Friday, May 9, 2014
Simeis 147 supernova remnant in Taurus, with and without stars
Now and then I'm publishing some experimental material of mine. This time I made an animated image about Simeis 147 SNR in Taurus. In this animation, the supernova remnant can be seen with and without stars. Human brains has a tendency to form quasi shapes from a random cloud of dots, like stars in this case. This is a very effective method to show the actual nebula and its details.
I'm planning to use the star removal procedure to hunt down some old and very diffused planetary nebulae, located at a dense star field in the Milky Way. They might have a very large angular dimensions and the surface brightness is extremely low. Due to that, they get easily buried under a dense star field.
Simeis 147 (Sh2-240)
Stars vs Starless
Buy a photographic print from HERE
Buy a photographic print from HERE
Original image of the Simeis 147
More images and the technical details can be seen here:
PS.
You might know, that I lost my imaging setup at last January. Due to some serious electrical problems all the components are fried beyond any repair. Least it'll cost more than a new scope.
I haven't been able to find a corporate sponsors yet, for the new telescope and the mount. I do have couple of sponsors for the cameras though. I'll inform more about them later. Please contact, if you are interested to become a sponsor! astroanarchy (at) gmail.com
The sponsor will have lots of positive visibility for a many years.
The sponsor will have lots of positive visibility for a many years.
Some info about my work as an astronomical photographer
J-P Metsavainio
- Born 1964
- studies Art, Architecture, experienced in telecommunication manufacturing and development.
- Specialized in the astrophotography since 1998, I love to reveal some of the hidden beauty of the universe around us.
Some publications:
- Eight NASA APOD's at the moment (Astronomy Picture Of the Day)
- Many images in National Geographic image portfolio and several astronomical images of the week.
- Many images in the Science Photo Library archive in London
- The astronomer Phil Plait collected an annual list of the best astronomical images for the year 2012.
(My experimental image of IC 1396 was selected to this list. Nuber sixth from the top.) http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/bad_astronomy/2012/12/best_astronomy_images_2012_see_the_most_beautiful_images_of_the_universe.html
- My photo of the constellation Cygnus was selected as one of the best amateur astronomy photographs of the past four years by the Daily Telegraph 2014.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/picture-galleries/9622374/The-best-amateur-astronomy-photographs-of-the-past-four-years.html?frame=2374492
- Lots of publishing by many printed and online magazines, some logos are shown at top right corner here in my blog.
I'm also a regular speaker in astromical happenings like NEAIC New York (North East Astro Imaging Conference) and the European version of it CEDIC (Central european Deepsky Imaging Conference)
My photos
Image portfolio:
http://astroanarchy.zenfolio.com/
Blog, works mostly as an imaging diary and a publishing channel for some of my experimental work:
http://www.astroanarchy.blogspot.fi/
Facebook, I'm publishing only an astrophotography related materila here:
https://www.facebook.com/jp.metsavainio
Best regards and clear skies,
J-P Metsavainio, Astro Anarchy Observatory, Finland
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
My astroimages converted to 3D, a collection of movie clips
I have converted my astronomical images to a various 3D-formats. This time I made a video collection out of my experimental nebula 3D-models.
My astronomical images as an experimental 3D-conversionsThis is a looped 14 min video, click to start and stop. Original movie is in HD720p resolution.
Click the Youtube logo at lower right corner to see this video in Youtube.
Then, please, click the gear symbol, to see the video at 720p HD-format.
3D-stereo images from my astrophotos can be seen HERE
All my astronomical images can be seen HERE
How the 3D-models are done?
Due to enormous distances of cosmic objects, no real parallax can be imaged to get a 3D-information. I have developed a method to turn my images to a 3D-models.
Here is a short and simplified explanation, how 3D images are done:
My 3D-experiments are a mixture of scientific data, deduction and an artistic impression.
I collect distance and other useful scientific information before I do my 3d-conversion.
Usually there are known stars, coursing the ionization, so I can place them at right relative distance. If I know a distance to the nebula, I can finetune distances of the stars so, that right amount of stars are front and behind of the object. I use a "rule of thumb" method for stars, brighter is
closer, but if a real distance is know, I try to use it.
Many shapes can be figured out just by looking carefully the structures in nebula. Like dark nebulae must be at front of the emission ones to show. The general structure of many star forming regions are very same. There is a group of newly born stars, as an open cluster inside of the nebula. The stellar wind from the stars is then blowing the gas away around the cluster and forming a kind of gavitation, a hole, around it. The pillar like formations in the nebula must point to a source of stellar wind, for the same reason.
Since nebulae are practically transparent and the gas itself is emitting light, the thickness of the gas can be estimated by its brightness. Emission of ionized Oxygen, O-III, needs lots of energy. For that reason, Oxygen emission seen in the photo must be at close proximity of the ionizing star(s).
The processing workflow itself is kind of sculpting and the result is always an approximate reality.
I turned the original 2D-image to 3D by using a surface modeling software.
Image is first divided to layers by its content in a image processing software. Each layer is then projected to a 3D-surface. To build the 3D-surfaces and to have a good and realistic forms, I'm using a software, that converts the shades in the image to a 3D-form. I have semi automated the whole process, so it doesn't take too much time to make a 3D-conversion.
The nice thing about the final 3D-model is, that only image elements from the original 2D-image are used!
A typical surface model without textures
Saturday, April 26, 2014
Astro Anarchy get published
Yesterday was an opening ceremony for the new facilities of The "Oulu Region Joint Authority for Education" in Haukipudas. One of my images was selected there as a public artwork in a main lobby.
The Cirrus of Cygnus
A very large photographic print on aluminium, 3x10m
Even in that size, the image is very sharp, since the original image is in very high resolution due to mosaic technique used. An info board for the artwork can be seen next to the door at middle right.
An opening ceremony
About the photo
Click for a very large image, 3000 pixels wide and 4,5MB
R=Sulfur, G=Hydrogen and B=Oxygen.
The image above spans about 15 degrees of sky horizontally, that's 30 fool Moons side by side in a sky!
There are nine panels seamlessly stitched together. Each panel has been shot three times for a color image by using emission line filters for Hydrogen, Oxygen and Sulfur. A camera lens, Canon EF 200mm f1.8, was used with a cooled astronomical camera, QHY9. Original image is about 20000 pixels wide . Total exposure time is around 90h.
The "Cirrus of Cygnus" is a part of a much large image of this area.
Note! a very large image, 2300 pixels wide and 4,7MB
More info in this blog post: http://astroanarchy.blogspot.fi/2011/12/cygnus-mosaic-18-panels-and-22-x-14.html
Couple of closeups from a mosaic image above
Original blog post about the Propeller Nebula: http://astroanarchy.blogspot.fi/2011/10/first-light-for-autumn-season-2011.html
Orientation in constellation Cygnus
It does look like a Cirrus cloud
Thursday, April 10, 2014
Tone Mapping V2.0, my lecture at NEAIC conference, New York
Click the image to download a PDF-tutorial
Click the image to download a PDF-tutorial
I'm offering my development work for free.
Donations are welcome especially since I don't have any equipments to continue my imaging work.
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