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Monday, November 21, 2016

Filaments of the the Veil Nebula supernova remnant



My latest image is a composition of  exposures from several nights, months and years. Couple of weeks ago, when we had some clear night last time, I took couple of shots from Veil Nebula. This time my purpose was to show some rarely imaged details and structures in this complex ball of expanding gas, leftovers from a massive explosion, the supernova.
I combined this new material to my older images of the area. Total exposure time for this five panel mosaic is around 37 h.


Filaments of the Veil Nebula
Please, click for a full size image

Colors are from the ionized elements, Hydrogen, Sulphur and Oxygen.
S-II = Red, H-alpha = Green and O-III = Blue.


A closeup

Image is full of gas filaments, they are shock fronts from the supernova explosion.


Orientation

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, 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

New material from this Autumn season, total exposure time 15 h

H-alpha, 15 x 1200s = 5h
O-III, 15 x 1200s binned = 5h
S-II, 15 x 1200s binned = 5h

Older material used for this mosaic image

Pickering's Triangle mosaic, https://astroanarchy.blogspot.fi/2015/09/pickerings-triangle-my-first-light-for.html
Witch's Broom Nebula, https://astroanarchy.blogspot.fi/2015/10/a-new-image-witchs-broom-nebula.html



Wednesday, November 9, 2016

A rare image out of the planetary nebula in Cassiopeia, KjPn8 (PN G112.5-00.1)


Few year back I added this small target in Cassiopeia to my imaging plan. Now we had few clear nights and I was able to finalised a new photo out of it. This is a very dim target and it located just next to famous Bubble Nebula. Total exposure time was around 11 hours for Ha and O-III.


PN G112.5-00.1
Click for a full size photo

Image is in natural colours from the emission of ionized elements, H-alpha and O-III.


An experimental starless version to show the actual PN better

A bright spot at the centre of the planetary nebula KjPn8 is the central disk (Diameter 4 arc seconds).


A two frame mosaic with the Bubble Nebula
Click for a full size photo


I shot the Bubble Nebula part of the mosaic back in 2012

INFO


KjPn 8 (PLN 112-0.1) is an unusually-shaped (14' x 4') planetary (PN) nebula located in the Constellation of Cassiopeia at RA 23h 24m 10s and DEC +60d 57m 30s. It is partially embedded in hydrogen nebulosity from the often-imaged Bubble Nebula complex (NGC 7635, Caldwell 11) and the open cluster, M52, located off the upper right side of this image. North is up and the field is ~ 35' x 35'. Lopez et al. (Astrophys. J, v538, 233-240, 2000) describes KjPn 8 as an "extreme polypolar planetary nebula with a large scale structure characterized by a giant biconical envelope". Steffen and Lopez (Astrophys. J. v508, 696-706, 1998) suggest that the strange tubular structure results from the action of a bipolar, rotating episodic jet whose direction has changed with time. The radial velocity measurements suggest a distance of ~5,200 light years. They suggest that it formed from two distinct and consecutive PN-like events starting with a binary core have stars of similar mass. One event led to the very long structure (NW-SE). The other (NE-SW) extends between the bright pinkish lobes that are enriched in OIII. They further suggest that KjPn 8 may be a rare object in the Milky Way Galaxy. (Source, http://astrodonimaging.com/gallery/kjpn-8-tubular-planetary-nebula/ )


Orientation


The location of PN G112.5-00.1 is marked with a white circle to this mapped colour image of the area. This is my older wide field photo, more info about it can be seen HERE


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 25% 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, 21x 1200s = 7h
O-III, 12 x 1200s binned = 4h 
Total 11 h

A single uncropped, calibrated and stretched 20 min H-alpha frame





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