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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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Monday, November 7, 2016

Eastern Veil in light of an ionized oxygen



A two frame mosaic of the Eastern Veil Nebula was my first imaging project for the Autumn season 2016. For the colour image, I shot three emission lines, hydrogen alpha, Sulphur II and oxygen III. This new image shows the emission of the ionized oxygen alone. 

Eastern part of the Veil Nebula supernova remnant in O-III light alone
Please, click for the full size photo

Oxygen III emission can be seen as a blue colour
The full colour image and technical details can be seen HERE






Wednesday, October 19, 2016

Eastern Veil as a cinemascope format photo



I have worked with a cinemascope format movie theatre presentation from my photos. This is an extra wide ~21:9 format used in movie theatres. The actual film is not ready yet but I have some of my images converted to this ultra wide format. I think they will look great at a large movie screen! I'll publish some of individual panoramic format photos here, images are down scaled for the web.



Cinemascope format image of the Eastern Veil
be sure to click for a full resolution version!

Image is in mapped colors, from the emission of ionized elements, R=Sulfur, G=Hydrogen and B=Oxygen.


A closeup
Please, click for a full size photo, 1850 x 1200 pixels



INFO

 Eastern Veil is a part of theVeil Nebula supernova remnant at constellation Cygnus.
Veil Nebula is a cloud of ionized gas and dust, leftovers from an exploded star. The star went off some 5000-8000 years ago at distance of about 1470 light years. The whole Veil Nebula is a relatively faint target and difficult to image due to the large angular diameter, about three degrees, and a dense star field.

Technical details
All the technical details can be found HERE









Tuesday, October 11, 2016

A little different view to the North America nebula, part II



Yesterday I published a new photo out of the North America Nebula. I had some extra exposures for it since at first I used a wrong image position. Images are overlapping so I was able to build a small two panel mosaic.


A detail from the North America nebula as a two panel mosaic
Please, click for a large image

Image is in mapped colours, from the emission of ionized elements, R=Sulphur, G=Hydrogen and B=Oxygen.


An experimental starless version as a vertical composition
Please, click for a large image

There is a somehow eerie feel in this starless version


Orientation
Please, click for a full size photo

Area of interest is marked as a white rectangle 


Technical details

Processing work flow

Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07.
Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack2.
Deconvolution with a CCDStack2 Positive Constraint, 33 iterations, added at 50% weight
Color combine in PS CS3
Levels and curves in PS CS3.

Imaging optics
Celestron Edge HD 1100 @ f10 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 for both panels
H-alpha, 9x 1200s = 5h
O-III, 3 x 1200s binned 2x2 = 2h 
S-II,  3 x 1200s binned 2x2 = 2h 
Total 9h




Monday, October 10, 2016

A little different view to the North America nebula, NGC 7000



I have planned to shoot this area of the North America Nebula for years. NGC 7000 is very well known and much imaged area of the sky. I always trying to find new visual aspects from the popular objects. Nebula itself is relatively bright, only five hours of exposures was needed for a good signal.

A detail from the North America nebula
Please, click for a large image

Image is in mapped colours, from the emission of ionized elements, R=Sulphur, G=Hydrogen and B=Oxygen.

An experimental starless view reveals details in the actual nebula
Please, click for a large image

There is a somehow eerie feel in this starless version


Image in visual spectrum
Please, click for a large image

Image is in Natural colour palette from the emission of ionized elements, 
R=Hydrogen + Sulphur, G=Oxygen and B=Oxygen + ~10% Hydrogen.


Orientation
Please, click for a full size photo

Area of interest is marked as a white rectangle 


Technical details

Processing work flow

Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07.
Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack2.
Deconvolution with a CCDStack2 Positive Constraint, 33 iterations, added at 50% weight
Color combine in PS CS3
Levels and curves in PS CS3.

Imaging optics
Celestron Edge HD 1100 @ f10 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, 9x 1200s = 3h
O-III, 3 x 1200s binned 2x2 = 1h 
S-II,  3 x 1200s binned 2x2 = 1h 
Total 5h

A single uncropped, calibrated and stretched 20 min. H-alpha, O-III and S-II frames as they comes from the camera

H-alpha emission



S-II emission



O-III emission