COPYRIGHT, PLEASE NOTE

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.

Have a visit in my portfolio

Sunday, September 13, 2009

M27 in two palettes

Natural colors
In a Hubble palette, S-II=Red, H-a=Green and O-III=Blue -

I was able to shoot data for other channels and more lights for H-alpha, last night.
Same data than H-alpha version in last post.
Additional two hours for H-a, now 4,5h together,
6x600s, binned 2x2, for O-III and 2x600s, binned 3x3, for S-II.
-
More information about the target HERE.

O-III channel is very strong. Note. there is interesting looking shadow at three a clock position.
Hint of an other shadow can be seen in a nine a clock position too.

Friday, September 11, 2009

Firs light for the new season

M27, Planetary nebula, was my first target for this new season.
After a long mandatory pause, I feel like a novice.
My location is not good for this object, since it stays under 40 degrees from horizont.
-
At last season I shot lots of shor focal lenght images.
this time I like to shoot some smaller targets with longer FL.
I have a wonderfull device from Strarlight Express, SXV-AO, active optics unit.
It makes my LX200 GPS 12" Meade work like a 20.000€ mount!
Guiding error was between 0.1 -0.2 pixels all the time at Focal lenght 1500mm and frequency 13Hz.
-
Unfortunatetly I was able to soot only 2,5 h of lights doe the clouds.
I'll shoot more H-alpha and other channels later.
-

Outer shell can be seen even now.

A close up

-

Details;

-Camera, QHY9

- Optics, Meade LX200 GPS 12" @ f4.65

- Guiding, Lodestar and SXV-AO @ 13Hz

- Exposures, 4x1200s with 7nm H-alpha filter and 7x600 Binned 2x2 . - image scale is 0.8 arcsecond/pixel

Active otics and Meade LX200 GPS 12"

I have made some experiments wirh SXV-AO and QHY9.
Since QHY9 has a very small pixels, 5,4microns, there will be serious over sampling with LX200.
I do have a f6.3 reducer/flattener but even eith f6.3 image scale is oversampled.
I tested to increase the distance between QHY9 and a reducer, it seems that I'm able to
go up to f4.65 focal lenght by this method!
There is some wignetting, but not very serious. Some distortion with stars can be seen in outer corners, but I'm able to live with that.
I didn't think it's possible to turn f10 telescope toreltively fast f4.65 scope.
QHY9 has a lightly smaller chip than APS-size in QHY8, that heps a litle.

Images, taken with this imaging configuration, can be seen here:
http://astroanarchy.blogspot.fi/search/label/Images%20with%20Active%20Optics%20%28SXV-AO%29
Click "Older Posts" at the end of the page to see more.


Saturday, August 8, 2009

California Nebula get published in S&T

In July 2009 issue of Sky & Telescope magazine's Gallery, in page 78,
is a full page image of NGC 1499, the "California Nebula" by me.
Total exposure time is 18 hours.
-
The original post can be seen HERE.