Astro Anarchy

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

A four panel panoramic mosaic of Auriga, IC 405 & 410

This image shows a wider field view to Auriga Nebulae, IC 405 and 410.

Also Sharpless 232, Sh2-232, IC 417, Messier 38 and NGC 1907 are seen in the image.

Image is composed from four panels and covers about nine degrees horizontally, that's equal to area of 18 full Moons side by side in the sky. There are not many images around to show the whole nebula complex.

IC 405 & 410

In constellation Auriga

HST-palette, from the emission of ionized elements,

R=Sulfur, G=Hydrogen and B=Oxygen.

An older study about the scale in a sky can be seen here:

http://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2011/05/ic-410-scale-in-sky-zoom-in-series.html

mage is in Natural color palette from the emission of ionized elements,

R=Hydrogen + Sulfur, G=Oxygen and B=Oxygen + Hydrogen.

An animated image to show the nebula with and without stars.
Click to see an animation

Mosaic image is build around this one frame image

A blog post, with technical details, can be found here:
http://www.astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2011/11/ic405-410.html

Technical details:

Processing work flow:

Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07.

Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack2.

Levels, curves and color combine in PS CS3.

Optics, Canon EF 200mm camera lens at f1.8

Camera, QHY9

Guiding, Meade LX200 GPS 12" and a Lodestar guider

Image Scale, ~5 arcseconds/pixel

Total exposure time for all channels (H-a, O-III and S-II) about 10 hours.

A map

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Siemis 147, the scale in a sky

"How much your telescope magnified?"

People generally seems to have a false idea, that high magnification is needed to capture deep space images.

In fact, many times it's quite contrary, targets are so large, that I have difficulties to fit them in my instruments field of view. Sample image here, Simeis 147, is shot with 200mm camera optics and it barely fits in image area.

Much more important, than magnification, is the light gathering power = aperture.

High magnification is needed for planetary imaging and some small angular size objects, like planetary nebulae and small galaxies.

I have placed a white circle in image series below, to show the angular size of the full Moon in the sky.

Moon has an apparent diameter ~30 arc minutes, that's equal to 0,5 degrees.

This HST-palette zoom in series has a "Moon circle" as a scale, to demonstrate the angular scale in a sky.

At first panoramic image at the Left three main objects are seen. At bottom lays IC 405 and IC 410, at top Siemis 147 (Sharpless 240, Sh2-240)

Original images used for the zoom in series, with technical data

Simeis 147:

http://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2012/02/siemis-147-new-data-added.html

IC 405 & 410:

http://www.astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2011/11/ic405-410.html

A large collection of my scale studies can be found here:

http://astroanarchy.zenfolio.com/p162076373

Friday, February 24, 2012

Astro Anarchy gets published, again...

SPACE PICTURE OF THE WEEK, second in row...

National Geographic published my picture of Simeis 147, the "Expansive Nebula", as one of the Space pictures of the Week, Today 24.02. Actually this is a second one in two weeks, I'm kind of shocked...

Here is the link to a National Georaphic news:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/02/pictures/120224-best-space-pictures-hubble-184-mars/#/space184-simeis-147-sharpless-240_49225_600x450.jpg

Simeis 147, Sharpless 240 (Sh2-240)

In constellation Taurus

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

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

http://www.astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2012/02/siemis-147-new-data-added.html

A closeup

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Astro Anarchy gets published

SPACE PICTURE OF THE WEEK

National Geographic published my picture of Ced 214, the "Cosmic Curiosity", as one of the Space pictures of the Week, yesterday 17.02.

Here is the link to a National Georaphic news:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/02/pictures/120217-best-space-pictures-183-sun-saturn-moons-science/#/space183-question-mark-nebula_48869_600x450.jpg

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

http://www.astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2012/01/what-project-finalized.html

Friday, February 17, 2012

The California Nebula, NGC 1499, with some new data

I shot about 5h new H-a data for the NGC 1499 in this Autumn, 2011, with Canon EF 200mm f1.8, full open, and a QHY9 cooled astronomical camera. All the exposures, I have taken for this object bettween years 2008-2011, are now used. Total exposure time is over 26h together for all three channels, Ionized Sulfur, Hydrogen and Oxygen. Two camera lenses was used to capture the data, a Tokina AT 300mm f2.8 and a Canon EF 200mm f1.8, both was used at full aperture. An extra detail, at bright central area, is shot with a longer focal length instrument, Meade LX200 GPS 12" at f5. Exposure time for central detail was about 10h, at top of the total 26h exposure time.

NGC 1499, in Perseus

Ra 04h 03m 18s Dec +36° 25′ 18″

Natural color composition from the emission of ionized elements, R=80%Hydrogen+20%Sulfur, G=100%Oxygen and B=85%Oxygen+15%Hydrogen to compensate otherwise missing H-beta emission. This composition is very close to a visual spectrum.

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 home town Oulu, Finland, is about 1000 light years.
this image spans about five degrees. 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.

HST-palette, (HST=Hubble Space Telescope) from the emission of ionized elements,

R=Sulfur, G=Hydrogen and B=Oxygen.

A study about the apparent scale in a sky

This is a large object, note, the size of the Moon is marked, as a scale, in all of the images above.

3D-studies

Experimental 3D-studies of NGC1499 can be found in my portfolio, in different formats.

Please, have a look here:

http://astroanarchy.zenfolio.com/f359296072

A panorama mosaic, from IC 1396 to Sh2-129, finalized

A two frame mosaic, from IC 1396 to the Sh2-129

In constellation Cepheus

Image is in HST-palette from an emission of ionized elements, R=Sulfur, G=Hydrogen and B=Oxygen.

Note. The dark vertical patch, at middle of the image, is not a seam but a dark nebula. Seam between image halves is located right from the dark nebula and can not be seen.

EDIT.
Image is updated 21.02., I found more material for outer parts. Now the composition is more "spacey".

Last Autumn I shot six hours for new H-alpha light for both objects, IC 1396 & Sharpless 129.

I combined this new data, shot for the mosaic, to all my older material from years 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012. The final composition has a total exposure time of about 40h for all channels.

Data is shot with various optics, Canon EF 200mm f1.8, Tokina AT-X 300mm f2.8 and LX200 GPS 12" f5. QHY9 and QHY8 cameras are used with a Baader narrowband filter set, Ha, O-III and S-II.

Image spans about ten degrees horizontally. (Twenty full Moons side by side)

I was about to made more dynamic composition out of this. The weather up here didn't support the shooting of the required four mosaic frames. Now the composition is more "informative", than beautiful...

Ps.

A study about the scale in a sky

Note. Size of the full Moon is marked as a scale.

(Moon has an apparent diameter of 30', that's 0,5 degrees.)

Sunday, February 12, 2012

AstroAnarchy gets published

At Fridays APOD, Feb. 10. 2012, NASA writers used my experimental 3D-stereo pair of NGC 6752 as a reference.

Link to this APOD: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120210.html
My stereo pair from the same object is as a text link , "stars in a sphere", in an APOD above.