Saturday, March 23, 2013
Melotte 15 panorama, reprocessed
One of my favorite images from this winter season is a two frame mosaic of the Melotte 15 area in IC 1805, the Heart Nebula. There wasn't actually anything wrong in my first version but I wanted to reprocess the data to see, if I'm able to give somehow a more fresh outlook to the image, specially the color scheme.
The heart of the Heart
Melotte 15 in IC 1805
Melotte 15 in mapped colors, be sure to click for a large image!
closeups
INFO
The open cluster centered in this image is known as Melotte 15 . Melotte 15 is embedded within a central portion of the much larger glowing nebula identified as IC 1805.
An interesting structure, at 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 violent radiation, the solar wind.
This formation is estimated to be 7,500 light years away from Earth, North is up.
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 of mine.
Some of my images showing the IC 1805 area
Previous version of the image above:
http://astroanarchy.blogspot.fi/2012/12/melotte-15-in-ic-1805-project-finalized.html
Some of my images showing the IC 1805 area
Previous version of the image above:
http://astroanarchy.blogspot.fi/2012/12/melotte-15-in-ic-1805-project-finalized.html
A collection of IC 1805 details:
An other panoramic mosaic of the IC 1805 area:
A closeup of IC 1805:
A two frame mosaic in visual colors:
A wide field shot of the IC 1805 and IC 1848:
A study about an apparent scale in the sky:
An other detail image of IC 1805:
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Sharpless 261, the "Lower's Nebula"
This starts to be my final images for this season. We'll be out of an astronomical darkness in couple of weeks, up here 65N.
Difficult target just above the Orion, I have spent three night trying to collect enough photons to have a nice image. Sh2-261 doesn't rise very high up here, so I have only around three hours per night to shoot this.
I manged to collect five hours of H-a light and six hours UHCs-filtered colors. 11h total exposure time is not too much for this object.
Sharpless 261 (Sh2-261) , the Lower's Nebula
Image is in visual spectrum and dominated by the red light emitted by ionized Hydrogen, H-alpha. Blueish hues are from ionized Oxygen, O-III. Colors are shot simultaneously with H-a emission by using QHY8 color camera, Tokina AT-X 300mm f2.8 camera lens and Baader UHCs-filter.
INFO
SH2-261, or Lower's Nebula, is a Hydrogen Alpha emission region located in the upper area of Orion, near the Gemini constellation. Image covers about a same area as a full Moon. There is no information about the distance of this hydrogen cloud, so we are not able to determine how large it is.
The nebula is named after amateur astronomers Harold Lower and his son Charles, who discovered this nebula in 1939 from a picture taken with their homemade 8 inch, f/1 Schmidt camera.
Image in Hydrogen alpha light alone
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 7Hz
Image Scale, ~0,8 arc-seconds/pixel
15 x 1200s exposures for the H-alpha, emission of ionized Hydrogen = 5h
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Color exposures with QHY8 single shot color camera
36x600s exposures with UHC-sfilter = 6h
36x600s exposures with UHC-sfilter = 6h
Friday, March 15, 2013
Rosette Nebula, a closeup, part II
I have combined the new Rosette data to an old one, from the year 2010.
New image has little different colors and much tighter stars. The natural color image, more or less red, is done by combining colors from wider field Rosette image to a closeup. Wide field image used is shot with Tokina 300mm f2.8 camera optics, UHC-s-filter and the QHY8 color camera. UHCs-filter from Baader delivers natural colors to the Nebula and stars. UHCs-data is shot simultaneously with new image of H-a emission.
Rosette Nebula & a star cluster NGC 2239
Ra 06h 33m 45s Dec +04° 59′ 54″
Image is in visual spectrum and dominated by the red light emitted by ionized Hydrogen, H-alpha. Blueish hues are from ionized Oxygen, O-III. Colors are shot simultaneously with H-a emission by using QHY8 color camera, Tokina AT-X 300mm f2.8 camera lens and Baader UHCs-filter.
¨
A new data alone
Image is in visual spectrum and dominated by the red light emitted by ionized Hydrogen, H-alpha. Blueish hues are from ionized Oxygen, O-III. Colors are shot simultaneously with H-a emission by using QHY8 color camera, Tokina AT-X 300mm f2.8 camera lens and Baader UHCs-filter.
