Wednesday, March 7, 2012
A four panel panoramic mosaic of Auriga, IC 405 & 410
This image shows a wider field view to Auriga Nebulae, IC 405 and 410.
Also Sharpless 232, Sh2-232, IC 417, Messier 38 and NGC 1907 are seen in the image.
Image is composed from four panels and covers about nine degrees horizontally, that's equal to area of 18 full Moons side by side in the sky. There are not many images around to show the whole nebula complex.
IC 405 & 410
In constellation Auriga
HST-palette, from the emission of ionized elements,
R=Sulfur, G=Hydrogen and B=Oxygen.
An older study about the scale in a sky can be seen here:
mage is in Natural color palette from the emission of ionized elements,
R=Hydrogen + Sulfur, G=Oxygen and B=Oxygen + Hydrogen.
An animated image to show the nebula with and without stars.
Click to see an animation
Click to see an animation
Mosaic image is build around this one frame image
http://www.astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2011/11/ic405-410.html
Technical details:
Processing work flow:
Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07.
Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack2.
Levels, curves and color combine in PS CS3.
Optics, Canon EF 200mm camera lens at f1.8
Camera, QHY9
Guiding, Meade LX200 GPS 12" and a Lodestar guider
Image Scale, ~5 arcseconds/pixel
Total exposure time for all channels (H-a, O-III and S-II) about 10 hours.
A map
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Siemis 147, the scale in a sky
"How much your telescope magnified?"
This HST-palette zoom in series has a "Moon circle" as a scale, to demonstrate the angular scale in a sky.
People generally seems to have a false idea, that high magnification is needed to capture deep space images.
In fact, many times it's quite contrary, targets are so large, that I have difficulties to fit them in my instruments field of view. Sample image here, Simeis 147, is shot with 200mm camera optics and it barely fits in image area.
Much more important, than magnification, is the light gathering power = aperture.
High magnification is needed for planetary imaging and some small angular size objects, like planetary nebulae and small galaxies.
I have placed a white circle in image series below, to show the angular size of the full Moon in the sky.
Moon has an apparent diameter ~30 arc minutes, that's equal to 0,5 degrees.
At first panoramic image at the Left three main objects are seen. At bottom lays IC 405 and IC 410, at top Siemis 147 (Sharpless 240, Sh2-240)
Original images used for the zoom in series, with technical data
Simeis 147:
IC 405 & 410:
A large collection of my scale studies can be found here:
Friday, February 24, 2012
Astro Anarchy gets published, again...
SPACE PICTURE OF THE WEEK, second in row...
National Geographic published my picture of Simeis 147, the "Expansive Nebula", as one of the Space pictures of the Week, Today 24.02. Actually this is a second one in two weeks, I'm kind of shocked...
Here is the link to a National Georaphic news:
Simeis 147, Sharpless 240 (Sh2-240)
In constellation Taurus
Image is in mapped colors, from the emission of ionized elements, R=Sulfur, G=Hydrogen and B=Oxygen.
Original blog post for this image, with technical details, can be seen here:
A closeup
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Astro Anarchy gets published
SPACE PICTURE OF THE WEEK
National Geographic published my picture of Ced 214, the "Cosmic Curiosity", as one of the Space pictures of the Week, yesterday 17.02.
Here is the link to a National Georaphic news:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/02/pictures/120217-best-space-pictures-183-sun-saturn-moons-science/#/space183-question-mark-nebula_48869_600x450.jpg 
Original blog post for this image, with technical details, can be seen here:
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