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All the material on this website is copyrighted to J-P Metsavainio, if not otherwise stated. Any content on this website may not be reproduced without the author’s permission.

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Friday, September 25, 2015

Astro Anarchy gets published



The Cnet published an article about Messier 31, the Great galaxy  of Andromeda, photo.
Photo of Messier 31 is produced by collaboration between David Lane and me.

You can read the Cnet article by Michelle Starr from 




The Wired noticed us too
Ten must-read articles for 25 September
Our photo is number five on the list


Thursday, September 24, 2015

Messier galaxies, M81-M82, with integrated flux nebula


A new collaboration image with David Lane. Beside beeing a deep sky astrophotographer he is also a master of landscape astrophotographing, please, have a look at his homepage: http://www.davelaneastrophotography.com/

Image acquisition is made by David Lane. He sent a massive amount of data to me to process and here is the result, Messier galaxies 81 and 82 with a large amount of  dim integrated flux nebula at front of them.
Total exposure time is around 40 hours with the William Optics GT81 telescope and SBIG STL-1100 3 CCD-camera. 



Messier 81 and 82 with an integrated flux nebula
Click for a large photo

So dusty, don't they ever clean up there...


An experimental starless photo
Click for a large photo

Brighter dots in this starless image are more distant galaxies


 A horizontal composition
Click for a large photo

A better resolution photo

Technical details

Data acquisition, David Lane
Image processing, J-P Metsavainio

Processing workflow

Deconvolution with a CCDStack2 Positive Constraint, 27 iterations, added at 33% weight
Color combine in PS CS3
Levels and curves in PS CS3.

Imaging optics
 William Optics GT81

Camera
SBIG STL-1100 3 CCD

Exposure times
Total ~40h






Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Messier 31, M31, the Great Galaxy of Andromeda


Another collaboration image, this time with David Lane. He is also a master of landscape astrophotographing, please, have a look at his homepage: http://www.davelaneastrophotography.com/ 

Image acquisition is made by David Lane. He sent a massive amount of data to me to process and here is the first result, the Great Galaxy of Andromeda with 37 hours of exposure time.


Messier 31, M31, the Galaxy of Andromeda 
Click for a large image

A deep H-alpha boosted LRGB exposure of the Galaxy of Andromeda


Large resolution detail from the image above
Click for a large image

Dust lanes of Andromeda


A starless view
Click for a large image

This photo shows the M31 as it was seen just outside of our home galaxy, the Milky way. All the stars in the first photo are located in Our galaxy at maximum distance of few tens of thousands light years. M31 lies at distance of about 2.5 million light years. There is 2.5 million light years of nothing between us and Messier 31. Dim dots at the starless image are more distant galaxies and some hundred of globular cluster associated to M31 galaxy .


A vertical composition of M31

A poster format view to the M31


INFO

The Andromeda Galaxy, also known as Messier 31, M31, or NGC 224, is a spiral galaxy approximately 2.5 million light years from Earth. It is the nearest major galaxy to the Milky Way.

The Milky Way and Andromeda are expected to collide in 3.75 billion years, eventually merging to form a giant elliptical galaxy or perhaps a large disk galaxy.

At 3.4, the apparent magnitude of the Andromeda Galaxy is one of the brightest of any of the Messier objects, making it visible to the naked eye on moonless nights even when viewed from areas with moderate light pollution. It has an apparent diameter of six times as wide as the full Moon


An experimental test

This funny looking image is just stretched vertically to try to show the actual round shape of the galaxy.
It looks like a barred spiral to me.


Technical details

Data acquisition, David Lane
Image processing, J-P Metsavainio

Processing workflow

Deconvolution with a CCDStack2 Positive Constraint, 27 iterations, added at 33% weight
Color combine in PS CS3
Levels and curves in PS CS3.

Imaging optics
 William Optics GT81

Camera
SBIG STL-1100 3 CCD

Exposure times
Luminance, 18h
H-alpha, 1h
Red = ~6h
Green = ~6h
Blue = ~6h
Total 37h





Thursday, September 17, 2015

APOD by NASA, Astro Anarchy gets published




Astronomy Picture of the Day

My shot of the Pickering's Triangle in Veil Nebula was selected today as an APOD (Astronomy Picture of the Day) by NASA. You can see the NASA page here: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150917.html

Pickering's Triangle
Be sure to click for a large image!


INFO

Original blog post about this image, with technical details, can be seen here:

You can buy a real, museum quality, photographic print from HERE

This is my eighth APOD, older ones can be seen here:
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap141115.html
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap131214.html
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110218.html