Friday, February 12, 2016
NGC 1499, the California Nebula, project continues
It has been very cloudy up here for about several months now. At January 4. I was able to shoot some lights for the NGC 1499, the California Nebula. We had few hours of clear sky at February 1. I shot three hours of H-alpha light next to previous image to build a two frame mosaic. Colors are partly from an older wide field photo of the california Nebula.
Detail of the NGC 1499 as a two frame mosaic
Please, click for a large image
An older wide field photo of the NGC 1499
Please, click for a large image
INFO
The California Nebula is an emission area located in constellation Perseus. It appears to resemble outlines of State of California on long exposure photographs, like this one. It has a very low surface brightness and it's very difficult to observe visually. Distance from my hometown Oulu, Finland, is about 1000 light years.
this image spans around five degrees horizontally. The Wikipedia article states, that the angular size is about 2,5 degrees (Five full Moons side by side) but as can be seen in this image, the actual size, with a dim outer parts, is much large.
Detail of the NGC 1499Please, click for a large image
Technical details
Processing work flow
Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07.
Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack2.
Deconvolution with a CCDStack2 Positive Constraint, 21 iterations, added at 25% weight
Color combine in PS CS3
Levels and curves in PS CS3.
Imaging optics
Celestron Edge HD 1100 @ f7 with 0,7 focal reducer for Edge HD 1100 telescope
Mount
10-micron 1000
Cameras and filters
Imaging camera Apogee Alta U16 and Apogee seven slot filter wheel
Guider camera, Lodestar x2 and SXV-AOL
Astrodon filter, 5nm H-alpha
Astrodon filter, 3nm O-III
Astrodon filter, 3nm S-II
Exposure times
H-alpha, 24 x 1200s =8h
O-III, 3 x 1200s binned = 1h
S-II, 3 x 1200s binned = 1h
Total 10h
Part of the S-II and O-III signals are borrowed from the older wide field photo.
Tuesday, January 26, 2016
Filaments of Cygnus in visual spectrum
This is a visual color version of my first picture for the year 2016. I published the Mapped Color version at January 7. This is a two frame mosaic project of the central Cygnus. It was shot at freezing temperature of - 27 degrees centigrade (-17 fahrenheit). Exposures are from three nights between 3. - 6. january 2016. Total exposure time 15h.
Filaments of Cygnus
click for a full size image
Orientation in Cygnus
More info about this photo can be found HERE.
Technical details
Processing work flow
Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07.
Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack2.
Deconvolution with a CCDStack2 Positive Constraint, 21 iterations, added at 25% weight
Color combine in PS CS3
Levels and curves in PS CS3.
Imaging optics
Celestron Edge HD 1100 @ f7 with 0,7 focal reducer for Edge HD 1100 telescope
Mount
10-micron 1000
Cameras and filters
Imaging camera Apogee Alta U16 and Apogee seven slot filter wheel
Guider camera, Lodestar x2 and SXV-AOL
Astrodon filter, 5nm H-alpha
Astrodon filter, 3nm O-III
Astrodon filter, 3nm S-II
Exposure times
H-alpha, 27 x 1200s =9h
O-III, 9 x 1200s binned = 3h
S-II, 9 x 1200s binned = 3h
Total 15h
Wednesday, January 13, 2016
Astro Anarchy gets published
My astrophotos are selected as a public content to a pedestrian zone in my hometown Oulu, Finland.
There is a very large display unit at the main square, 5.12 x 3.2 meters (over 16 x 10 feet).
Six different sets of my astronomical photographs and animations are running there as a slideshow during the January 2016. The show will run at every 15-25 minutes and last about three minutes at the time.
Six different sets of my astronomical photographs and animations are running there as a slideshow during the January 2016. The show will run at every 15-25 minutes and last about three minutes at the time.
The public slideshow in Oulu, Finland
January 2016
All my astronomical photographs can be found from my PORTFOLIO.
Monday, January 11, 2016
Abell 85 (CTB1), a dim Galactic Supernova Remnant in Cassiopeia, project finalized
I started this imaging project at January 2015. This January 2016 I was able to shoot more exposures for this dim target to finalized my imaging project. It's always a pleasure to have the image ready after a long period of time. As usually, I compared my exposures from different years to see has anything happened up there during the year. Usually there are no difference other than seeing conditions but this time I spotted a suspected variable star in the image field. (NSV 26187) There is an animated image in this post to show the difference between the years 2015 and 2016.
Abell 85 (CTB1)
SNR G116.9+00.1 in constellation Cassiopeia, click for a large image.
emitted by an ionized elements, red=sulfur, green=hydrogen and blue=oxygen.
Abell 85 in visual colors
Please, click for a large image
Abell 85 is a very faint supernova remnant in constellation Cassiopeia. It's difficult to image with any details due to extremely low surface brightness. Abell 85 has a largish diameter, about half a degree, it has a same apparent diameter as a full Moon. The physical diameter is about 98 light years across. This SNR locates about 9800 light years from the Earth. CTB1 was originally thought to be a planetary nebula and it was included the Abell catalog of planetary nebulae under a name Abell 85. It was confirmed to be a supernova remnant by Willis & Dickel at 1971.
Suspected variable star
Technical details
Processing work flow
Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07.
Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack2.
Deconvolution with a CCDStack2 Positive Constraint, 21 iterations, added at 25% weight
Color combine in PS CS3
Levels and curves in PS CS3.
Imaging optics
Celestron Edge HD 1100 @ f7 with 0,7 focal reducer for Edge HD 1100 telescope
Mount
10-micron 1000
Cameras and filters
Imaging camera Apogee Alta U16 and Apogee seven slot filter wheel
Guider camera, Lodestar x2 and SXV-AOL
Astrodon filter, 5nm H-alpha
Astrodon filter, 3nm O-III
Astrodon filter, 3nm S-II
Exposure times
H-alpha, 21 x 1200s =7h
O-III, 9 x 1200s binned = 3h
S-II, 6 x 1200s binned = 2h
Total 12h
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