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Sunday, October 20, 2013

A rarely imaged object, the Sharpless106, Sh2-106


Sh2-106, The Hourglass nebula, an emission nebula in Cygnus
Ra 20h 27m Dec +37° 22′

Image is in Natural color palette from the emission of ionized elements,
R=Hydrogen + Sulfur, G=Oxygen and B=Oxygen + Hydrogen.
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A closeup




INFO

There are not too many images around about this little fellow.
Sharpless 106, the Hourglass Nebula, locates in constellation Cygnus approximately at distance of 2000 light years. This is kind of a small object, an apparent size is about four arc minutes (Moon is about 30 arc minutes.) There is a young star at the center of the nebula, S106IR. The solar vind, a radiation pressure, from the young star is responsible for the gas cloud's hourglass like shape. 

I think, there is a hint of the outer shock front visible in my image. It locates symmetrically at both side of the central nebula .

Image in mapped colors

Image is in mapped colors, from the emission of ionized elements, R=Sulfur, G=Hydrogen and B=Oxygen.
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Technical details

Processing work flow:
Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07.
Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack2.
A light, 33 iterations, deconvolution added at 50% weight in CCDStack2.
Levels, curves and color combine in PS CS3.

Optics, Meade LX200 GPS 12" @ f5
Camera, QHY9
Guiding, SXV-AO, an active optics unit, and Lodestar guide camera
Image Scale, ~0,8 arc-seconds/pixel
15 x 1200s exposures for H-alpha emission
3x1200s exposures for the O-III
3x1200 exposures for the S-II
Total 7h of exposures


Friday, October 18, 2013

The second image of the Autumn season 2013. Sharpless 132




Sh2-132, an emission nebula in Cepheus
Ra 22h 19m 20s Dec +56° 06′ 00"

Image is in mapped colors, from the emission of ionized elements, R=Sulfur, G=Hydrogen and B=Oxygen.
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A starless version

An experimental starless image to show the actual nebula better.
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INFO

Sharpless 132 is a very faint emission nebula, it locates at the border of Cepheus and Lacerta. Distance is about 10.000 light years. This image covers about 210' x 160', that's about 3,5 x 2,7 degrees. Resolution is 3,79 arc seconds/pixel.
In this final version, a strong O-III area is visible as a Blue color in both color palettes. There is some S-II in the area too but it's weak.

Image in visual colors

Image is in Natural color palette from the emission of ionized elements,
R=Hydrogen + Sulfur, G=Oxygen and B=Oxygen + Hydrogen.
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A wide filed image of the Sh2-132
A blogpost about this older image of mine can be found HERE.

Image is shot with a Tokina AT-X camera lens,  QHY9 , a cooled astronomical camera, and the Baader narrowband filters. O-III and S-II channels from this image are used for new images colors.
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Technical details

Processing work flow:
Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07.
Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack2.
A light, 33 iterations, deconvolution added at 50% weight in CCDStack2.
Levels, curves and color combine in PS CS3.

Optics, Meade LX200 GPS 12" @ f5
Camera, QHY9
Guiding, SXV-AO, an active optics unit, and Lodestar guide camera
Image Scale, ~0,8 arc-seconds/pixel
12 x 1200s exposures for H-alpha emission = 4h.
O-III and S-II channels are from an older wide field image.





Tuesday, October 15, 2013

First light for the Autumn Season 2013, NGC 6992



In this year it took some time to have a real first light for the season due to the weather up here 65N.
Image is exposed during several nights, 13.09 - 14.10,  between the speeding clouds.


NGC 6992
A portion of the Eastern Veil in constellation Cygnus.

Image is in mapped colors, from the emission of ionized elements, R=Sulfur, G=Hydrogen and B=Oxygen.
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INFO

NGC 6992, the Eastern Veil, is part of the Veil Nebula, a supernova remnant in constellation Cygnus at distance of about 1470 light years. This is one of the more luminous areas in this SNR. 
The shock front formed by the material ejected from giant explosion, the super nova, can be seen in this image.

Image in visual spectrum

Image is in Natural color palette from the emission of ionized elements,
R=Hydrogen + Sulfur, G=Oxygen and B=Oxygen + Hydrogen.
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A starless version

An experimetal starless image to show the actual nebula better.
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Orientation

Location in Veil Nebula supernova remnant is marked with a white rectangle.
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An animated image

This animation shows the difference between emission lines. The target is shot three times for a RGB-color image.

Technical details

Processing work flow:
Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07.
Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack2.
A light, 33 iterations, deconvolution added at 50% weight in CCDStack2.
Levels, curves and color combine in PS CS3.

Optics, Meade LX200 GPS 12" @ f5
Camera, QHY9
Guiding, SXV-AO, an active optics unit, and Lodestar guide camera
Image Scale, ~0,8 arc-seconds/pixel
12 x 1200s exposures for H-alpha emission = 4h
18x 1200s exposures for O-III, emission of ionized Oxygen = 6h
12 x 1200s exposures for S-II, emission of ionized Sulfur = 4h
Total exposure time 14h.


Ps.

A collection of Veil Nebula details from the past
A blog post about this poster and links to an original images can be found HERE

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Saturday, October 12, 2013

Visions XIII



VISIONS XIII

One of my artworks based on an original astronomical photograph shot by me.
Image belongs to a large series of unpublished images called  Visions.


Note. Image is manipulated but all the elements in it are from a real astronomical object.

Click for a large image
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An original astronomical image used for the artwork above


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Technical details and more images in this blog post