Tuesday, October 15, 2024
WR 134, The Rising Phoenix
This is the second light for my new imaging setup, the first light image can be seen HERE
For years I have wanted to shoot a long focal length photo of this amazing mass ejecting star in constellation Cygnus, the Swan. Past five years I have done short focal length imaging with camera optics, now it's time to get closer.
I spent several clear nights to capture light emitted by an ionized elements in this gas formation. (H-alpha, S-II and O-III) For compositional reasons I ended up to a two panel mosaic image. Total exposure time is 23h.
When processing the final image I couldn't be noticing how much this formation looked like a mystical creature, the Phoenix Bird. I rarely use any other than official catalog numbers as a name of my photos but this time I simply had to name this composition to "Rising Phoenix".
When art meets science, the results can be beautiful. It can become something more than either of them on their own can ever be.
WR 134 as a Rising Phoenix
Click for a large image, 2500x1300 pixels photo shows the WR 134 like never seen before.
The photo is in mapped colors from an ionized elements, H-alpha=green, S-II=red and O-III=blue
Original resolution is 12.000 x 7000 pixels
A Closer Look
Click for a large image
RISING PHOENIX PAREIDOLIA
Click for a large image
This image shows how I see the Phoenix Bird in this image
Info about the WR 134
WR 134 is a variable Wolf-Rayet star located around 6,000 light years away from us in the constellation of Cygnus. It's surrounded by a faint bubble of glowing ionized oxygen, blown out by the intense radiation and fast solar wind from the star. The star has five times the radius of the sun and it's 400,000 times more luminous.
My Wide Field Photo of the Area
Click for a large image, ~2500x2000 pixels
WR 134 can be seen just up left from the center, at right from the middle lays the Tulip Nebula,
Sh2-101. I took this narrowband photo with Tokina AT-X 300mm f2.8 camera lens @ full open.
The camera was a Apogee Alta U16 with an Astrodon narrowband filter set, exposure time around 10h. This is a one frame image.
This photo is a part of very large mosaic image,
can you find the WR 134 from THIS massive panorama of Northern Milky Way
WR 134, the Rising Phoenix in visual spectrum
Click for a large image, ~2500x1300 pixels
The photo is in visual colors from an ionized elements, H-alpha=red, S-II=red and O-III=blue
A Starless Image of WR 134 Animated
Click for a large image
An Animation about emission layers
Click for a large image
Click for a large image
In this animation the blue O-III channel can be seen alone without other two emission lines in image, H-alpha and S-II, and in a last frame, without other stars but WR134 visible
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 23h
H-alpha, 15 x 1200 s, binned 1x1 = 5 h
O-III, 45x 1200 s, binned 1x1 = 15h
S-II, 9 x 1200 s. binned 2x2 = 3h
A single full scale 20 min O-III exposure
Click for a full scale image.
This is a dim target, 1200s O-III exposure doesn't show much about the O-III formation around the star WR 134.
This is one of the test shots after the collimation procedure. Exposure time is 1200s with 3nm O-III filter. Image is calibrated with Dark Frame and Bias corrected Flat Frame. Target is WR 134 in Cygnus. Stars are pinpoint from corner to corner. Optical analysis of this frame can be found at end of THIS blogpost
PS,
Terminator Arrives from the Future
My wife saw the new photo and pointed out that the blue formation looks like an electric bubble from time traveling as seen in a Terminator movies.
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