Astro Anarchy

Monday, February 15, 2021

Zooming in to a heart of the Heart

Since I have shot many targets with various of focal lengths I'm able to make zoom in series out of my material. This is a nice way to show the fractal nature of our universe, there is always something new to see when the detail level gets higher.

A zoom in series to the Melotte 15 in the IC 1805, the Heat nebula
Click for a large image

Images are in mapped colors from the emission of an ionized elements, hydrogen, sulfur and oxygen.
NOTE, an apparent size of the Moon is marked in third photo for a scale.

photos used for the zoom in series

Thursday, February 11, 2021

APOD by NASA, Astro Anarchy gets published

Astronomy Picture of the Day

My shot of the constellation Cygnus was selected today as an APOD (Astronomy Picture of the Day) by NASA. You can see the NASA page here: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210211.html

INFO

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

https://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2021/02/cygnus-mosaic-in-visual-colors.html

Monday, February 8, 2021

Cygnus mosaic in visual colors

I have published this image in mapped colors at December 2020, it can be seen here, https://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2020/12/cygnus-project-grande-finale-for-now.html

I have started this imaging project back at 2010. My aim was to make a high resolution mosaic covering the constellation Cygnus. Work like that takes time and patience, especially since I have worked so, that many of the individual sub mosaics or frames have been published as an individual artworks. Here is a poster format presentation about all of longer focal length images used for this mosaic beside wide field panels, https://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2018/11/treasures-of-swan.html

As a result I have now a huge 37 panel (And 58 long focal length sub-panel) mosaic panorama covering 28 x 18 degrees of sky. I have collected photons way over 400 hours during past ten years for this photo. The full size mosaic image has a size of about 25.000 x 15.000 pixels.

A photo of five million stars*

Great Mosaic of Cygnus (2010-2020)
28x18 degrees, 97 panels and over 400 hours of exposure time

The full size photo is worth to see! (2700 x 1700 pixels)An apparent size of the Moon is marked as a scale at bottom left of the picture frame.
This is a large area of sky! (28 x 18 degrees) Image is in visual colours, from the emission of ionized elements in the area.
* I actually counted the stars and in this field of view there are little over five million individual stars!

Orientation
Three supernova remnants, two Wolf Rayet stars and a black hole
Please, click the image for full resolution

In the orientation image above, there are three large supernova remnants visible, first the Cygnus Shell W63 , bluish ring at upper left quarter, secondly the large SNR G65.3+5.7 at utmost right and finally the third is a brighter SNR, the Veil nebula just outside of field of view at bottom center. (Image is partly overlapping with large mosaic but I didn't want to include it yet due to artistic composition.)

Beside three supernova remnants there are two Wolf Rayet stars with outer shell formations. NGC 6888, the Crescent Nebula at center of the image and the WR 134, it can be seen as a blue arch just right from the Crescent Nebula, near the Tulip nebula.

Next to the Tulip Nebula lays a Black hole Cygnus X-1, it's marked in small closeup image of the Tulip Neula at center right in orientation image above.

Constellation Cygnus is an endless source of celestial wonders, both scientifically and aesthetically. For me, as an visual artist, this are of night sky is very inspiring There are endless amount of amazing shapes and structures, I can spend rest of my life just shooting images from this treasury.

THE MOSAIC

Evolution of the mosaic between 2010 and 2020
Click for a large image

Mosaic panels in chronological order

There are 37 base panels with shorter focal length tools (300mm f2.8 Tokina and 200mm f1.8 Canon) There is also 59 sub-panels used, they are shot with my old 12" Meade and 11" Celestron Edge scopes.

NOTE I recalculated the total exposure time and it's actually way over 600 hours.
Here is a poster format presentation and a list all of longer focal length images used for this mosaic beside the actual panels, https://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2018/11/treasures-of-swan.html

Equipments used

I have used several optical configurations for this mosaic image during the years. Up to 2014 I was using an old Meade LX200 GPS 12" scope, QHY9 astrocam, Canon EF 200mm f1.8 camera optics and baader narrowband filter set. After 2014 I have had 10-micron 1000 equatorial mount, Apogee Alta U16 astro camera, Tokina AT-x 200mm f2.8 camera lens and the Astrodon 50mm square narrowband filter set. I have shot many details with a longer focal length, before 2014 by using Meade 12" scope with reducer and after 2014 Celestron EDGE 11" and reducer. Quider camera has been Lodestar and Lodestar II.

Couple of close ups to show the resolution
Click for a large image

North america & pelican nebula region