Friday, December 7, 2012
From the bottom of my Soul
New imaging project, IC 1848, the Soul Nebula. This season I have worked with a longer focal length instrument, my old Meade LX200 12". This image shows a detail from a much large Nebula complex.
Soul Nebula detail
In constellation Cassiopeia
Image in Mapped colors, Red=S-II, Green=H-alpha and Blue=O-III
Click for a large image.
Soul Nebula (Sharpless 2-199, LBN 667) is emission nebulae in Cassiopeia at a distance of 7500 light years. The object is more commonly called by the cluster designation IC1848.
This complex is the eastern neighbor of IC1805 (Heart Nebula) and the two are often mentioned together as the "Heart and Soul".
Image in visual colors, combined from light emitted by the ionized elements, H-a, S-III and O-III
Click for a large image.
A mosaic
I have shot an other detail from this nebula complex back in 2009. This new and older detail are overlapping, so I was able to do a two frame mosaic out of them.
A two frame mosaic of the Soul Nebula in mapped colors.
Click for a large image.
Mosaic in visual colors.
Click for a large image.
Soul Nebula in wide field format
Area of interest is marked as a white rectangle. More info about this image HERE.
Click for a large image.
Image is showing both, the Heart and the Soul Nebulae. More info about this image in HERE.
Click for a large image.
Technical details:
Processing work flow:
Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07.
Stacked and calibrated 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 8Hz
Image Scale, ~0,8 arc-seconds/pixel
24x 1200s exposures for the H-alpha, emission of ionized Hydrogen = 8h
Narrowband cahnnels for ionized Oxygen and Sulfur are taken from an older wide field image seen above.
Melotte 15, a closeup
I published the imaging project of Melotte 15 few days ago. This time I made a closeup images out of the same material.
The heart of the Heart, Mel 15
Image is in visual colors, combined from light emitted by the ionized elements, H-a, S-III and O-III
Click for a large image.
The interesting structure in the center of the image is a giant area of hydrogen gas that is caused to glow by the intense ultraviolet radiation from the massive stars of the Melotte 15 star cluster.
Dust and gas clouds are twisted by the pressure of the intense radiation, the solar wind.
This formation is estimated to be 7,500 light years away from Earth, North is up.
Image in Mapped colors, Red=S-II, Green=H-alpha and Blue=O-III
Click for a large image.
Orientation in IC 1805, the Heart Nebula
The area of interest is marked as a white rectangle.
A 100% closeup
Not a bad resolution for an old Meade LX200 12" telescope. Seeing wasn't very good at the time, FWHM varied between 3,5 to 4,5. A light, 50% weighted deconvolution was added to stacked image, it lowered the FWHM value down to ~2.9
Technical details:
Processing work flow:
Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07.
Stacked and calibrated 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 8Hz
Image Scale, ~0,8 arc-seconds/pixel
45 x 1200s exposures for the H-alpha, emission of ionized Hydrogen = 15h
Narrowband cahnnels for ionized Oxygen and Sulfur are taken from an older wide field image seen above.
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Sharpless 112 (Sh2-112)
Yesterday, before the clouds rolled in, I got four hours of light emitted by the ionized hydrogen (H-alpha) for this target. I started this project back in 2010 but for some reason never finalized it. Total exposure time is now nine hours.
Sharpless 112
An emission nebula in constellation Cygnus
Sharpless 112 is an emission nebula in Cygnus at distance ~5500 light years.
Not a very bright one, there are lots of dim background nebulosity but my 7h of exposures for H-a is not enough to show it well.
Image in mapped colors from the light emitted by ionized elements.
Red=Sulfur, Green=Hydrogen and Blue=Oxygen.
Technical details:
Processing work flow:
Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07.
Stacked and calibrated 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 8Hz
Image Scale, ~0,8 arc-seconds/pixel
21 x 1200s exposures for the H-alpha, emission of ionized Hydrogen = 7h
3 x 1200s exposures for the O-III, emission of ionized Oxygen = 1h
3 x 1200s exposures for the S-II, emission of ionized Sulfur = 1h
Monday, December 3, 2012
Melotte 15 in IC 1805, project finalized
After struggling several nights with malfunctioning devices, in freezing -20 centigrade wind, I managed to collect enough data to finalize my Melotte 15 project. (I did lost skin from my finger tips, while fixing various problems out there...)
The heart of the Heart
Melotte 15 (Mel 15) Total exposures 45x1200s = 15h
Be sure to click for a full size image!
Buy a photographic print from HERE
Buy a photographic print from HERE
The interesting structure in the center of the image is a giant area of hydrogen gas that is caused to glow by the intense ultraviolet radiation from the massive stars of the Melotte 15 star cluster.
Dust and gas clouds are twisted by the pressure of the intense radiation, the solar wind.
This formation is estimated to be 7,500 light years away from Earth, North is up.
An experimental starless image to show the actual nebula better.
A closeup of Melotte 15 in mapped colors
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.
Buy a photographic print from HERE
A two frame panorama of IC 1805 and Mel 15
A two frame panorama of IC 1805 and Melotte 15.
Be sure to click for a full size image!
Orientation of the mosaic in the IC 1805
Buy a photographic print from HERE
Technical details:
Processing work flow:
Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07.
Stacked and calibrated 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 8Hz
Image Scale, ~0,8 arc-seconds/pixel
45 x 1200s exposures for the H-alpha, emission of ionized Hydrogen = 15h
Narrowband cahnnels for ionized Oxygen and Sulfur are taken from an older wide field image seen above.
Ps.
Here is the panoramic image in visual colors from the narrowband data.
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.
Buy a photographic print from HERE
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