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Friday, November 23, 2018

Deep photo of the North America & Pelican Nebula area


While shooting lights for my Giant Cosmic Squid project, I had to wait few hours every night to the Ou4 to be well placed in the sky. I spent those hours to shoot some frames for North America and Pelican Nebula area. I have shot many details from this area , while making my poster about Treasures of the Swan I noticed that there are many overlapping photos. I shot new material for the missing parts and finally, I was able to build a mosaic image of the area!

16-panels are now combined seamlessly to a very high resolution image. Each frame is shot three times, one exposure set for the light emitted by an ionized hydrogen (H-alpha), second set for the light emitted by an ionized sulfur (S-II) and third set for the ionized oxygen. (O-III) Total exposure time used for this image combo is just under 200h! The original resolution is around 16.000 x 16.000 pixels. Frames for this mosaic image are taken between 2014-2018 and  I have published them as an
individual compositions. 


The Grande Mosaic of the North America and Pelican Nebula
Please, click the image to see a large version, it's worth it! (2000x2000 pixels)


A 16-panel mosaic image of the NA & Pelican Nebulae. Mapped colours from the emission of ionized elements, R=Sulphur, G=Hydrogen and B=Oxygen. All photos are shot with a Celestron EDGE 11" reflecting telescope, Apogee Alta U16,a cooled astrocam and the Astrodon narrowband filter set. Photos are shot between the years 2014 and 2018, total exposure time is around 200h.



Details from the image above
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Nebula in light from an ionized hydrogen lone (H-alpha)
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Orientation
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The area of 16-panel mosaic is marked with a white rectangle to this older shot of the area.
Older photo is taken at 2012 with a Tokina AT 300 f2.8 camera lens, QHY9 astrocam and the Baader narrowband filter set.



Wednesday, November 21, 2018

Sharpless 129 and the Giant Squid



Due to my ongoing imaging project with the Giant Squid nebula (Ou4) I have about 20h of O-III data  to use. I have shot the surrounding nebula, the Sharpless 129, back at 2013. I combined the new data with the old one and here are the results.

The Giant squid and the Sharpless 129
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Mapped colours from the emission of ionized elements, R=Sulphur, G=Hydrogen and B=Oxygen.


The IC 1396, Giant squid and Sharpless 129
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Mapped colours from the emission of ionized elements, R=Sulphur, G=Hydrogen and B=Oxygen.


The Giant squid and the Sharpless 129 in visual colors
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Natural color scheme from the emission of an ionized elements, H-a, S-II and O-III


Data for the old image of Sh2-129 can been HERE



Tuesday, November 20, 2018

A Giant Squid, Ou4, a start of the new imaging project



I have planned to shoot this very dim nebua for a long time. So far I have collected ~20h of light emitted by an ionized oxygen (O-III). I'll shoot more exposures for this object in near future, if the weather gives any support.

The Celestron Edge 11" telescope with a 0.7 focal reducer has a perfect field of view for this object. This combo delivers a very high quality image from edge to edge. The Apogee U16 can be very challenging to have a good orthogonality and collimation with it, due to very large CCD-shell. 


Ou4 in light of an ionized oxygen only
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20h of O-III expoures with the Apogee U16 astro camera and Astrodon 3nm O-III filter.
Telescope, Celestron Edge 11"



An experimental starless version
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Only the central star is visible in this experimental starless photo.


This object is dim to extreme

I shit this object at several night between 1. and 18. November. Total 60 frames of 20 min. exposures,
all binned down 4x4. (Total 20h of O-III signal) By this way I can have  16 times more signal  than by using 1x1 binned exposures. I will shoot 1x1 binned high resolution exposures later for stars and some high signal to noise features and details in the area. 

A single 20 min. calibrated and stretched O-III exposure 
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Image is divided with a bias corrected flat frame and subtracted with master dark. Even after a heavy nonlinear stretching, very little of O-III signal can be seen in a single light frame.


