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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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Tuesday, August 17, 2021

A starless Pickering's Triange

 As far as I know, I was the first who published starless nebula images back in 2007. At the time  the feedback was less than positive.

The reason to publish such a unorthodox images was that the starless version is a part of my processing workflow and it can sometimes show more than the actual image.
I have used this technique ever since and published some starless images now and then. 

Starless images are very powerful, when I want to dig out some really dim objects in a very dense starfield. It makes processing so much easier, I don't need to be careful not to blow up the stars.
Normally all the stars are placed back with a zero data lost after processing is done.

Starless images are also a great help to see the actual structure in the nebula since human brains has a tendency to form a quasi logical shapes out of the random cloud of dots, like stars are. 

A Starless Pickering's Triangle
Please, click for a large image, it's worth it!
 
Part of  Veil Nebula supernova remnant, the Pickering's Triangle.Colors are from the ionized elements, Hydrogen, Sulfur and Oxygen. S-II = Red, H-alpha = Green and O-III = Blue.  This is one of the most detailed image of the Pickering's Triangle I have ever seen.



A wide field photo of the Veil Nebula supernova remnant

The Pickering's Triangle can be see at one o'clock position.
My blog post about the wide field shot can be seen HERE.


Monday, August 9, 2021

Pickering's Triangle reprocessed with some new data

 I originally shot this image at September 2015 and it was selected as a NASA APOD (Astronomy Picture of the Day) at same month.


After the 2015 I have learned a lot and also shot lots of new data. The data I have shot is taken with much shorter focal length than original data but it was much deeper. I connected some dim background and color data from wide field image to this new version of Pickering's Triangle by using my new yet unpublished imaging method the VARES (variable Resolution imaging)
I kind of like the result, colors are more vivid and background has deeper shades.

Pickering's Triangle
Please, click for a large image, it's worth it!

Part of the two frame mosaic of the Veil Nebula supernova remnant, the Pickering's Triangle.
Colors are from the ionized elements, Hydrogen, Sulfur and Oxygen. 
S-II = Red, H-alpha = Green and O-III = Blue. 

A wide field photo of the Veil Nebula supernova remnant

The Pickering's Triangle can be see at one o'clock position.
My blog post about the wide field shot can be seen HERE.

Technical details and more images:
https://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2015/09/pickerings-triangle-my-first-light-for.html

Sunday, August 1, 2021

A new photo, Monkey Head Nebula, Lower's nebula, Jelly Fish nebula and Messier 35

 I shot material for this mosaic image at end of the spring season 2021. I haven't got time to finalize it until now. I kind of like this image, it's very deep and shows the very dim background mist and a very dense starfield of the galaxy plane. Total exposure time with Tokina AT-x 300mm f2,8 camera lens, Apogee u16 Astro camera and Astrodon narrowband filters is around 6 hours, the exposure time with Celestron Edge telescope is around 30 hours.

An other interesting feature in this imaging project is that I did use my VARES-processing method to this.
(Variable Resolution imaging) I have shot the nebulae in this wide field image with a long focal length instrument, the Celestron Edge 11" few years ago. I use this high res material to boost details in the wide field image. But that's not all!

I used the VARES technique to add deepness to my older long focal length images. I added the very dim background nebula data from wide filled images to long focal length images. The result was very good. Now all detailed features in the image, like stars, brighter nebula details and dark nebulae are form high res image data. The dim and relatively featureless data is taken from the wide field image. At the end the both datasets are combined by VARES-processing method to a one very deep and detailed image.


Monkey Head nebula. Messier 35 and the Jellyfish Nebula
Click for a large image!


Mapped colors from the emission of ionized elements, R=Sulfur, G=Hydrogen and B=Oxygen.


Wider mosaic, from Lower's Nebula to Jellyfish Nebula
Click for a large image! (2500 x 1100 pixels)

This mosaic image has 12 frames stitched together.


Labeled
Click for a large image!



Long focal length images boosted with a very deep wide field data.


Monkey Head nebula, NGC 2175
Click for a large image

The wide field data boosted long focal length image, original photo and details can be seen here, https://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2015/03/ngc-2174-monkey-head-nebula-project.html
I think, this was a first image in the World showing the extremely dim lower part, "Teil of the Monkey", of the nebula.



Lower's Nebula, Sh2-261
Click for a large image

The wide field data boosted long focal length image, original photo and details can be seen here, https://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2021/01/lowers-nebula.html


Jellyfish Nebula, the supernova remnant IC433
Click for a large image


The wide field data boosted long focal length image, original photo and details can be seen here, https://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2015/01/jellyfish-nebula-ic-443-supernova.html




Monday, July 19, 2021

Voices of Apollo 11

@FORBES

"The Ultimate Tribute To The Fallen Heroes Who Took Us To Moon"

"Metsavainio has created a ‘voices of Apollo 11’ artistic masterpiece to immortalize the mission and its target forever."


The Voices of Apollo 11

 are now part of the Moon forever

Click for the larger version of 2500 x 2500 pixels.

Image shows the full Moon made entirely out the text of the transcript of the onboard voice conversations of the Apollo 11 mission. There is nothing else in this photo-based image. Just letters. 

A close up of the top of the artwork shows just letters from the authentic voice transcription of Apollo 11 Command Module recorder data.


The Voices

I downloaded NASA's original full transcript of Apollo 11's onboard voice conversations. The idea was to turn this text into an image of the Moon. After a few weeks of intense work at a feverish pace my tribute was ready. Now the Moon is made up entirely of Apollo 11 voice transcription letters. 

This is also a tribute to the entire Apollo 11 team: Commander Neil A. Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins, and Lunar Module Pilot 
Edwin E. Aldrin Jr.

WHY?

I was most gratified and deeply moved when Michael Collins —the Apollo 11 & Gemini 10 astronaut, author, explorer and artist— tweeted following kind words about my work on April 19th, 2021: https://twitter.com/AstroMCollins/status/1384194949009211393  

The news of his passing, just nine days later, hit me all the harder — a very emotional moment for me. Out of the blue, I got inspired to create this artwork. I absolutely had to do it right away, which I did. 

Michael Collins was affectionately referred to as “the loneliest man in history” for being the command module pilot who flew solo in space behind the Moon and without radio contact with anyone while his colleagues, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong, set foot on the Moon for the first time in history. Michael was also an artist. His iconic photos made from Moon orbit are true art and part of mankind's greatest cultural heritage treasure.

A similar solitude gripped me while I was creating this tribute image. For being an astronomical photographer and a visual artist often is a very lonely job. Especially this time as I was deeply emotional throughout my creative process for this artwork. Even though I never met him personally, the end of his Earthly mission meant more to me than I was prepared for. I needed to make this photo-based artwork to process the inner storm of my thoughts and feelings.


The Landing Site

The Apollo 11 landing site is marked by two red letters.


4K VIDEO

1-minute 4K video about the "Voices of Apollo 11" artwork. Please watch in full screen for the best viewing experience.
The music "Fly me to the Moon"

Frank Sinatra's 1964 recording of "Fly Me to the Moon" became closely associated with NASA's Apollo space program. A copy of the song was played on a Sony TC-50 portable cassette player on the Apollo 10 mission which orbited the Moon,[44] and also on Apollo 11 before the first landing on the Moon.[45] Source Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fly_Me_to_the_Moon




Material used for the artwork


Apollo 11 onboard voice transcription



Click to download the PDF-document, 5.5 MB


My photo of a Full Moon
Click for a larger image.

I used my twenty-year-old photo of the Full Moon to create this text based artwork.