A leaping Puma
A detail, from the image above, looks like a leaping puma!
INFO
The Rosette Nebula (also known as Caldwell 49) is a large, circular H II region located near one end of a giant molecular cloud in the Monoceros. The open cluster NGC 2244(Caldwell 50) is closely associated with the nebulosity, the stars of the cluster having been formed from the nebula's matter. The cluster and nebula locates at a distance of about 5,200 light years from Earth. The diameter is about 130 light years.
The radiation from the young stars ionized the atoms in the nebula, causing them to emit light, typical to each element, producing the visible nebula. Stellar winds, radiation pressure, from a group of stars cause compression to the interstellar clouds, followed by star formation in the nebula. This star formation is currently still ongoing.
Rosette closeup in mapped colors
from narrowband channels
Image is in mapped colors from the emission of ionized elements, R=Sulfur, G=Hydrogen and B=Oxygen.
A new data alone
Image is in mapped colors from the emission of ionized elements, R=Sulfur, G=Hydrogen and B=Oxygen.
A wide field image of the Rosette Nebula
Image is in mapped colors from the emission of ionized elements, R=Sulfur, G=Hydrogen and B=Oxygen.
Blog post about the image with technical data:
A study about an apparent scale
Click for a large image!
Note. A moon size circle in the images as a scale. (Moon has an apparent size of 0.5 degrees, that's equal to 30 arc minutes)
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 11Hz
Image Scale, ~0,8 arc-seconds/pixel
13 x 1200s exposures for the H-alpha, emission of ionized Hydrogen = 4h 20min.
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Data from 2010
H-alpha 13x1200s, binned 1x1
Colors are taken from my older wide field image, for a mapped color composition, and new UHCs-filtered image, for a visual color composition.
emission.
UHCs-filtered image
Shot for color information
This image is used just for the color information. Only 20min. of exposures.
Tokina 300mm f2.8 camera optics, UHC-s-filter and the QHY8 color camera. UHCs-filter from Baader delivers natural colors to the Nebula and stars. UHCs-data is shot simultaneously with new image of H-a emission.
Monday, March 11, 2013
Rosette Nebula, a closeup
The weather up here 65N hasn't been very cooperative. My latest image, the Rosette Nebula, has taken during four different nights, about an hour at the time, before the clouds rolled in. Images are shot at 20.02, 25.02, 07.03 and 08.03. 2013.
I shot just H-alpha channel, other two channels, S-II and O-III are from an older wide field image of the same target.
"Rosette Nebula"
Ra 06h 33m 45s Dec +04° 59′ 54″
Image is in mapped colors from the emission of ionized elements, R=Sulfur, G=Hydrogen and B=Oxygen.
INFO
The Rosette Nebula (also known as Caldwell 49) is a large, circular H II region located near one end of a giant molecular cloud in the Monoceros. The open cluster NGC 2244(Caldwell 50) is closely associated with the nebulosity, the stars of the cluster having been formed from the nebula's matter. The cluster and nebula locates at a distance of about 5,200 light years from Earth. The diameter is about 130 light years.
The radiation from the young stars ionized the atoms in the nebula, causing them to emit light, typical to each element, producing the visible nebula. Stellar winds, radiation pressure, from a group of stars cause compression to the interstellar clouds, followed by star formation in the nebula. This star formation is currently still ongoing.
Natural colors
from narrowband channels
Image is in visual spectrum and dominated by the red light emitted by ionized Hydrogen, H-alpha. Blueish hues are from ionized Oxygen, O-III.
A wide field image
A wide field image of the Rosette Nebula in visual colors, taken with the Tokina AT-X 300mm f2.8 camera lens and the cooled astronomical camera, QHY9.
Blog post about the image with technical data:
A study about an apparent scale
Click for a large image!
Note. A moon size circle in the images as a scale. (Moon has an apparent size of 0.5 degrees, that's equal to 30 arc minutes)
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 11Hz
Image Scale, ~0,8 arc-seconds/pixel
13 x 1200s exposures for the H-alpha, emission of ionized Hydrogen = 4h 20min.
Colors are taken from my older wide field image
A single unprocessed 1200 second frame of H-a emission
A single 20 min. frame, just calibrated and nonlinear stretched to visible.
Imaged with the QHY9 camera, Baader 7nm H-alpha filter and Meade LX200 12" telescope.
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