Sunday, February 16, 2025
New Tool, a Powerful Dell Precision 7875 Workstation
Workstation computers from Dell are really well-built and come with excellent next-business-day onsite service. I have been using them for a couple of decades for my work. My previous workstation served me well for almost nine years—these kinds of computers do not age as fast as normal consumer PCs.
My old Dell workstation has two ten-core Xeon processors, 128GB of memory, and a decent graphics card. Since I work with 4K and 8K videos, 3D graphics, and run AI locally, my old workstation has become far too slow. It goes to my observatory computer, little overkill for telescope and camera control but works well there.
The new Dell Precision 7875 Workstation features a 96-core AMD Threadripper Pro processor (3.2 – 5.1 GHz), 512GB of RAM, and a 20GB NVIDIA RTX 4000 Ada graphics card. It comes with a standard three-year next-business-day onsite service in case anything goes wrong.
My new display is also from Dell—a 40-inch 21:9 curved Thunderbolt hub monitor with a stunning 5K resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate. The curve in the monitor is perfect for correcting perspective distortion, ensuring that straight lines remain visually straight.
I also use an Ergotron monitor arm, so no desk space is wasted, allowing me to position the large display at the optimal distance and orientation with ease
New Workstation and Display
Thursday, February 6, 2025
Pickering's Triangle, Resurrection
This is not exactly a new image of Pickering's Triangle, but it is a completely new revision of it. I have photographed this complex-looking region of the Veil Nebula supernova remnant in Cygnus multiple times over the decades. In this latest revision, I have gathered all my exposures of the target and combined them into a new, most detailed version yet.
PICKERING'S TRIANGLE RESURRECTION
Click for a full size, 2700x2300 pixels
A mapped color image from a light emitted by an ionized elements,
sulfur=red, hydrogen=green and oxygen=blue
sulfur=red, hydrogen=green and oxygen=blue
A Full Resolution Detail
Click for a full size, 2000x2000 pixels
Click for a full size, 2000x2000 pixels
Pickering's Triangle in Visual Colors
Click for a full size, 2000x2000 pixels
Visual color version of Sh2-115 glows mostly in red from a light emitted by an ionized elements,
sulfur=red, hydrogen=red and oxygen=blue, this combination is very close to a natural color palette
Pickering's Triangle in a Large Context
Click for a full size, 2500x2500 pixels
Pickering's Triangle even a Large Context in Cygnus
Click for a full size, 4000x5000 pixels (27Mb)
This massive mosaic, composed of over 300 panels and around 700 hours of exposure time, showcases the entire constellation of Cygnus, the Swan. The Veil Nebula supernova remnant, including Pickering's Triangle, is visible in the lower right area, slightly off-center. Additionally, two more supernova remnants appear in the image: G65.2+5.7 SNR in the upper right corner and W63, located slightly left of center, seen as a bluish ring formation.Link to the my blog post about this massive photo:
https://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2021/12/cygnus-mosaic-gets-large.html
Technical Info
This new revision of Pickering's Triangle has a cumulative exposure time of approximately 70 hours. I have compiled all the long focal length data I captured over the years into this single deep image. Various optical configurations and focal lengths were used during this time.
Some of the data was captured using my old MEADE LX200 GPS with a 0.63 focal reducer, a QHY9 camera, and a Baader narrowband filter set. Data from 2015 to 2023 was acquired with a Celestron EDGE HD 11" telescope, an Apogee Alta U16 camera, and an Astrodon narrowband filter set. The most recent data, captured in 2024, was taken with a Celestron EDGE HD 14" telescope, an Apogee Alta U9000M camera, and an Astrodon narrowband filter set. There is also some dimm background data shot with Tokina AT-x 300mm f2.8 camera optics.
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