Astro Anarchy

Thursday, February 10, 2011

IC 1848, the "Soul Nebula"

IC 1848, the "Soul Nebula"

Ra 02^h 51^m 36.24^s Dec +60° 26′ 53.9"

Image is in HST-palette, (HST=Hubble Space Telescope)

from the emission of ionized elements, R=Sulfur, G=Hydrogen and B=Oxygen.

Star colors are mixed from the NB channels, Red=H-a, G=O-III and B= 85%O-III + 15%H-a.

It was clear last night for a while. I have shot lots of longer focal length images at last couple of winters.

This time I used a Tokina AT-x 300mm camera lens at full aperture, f2.8, coupled with a QHY9 astronomical camera. This lens delivers image with a spatial resolution of 3,83 arc seconds/pixel and the field of field is

213' x 159' (3,55 x 2,65 degrees). There is now a QHY filter wheel attached, focusing is done by the FocuMax software and a DIY focusing mechanism for camera lenses. Image of it can be seen here:

http://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2008/09/new-equipmets-and-some-development-work.html

I had lots of problem with this image. First of all, the CCD was not perfectly perpendicular to an optical axle,

I'll fix that tonight. Secondly my old Meade has some looseness in Ra mechanism, I think it's simply worn out, guiding was very jumpy due that.

Soul Nebula, (Sh2-199, LBN 667) is an emission nebula in constellation Cassiopeia. IC 1848 is a cluster inside Soul Nebula. Distance is about 7.500 light years. This complex is a Eastern neighbor of IC 1805, the "Heart Nebula" and they are often mentioned together as Heart and Soul.

Here is an older image, showing both objects:

http://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2011/01/two-reprocessed-objects-rosette-and.html

Colors for this new image are taken from this older image.

Processing work flow:

Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07.

Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack.

Deconvolution with a CCDSharp, 20 iteration, added at 50% weight.

Levels, curves and color combine in PS CS3.

Equipments:

Tokina AT-a 300mm f2.8 @ f2.8

Platform and guiding, Meade LX200 GPS 12" @ f5

Camera, QHY9

Guider, Lodestar

Image Scale, 3,83 arcseconds/pixel

Exposures:

Baader H-alpha 7nm 11x1200s, binned 1x1

Other channels are from older image:

http://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2008/09/new-equipmets-and-some-development-work.html

An image showing the size of this object compared to a full Moon.

(Full moon has a diameter of 30', that's 0,5 degrees)

Two older closeup images of the Soul Nebula.

http://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2009/11/soul-nebula-closeup-finalized.html

http://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2010/03/soul-nebula-closeup.html

Monday, February 7, 2011

A Supernova Remnant poster

A collection of Supernova remnants in scale

Note! There is now an image of a full Moon as a scale.

I made this poster to show relative sizes of the Supernova remnants. All SNR's in this poster are in same scale.

A full size image, or if an image is smaller, an image holder( dark gray), covers 259' horizontally (4,3 degrees)

NOTE, there are zoomed versions from M1 and IC 443, they are not in scale, the smaller versions of them are in scale with rest of the images.

Images are in HST-palette, mixed from the emission of ionized elements, Sulfur, Hydrogen Oxygen, by a a following method:

Red = S-II, Green = H-alpha and Blue = O-III

All images are shot from my urban observatory in very centrum of city Oulu, Finland. There is two zoomed versions of images in the poster, first one is M1, the "Crab Nebula" and the second one is IC 443, the "Jellyfish Nebula". Specially the M1 has so much smaller angular diameter, that it has to be scaled up, in this scale, to see any details.

A supernova remnant (SNR) is the structure resulting from the gigantic explosion of a star.

The supernova remnant is an expanding shock wave and consists of ejected material expanding from the explosion.
There are two possible routes to a supernova:

1. A massive star may run out of fuel and collapsing inward under the force of its own gravity to form a neutron star or a black hole.

2. A white dwarf star accumulate material from a companion star until it reaches a critical mass and undergoes a thermonuclear explosion.

Images, from top Left to a bottom Right

Click thumbnails for large images, technical data behind links

Simeis 147 aka Sh2-240:

http://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2011/01/reprocessed-supernova-remnants.html (scroll down a bit)

Sh2-223, 224 & 225:

http://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2011/01/reprocessed-supernova-remnants.html

Veil Nebula;

http://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2011/01/supernova-remnant-veil-nebula.html

M1, the "Crab Nebula":

http://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2010/03/m1-crab-nebula-finalized.html

IC 443, the "Jellyfish Nebula":

http://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2011/01/ic-443-reprocessed-closeup-and-wide.html

Friday, February 4, 2011

A Planetary Nebula poster

Note! There is now a Gray circle, size of the full Moon, as a scale.

I made this poster to show and understand relative sizes of the nebulae. All Planetary Nebulae in this image are in same scale. Each individual image covers an area of 20' horizontally. (~0,3 degrees) and

they are in "natural" colors, mixed from the narrowband channels. By a following method:

Natural color composition from the emission of ionized elements, R=80%Hydrogen+20%Sulfur, G=100%Oxygen and B=85%Oxygen+15%Hydrogen to compensate otherwise missing H-beta emission. This composition is very close to a visual spectrum.
I have made a similar poster out of supernova remnants as well, you can see it from here:http://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2011/02/supernova-remnant-poster.html

All images, expect NGC 6302 (Bug Nebula), are shot from my urban observatory in very centrum of city Oulu. NGC 6302 was shot with a remote telescope, 16" RCOS, from Australia.

All of the images are Planetary Nebulae.
Planetary nebulae are shells of gas, shed by stars late in their life cycles after using up all of their nuclear fuel. The gas is illuminated and ionized by its extremely hot central star, a core left from the original star.
Our own star, the Sun, is expected to undergo the same process in a couple of billion years.

Images, from top Left to a bottom Right
Click thumbnails for large images, technical data behind links

M27, the "Dumbbell Nebula":

http://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2011/02/m27-dumbbell-nebula-reprocessed.html