INFO

Very faint but also very large on planet Earth's sky, a giant Squid Nebula cataloged as Ou4 is composed out of 20 hours of narrowband O-III image data. The telescopic field of view is 1 degrees or 2 Full Moons across. Discovered in 2011 by French astro-imager Nicolas Outters, the Squid Nebula's alluring bipolar shape is distinguished here by the telltale blue-green emission from doubly ionized oxygen atoms. The true distance and nature of the Squid Nebula have been difficult to determine. Still, a recent investigation suggests Ou4 really does lie within Sh2-129 some 2,300 light-years away. Consistent with that scenario, Ou4 would represent a spectacular outflow driven by HR8119, a triple system of hot, massive stars seen near the center of the nebula. The truly giant Squid Nebula would physically be nearly 50 light-years across.

Source, Nasa APOD


The scale in the sky and the orientation in a constellation Cepheus
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Sunday, November 18, 2018

Treasures of the Swan


I made a poster format collection out of my photos from constellation Cygnus, the Swan.
This area of sky is full of wonders, emission nebulae, supernova remnants, planetary nebulae, complex networks of dark nebulae and many other objects and cosmic phenomenon. I think I can spend rest of my life by shooting this nebula complex, it's a source of never ending wonders and visual treasures.


Treasures of Cygnus
Please, click the image to see a large version, it's worth it!
(3300 x 5500 pixels)

A location for each photo is marked at the large mosaic image of constellation Cygnus at center.



Image info


At center of the poster there is a large mosaic image of constellation Cygnus. I publish this 18-panels narrow band mosaic image at 2011.

  1. The Tulip nebula (APOD), https://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2014/10/tulip-nebula-finalized-project.html
  2. Clouds of Swanhttps://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2018/10/clouds-of-swan.html
  3. The Crescent nebula (APOD), https://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2011/01/ngc-6888-crescent-nebula-reprocessed.html
  4. Dark filaments of Cygnushttps://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2016/11/a-detail-photo-of-dark-filaments-in.html
  5. The Pelican nebulahttps://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2014/10/first-light-image-for-my-new.html
  6. The Great Wall of Cygnushttps://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2016/12/a-panoramic-view-to-north-america-nebula.html
  7. Dark Filaments of Cygnushttps://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2016/12/dark-filaments-in-cygnus-project.html
  8. NGC 7000 detailshttps://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2016/11/a-little-different-view-to-north.html
  9. Sharpless 119https://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2017/12/sharpless-119-in-cygnus-project.html
  10. Filaments of Cygnushttps://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2015/10/filaments-of-cygnus-project-continues.html
  11. Filaments of Cygnushttps://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2015/10/filaments-of-western-cygnus.html
  12. Sharpless 115https://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2014/11/sharpless-115-and-planetary-nebula.html
  13. Sharpless 112https://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2015/10/sharpless-112-sh2-112-in-cygnus.html
  14. Filaments of Cygnushttps://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2015/11/filaments-of-cygnus.html
  15. The Propeller Nebulahttps://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2014/11/dwb-111-propeller-nebula.html
  16. Cygnus Shell, W63, (APOD)  https://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2018/10/a-very-rare-photo-cygnus-shell.html
  17. LBN 251, 239 and IC 1311, https://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2018/10/this-new-photos-shows-lbn-251-and.html
  18. PN PM 1-320, https://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2015/11/more-filaments-of-cygnus-and-couple-of.html
  19. LBN 243https://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2018/11/lbn-243.html
  20. W 134https://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2017/11/wr-134-ring-nebula-area-as-mosaic-image.html
  21. The Central Cygnus, https://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2017/01/bright-nebulae-of-central-cygnus-eleven.html
  22. Pelican nebula panoramahttps://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2018/11/pelican-nebula-panorama.html
  23. Dark Clouds of Cygnushttps://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2018/11/dark-clouds-of-cygnus.html
  24. The Great Wall of Cygnus panoramahttps://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2018/11/panoramic-photo-of-great-wall-of-cygnus.html