Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Start of the two new projects, Barnard 30 & PuWe1 PN
Barnard 30, a dark nebula in Sh2-264, in Orion
Ra 05h 31m 42s Dec +12° 12′ 39"
A gray scale image of H-alpha emission. I'll shoot more H-a and rest of the emission lines,
needed for a color image, later.
Barnard 30 is a dark nebula at Orion's head, due the proximity of eye catchers of Orion Nebula and low surface brightness, this target is rarely imaged.
B30 is part of the very large Sharpless object in Orion's head, Sh2-264. This large nebula spans 8 degrees of sky, that's 16 full Moons side by side, whole upper part of this image is covered with Sh2-264. Above image is about three degrees wide.
B30 lies about 1300 light years from Earth, above the triangular group of stars marking the head of constellation Orion.
Latest data from a Spitzer Space Telescope indicates, that this area is a star-birth region with many low mass stars and brown dwarfs.
This image will need much more exposures, at the moment it's too dim and noisy. It'll take some time, since nights are getting shorter and I can shoot this one only two hours, before it's too low.
Processing work flow:
Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07.
Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack.
Levels, curves and color combine in PS CS3.
Equipments:
Tokina AT-X 300mm f2.8 @ f2.8
Platform and guiding, Meade LX200 GPS 12" @ f5
Camera, QHY9
Guider, Lodestar
Image Scale, 3,79 arc seconds/pixel
Exposures:
Baader H-alpha 7nm 8x1200s, binned 1x1
PuWe1, a Planetary Nebula in Lynx
Ra 06h 19m 34s Dec +55° 36′ 42"
A gray scale image of H-alpha emission. I'll shoot more H-a and rest of the emission lines,
needed for a color image, later.
Note.
I don't usually publish an image so unfinished but this time I'll like to show a new finding, least it's new to me.
I have never seen an outer halo at any image of PuWe1, there is not too many of them though.
It seems to span about 100 arc minutes, the actual circular body of nebula is about 20 arc minutes wide.
It looks like, that there is a dim brightening at right hand side of the outer halo.
I'll shoot much more lights for this later, then I can confirm, if the halo seen here is 100% real.
PuWe1, (Purgathofer-Weinberger 1, PNG 158.9 + 17.8, PK 158+17.1) is a large circular Planetary Nebula in the constellation of Lynx. It has an apparent diameter of 20' (Outer halo seems to be about 100' wide, if it's rely there) Nebula is very very faint and will need many hours more exposures for better contrast and colors.
Processing work flow:
Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07.
Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack.
Levels, curves and color combine in PS CS3.
Equipments:
Tokina AT-X 300mm f2.8 @ f2.8
Platform and guiding, Meade LX200 GPS 12" @ f5
Camera, QHY9
Guider, Lodestar
Image Scale, 3,79 arc seconds/pixel
Exposures so far:
Baader H-alpha 7nm 9x1200s, binned 1x1
More to come...
Sunday, February 27, 2011
LDN 1622 as a Stereo Pair 3D
Parallel vision 3D
Cross vision 3D
NOTE! This is a personal vision about forms and shapes, based on some known facts and an artistic impression.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
LDN1622, "Boogie Man Nebula", finalized
LDN 1622, a dark nebula in Orion
Ra 05h 55m 11s Dec +02° 00′ 00"
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.
At the same night, February 25 ,I shot rest of the lights for Sh2-216 at previous post, I was able to finalize O-III and S-II channels for LDN 1622.
Since this object stays low at here 65N, there is way too little data for a great image. I leave this as it is due the weather. While shooting data, the transparency was bad and that ate out signal very badly. Due that, no HST-palette version this time.
LDN 1622, "Boogie Man Nebula", in Orion is a silhouette of dark nebula at lower half of the image. At background, there is part of the "Parnad's Loop", a large cloud of hydrogen surrounding the nebula complex at Belt and Sword of Orion. LDN 1622 is much closer, than a more famous Orion nebulae, about 500 light years.
This target is very difficult to shoot, since it doesn't rise high, up here 65N. Maximum elevation is only about 27 degrees, at the end of the imaging session, the elevation is only 14 degrees above horizon. I actually had to stop imaging for a while, to avoid a chimney at top of the opposite building. Transparency was poor at the time the data was collected.
Processing work flow:
Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07.
Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack.
Levels, curves and color combine in PS CS3.
Equipments:
Tokina AT-X 300mm f2.8 @ f2.8
Platform and guiding, Meade LX200 GPS 12" @ f5
Camera, QHY9
Guider, Lodestar
Image Scale, 3,79 arc seconds/pixel
Exposures:
Baader H-alpha 7nm 12x1200s, binned 1x1
Baader O-III 8,5nm 6x600s, binned 2x2
Baader S-II 8nm 5x600s, binned 2x2
Friday, February 25, 2011
Sh2-216, project finalized
Sh2-216, A planetary Nebula in Perseus, the closest PN to Earth ever discovered
Ra 04h 45m 35s Dec +46° 48′ 30"
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. Total exposure time 17h
In this image, three emission lines are shown. Ionized Hydrohen (H-a) as Green, ionized Sulfur (S-II) as Red and ionized Oxygen (O-III) as Blue.
S-II region seems to be more expanded than H-a region, O-II is mainly in upper part of the PN but there is some at Right, at between the hydrogen filaments. H-a seems to be little more expanded at the Left side of the nebula, much more dimmer, than a Right side though.
This must be one of the dimmest targets I ever have shot!
I never have seen this target as a three band emission color image before, as far as I know, this must be the first! Generally there is very few images of this to compare, please, let me know, if you have seen this before as a narrowband three color image.
( Actually I have shot this one before, together with a SNR Sh2-221 back in March 2009)
( Actually I have shot this one before, together with a SNR Sh2-221 back in March 2009)
Note! There is a size of the full Moon marked, as a Gray circle, at a upper Right corner
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.
All three channels, Ha, S-II & O-III, as an animation
All three channels, Ha, S-II & O-III, as an animation
As astronomical cameras are usually gray scale CCD's, colors are made by imaging each of them separately, trough a filter. Color channels, usually three of them, are then composed to a final color image.
In this animation, used channels are shown one by one.
Processing work flow:
Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07.
Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack.
Levels, curves and color combine in PS CS3.
Equipments:
Tokina AT-X 300mm f2.8 @ f2.8
Platform and guiding, Meade LX200 GPS 12" @ f5
Camera, QHY9
Guider, Lodestar
Image Scale, 3,79 arc seconds/pixel
Exposures:
Baader H-alpha 7nm 30x1200s, binned 1x1
Baader O-III 8,5nm 17x600s, binned 2x2
Baader S-II 8nm 25x600s, binned 2x2
Total exposure time 17h
I have shot this target before, March 2009, with even wider field.
http://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2011/01/two-ways-to-end-life-planetary-nebula.html
At this image Sh2-216 can be seen with its neighbor, Sh2-221, a Supernova remnant. .
http://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2011/01/two-ways-to-end-life-planetary-nebula.html
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