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Monday, September 12, 2011

A collection of Sharpless catalog objects


I have imaged some Sharpless catalog objects during the years. Many of them are very dim but there are some familiar objects too. All images are in HST-palette from the emission of ionized elements, R=Sulfur, G=Hydrogen & B=Oxygen. Note. Images in this poster are not in same scale.

All images in this collection can be found from my portfolio, with technical details:

Labeled








Many ways to die




A collection of passed away stars, both, planetary nebulae and supernova remnants.
Note. Images in this poster are not in same scale.

UPDATE
"Jake" from Finnish astronomical group, http://foorumi.avaruus.fi/ , pointed out, that Sh2-223 (Sharpless 223) is now  uncatalogued as a supernova remnant, it's just a HII region.
"G166.2+2.5 (=OA 184) (aka Sh2-223) was removed from the 2006 April version of the catalogue, as it was identified as an HII region by Foster et al. (2006)."
I left the image as it is, since there is a real SNR in the image, Sh2-224.

All images in this collection can be found from my portfolio, with technical details:



Labeled
There are some very rarely imaged objects in the poster, like Jones1, Jones-Emberson1, Medusa Nebula, Sh2-188, Sh2-221, Sh2-216, Simeis 147 and supernova remnant pair Sh2-223, 224.
PL = planetary Nebula, SNR = supernova remnant





Sunday, September 11, 2011

Cygnus Treasures




A collection of objects in constellation Cygnus.
All images are in HST-palette from the emission of ionized elements, R=Sulfur, G=Hydrogen & B=Oxygen.
Note. Images 1,2,3,5,9 are in same scale as a group (300mm Tokina lens @ f2.8). Closeup images, 4,6,7,8 are in same scale. (Meade LX200 GPS 12" reduced to f4,65)

I made this image since I haven't have an opportunity to do any imaging yet, due the weather. We have couple of hours of astronomical darkness now and my first targets will be locating in constellation Cygnus.
Original image is really large, since I kept all the images in native resolution, 11.000 x 12.000 pixels!

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. Star colors are mixed from the NB channels, Red=H-a, G=O-III and B= 85%O-III + 15%H-a.This composition is very close to a visual spectrum. 




Images from upper Left to a lower Right corner:

1. Wide field image of NGC6888, the "Crescent Nebula"
2. Wide field image of the "Butterfly Nebula"
3. Wide field image of the Sharpless 101, the "Tulip Nebula"
4. Closeup of the NGC6888, "Crescent Nebula"
5. "Veil Nebula", a supernova remnant
6. Closeup of the Sharpless 101, the "Tulip Nebula"
7. Closeup of the NGC7000, the "North America Nebula"
8. Closeup of the "Pelican Nebula"
9. Wide field image of the North Ameriac and the Pelican Nebulae.



Thursday, September 8, 2011

M27, the "Dumbbell Nebula", reprocessed ones again





Since my processing technique gets better and weather doesn't give any support, I have reprocessed some older images. There is now star colors added and other processing is tweaked too.


Messier 27, the "Dumbbell Nebula"
Ra 19h 59m 36.340s Dec +22° 43′ 16.09″

Image is in HST-palette, (HST=Hubble Space Telescope) from the emission of ionized elements, R=Sulfur, G=Hydrogen & B=Oxygen.Star colors are mixed from the NB channels, Red=H-a, G=O-III & B= 85%O-III + 15%H-a.
Buy a photographic print from HERE

I redid the composition too, the old one was little too static to my taste, image is cropped.

The Dumbbell Nebula (also known as a Messier 27, M 27, or NGC 6853) is a planetary nebula in the constellation Vulpecula, at a distance of about 1360 light years. It has a large angular diameter as a planetary nebula, about 8 x 5,6 arc minutes. (Rarely imaged outer halo is not included, it can be seen in my image. With an outer shell, the diameter is over 15'' (more than a size of the half a Moon))
Planetary nebulae are shells of gas shed by stars late in their life cycles after using up all of their nuclear fuel. The star then ejects a gaseous shell, which is illuminated by its extremely hot central star, a core left from the original star. n this image, the central star is clearly visible at very center of the nebula. M27's central star has a magnitude of 13.5 and is an extremely hot blueish dwarf with a temperature of about 85,000 K.
Our own star, the Sun, is expected to undergo the same process in a couple of billion years.



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. Star colors are mixed from the NB channels too.This composition is very close to a visual spectrum.
Buy a photographic print from HERE

This is the whole field image with the old composition.
Buy a photographic print from HERE
Previous version of the M27 can be found here:



Details:
Camera, QHY9
Optics, Meade LX200 GPS 12" @ f4.65
Guiding, Lodestar and SXV-AO @ 13Hz
image scale is 0.8 arcsecond/pixel

Exposures: 
9x1200s  Binned 1x1+ 7x600 Binned 2x2 with 7nm H-alpha filter 
6x600s, binned 2x2, for O-III 
2x600s, binned 3x3, for S-II.