4K Super Zoom to my photo
Grand Mosaic of the Milky Way Revision 2

Super Zoom to the Milky Way, note, best to see in full screen

It took over 12 years to finalize this massive photo of Milky Way
Blog post with a zoomable image, please, have a look here: https://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2021/10/grand-mosaic-of-milky-way-is-now-large.html

IMAGE SPECS
  • Panorama spans 145 x 22 degrees of sky (Full Moon covers 0,5 degrees of sky)
  • Resolution 120.000 x 18.000 pixels
  • Photos has 2.2 gigapixels in it, the spatial resolution is equal to 8.8 gigapixel image from color camera since all the channels are in native resolution.
  • There are least nine confirmed supernova remnants in this panorama
  • About 25 million stars are visible in the photo
  • Distance to the nebulae in the image between 350 to 20.000 light years
  • Exposure time over 1500 hours between 2009 - 2021
  • 301 individual images are stitched together seamlessly 
  • It took about 12 years to finalize this photo
  • Narrowband image from light of ionized elements,    hydrogen = green, sulfur = red and oxygen = blue
  • Processing time for the whole panorama, way too large part of my life



Monday, February 14, 2022

Supernova remnant HB3 and the cosmic heart

 I have shot this target originally at January 14 2020 and it was the second light to my modified Tokina lens. Now I have reprocessed the data and I do like this result much better.

 new imaging system based on Tokina AT-x 300mm f2.8 camera lens.


The Heart Nebula, IC 1805
Please, click for a large image

Going very deep just in two hours! Image is in visual color palette from emission of an ionized hydrogen and oxygen. R=hydrogen, G=Oxygen and B=oxygen. I have made a starless version out of this image, it can be seen here, https://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2020/01/an-animated-heart-nebula-ic1805805-with.html



SUPERNOVA REMNANT 132.7+1.3 (HB3)
IC 1805 in visual palette
Please, click for a large image


Supernova remnant

In this photo there is a large supernova remnant, marked as a white circle. I haven't seen any photos of it before. I must take more O-III exposures to see, if I'm able to pick up any signal from this supernova remnant. 

Radio image of the area shows mostly signal from OB6


SNR 132.7+1.3 at upper right. Source and more information, http://galaxymap.org/drupal/node/103


Technical details

Processing workflow
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
Tokina AT-x 300mm f2.8 camera lens

Mount
10-micron 1000

Cameras and filters
Imaging camera Apogee Alta U16 and Apogee seven slot filter wheel
Guider camera, Lodestar x 2 and an old spotting scope of Meade LX200

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

Total exposure time
H-alpha, 12 x 600 s, binned 1x1 = 2 h
O-III, 3x 600 s, binned 1x1 = 30 min..
S-II, 2x1200 s, binned 2x2 = 40 min.

INFO About undersampling etc

The CCD I'm using has kind of large pixels, 9 microns, so I'm undersampled, the image scale is almost 5 arc seconds / pixel. Undersampling is not a bad thing when my targets are large and dim nebula complexes. This system collects photons very fast!

I selected the Heart Nebula as a target since I have plenty of reference material for it. Another reason is interesting and rarely imaged area after the bright tip of the heart. There are some remnants of a supernova explosion. I was really thrilled, when I saw the final stack of 12 600s H-alpha light frames. (Equal to 2h of exposures) I never have seen so much background nebulae and details from this popular target.
Beside 2h of H-alpha (Light from an ionized hydrogen) I shot 30 min of O-IIII (Light from an ionized Oxygen) To be able to make an image in visual palette.