Monday, November 14, 2011
Cirrus of Cygnus, project finalized
Cirrus like gas filaments
in constellation Cygnus
HST-palette, from the emission of ionized elements,
R=Sulfur, G=Hydrogen and B=Oxygen.
A series of closeups to show the resolution, not a bad one for a 200mm camera lens...
An animated image to show some interesting structures under the star field.
Version in colors of visual spectrum
Image in Natural color palette from the emission of ionized elements,
R=Hydrogen + Sulfur, G=Oxygen and B=Oxygen + Hydrogen.
This palette is very close to a visual spectrum.
Last night I was able to finalize a three panel mosaic from Cirrus of Cygnus. I have planned to shoot this formation a long time, finally there, yahoo...
There are very few images around showing this area, it can be seen in many wide field images though but I haven't seen any images focusing to just it. This area can be seen in this APOD image Left, at about ten a clock position. This is not a bright target but by using an extremely fast, 200mm f1.8, optics a total exposure time for all three panels was very reasonable, ~7 hours.
The bright, magnitude 2.9, star at middle Left is the BSC 18 Del Cyg (HR7528). This image spans about 12 degrees horizontally (24 full Moons side by side) and it's part of large nebula complex around constellation Cygnus. "Northern Cross" nebulosities are located at distance of about 2000 light years. At lower mid Left lays the "Propeller Nebula", I shot a little narrower wide field image of it in this Autumn, it can be seen HERE.
It does look like a Cirrus cloud!
Technical details:
Processing work flow:
Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07.
Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack2.
Levels, curves, color combine and mosaic 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
Exposures
Filter, Baader 7nm H-alpha
Panel 1, 8x900s Binned 1x1
Panel 2, 4x900s Binned 1x1
Panel 3, 5x 900s Binned 1x1
Filter, Baader 8nm S-II
Panel 1, 6x300s Binned 3x3
Panel 2, 6x300s Binned 3x3
Panel 3, 6x300s Binned 3x3
Filter Baader 8,5nm O-III (I need a narrower one...)
Panel 1, 6x300s Binned 3x3
Panel 2, 6x300s Binned 3x3
Panel 3, 6x300s Binned 3x3
Ps.
A vertical composition
Sunday, November 13, 2011
IC405 & 410 as a stereo pair 3D
Parallel vision 3D
Cross vision 3D
Other 3D-formats:
Original 2D:
NOTE! This is a personal vision about forms and shapes, based on some known facts and an artistic impression.
IC405 & 410 as an anaglyph Red/Cyan 3D
3D-NOTE!
You'll need Red/Cyan Eyeglasses to be able to see images as 3D.If you have a Red and Blue filters, you can use them! Red goes to Left eye.
Other 3D-formats:
Original 2D:
NOTE! This is a personal vision about forms and shapes, based on some known facts and an artistic impression.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Cirrus of Cygnus, start of the new project
A Hydrogen alpha filtered monochrome image of thin, cirrus like, filaments from an edge of large emission area in constellation Cygnus.
I have started a new imaging project. This time I will shoot a three panel panoramic mosaic since I like to show a whole network of thin filaments at edge of Cygnus emission nebula. This image spans about 12 degrees horizontally... that's 24 full Moons side by side. I will shoot all three emission channels for this, when ever my local weather let me do so...
The "Propeller Nebula" can be seen at bottom center Left. HERE is an image of it from this Autumn and colors of it will give a hint, how this new image going to look when ready.
The "Propeller Nebula" can be seen at bottom center Left. HERE is an image of it from this Autumn and colors of it will give a hint, how this new image going to look when ready.
An experimental starless version
Same image with suppressed stars to show the actual nebula complex better.
It's funny to see, how much more details can be seen in nebula by this way, even though stars in original image are absolute pinpoints.
A starless closeup reveals some details
Very odd looking loops in filaments... One at lower Left looks like a lasso.
It's funny to see, how much more details can be seen in nebula by this way, even though stars in original image are absolute pinpoints.
A starless closeup reveals some details
Technical details:
Processing work flow:
Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07.
Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack2.
Deconvolution with a CCDStack2 Positive Constraint, 33 iterations, added at 50% weight
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
Filter, Baader 7nm H-alpha
Exposures for three panels, from Left to Right
Panel 1, 8x900s Binned 1x1
Panel 2, 4x900s Binned 1x1
Panel 3, 5x 900s Binned 1x1
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
IC405 & 410
IC 405 & 410
In constellation Auriga
HST-palette, from the emission of ionized elements,
R=Sulfur, G=Hydrogen and B=Oxygen.
An experimental starless version to show the actual nebula
An experimental starless version to show the actual nebula
A clear night at last!
I shot about three hours of H-alpaha light for IC405 & 410, after finalizing H-a for my new project , "Cirrus of Cygnus". (It will be a three panel narrow band mosaic about dimmer outer structures of Cygnus Nebula complex.)
Little by little I have managed to reduce tilt between my CCD and the Cnon EF 200mm f1.8 lens.
At f1.8, every single micron makes a big difference. Working with an extreme fast lens, like this, is very demanding. Tolerances are very small, the critical focus zone is only 7microns, that's 7/1000mm!
Little by little I have managed to reduce tilt between my CCD and the Cnon EF 200mm f1.8 lens.
At f1.8, every single micron makes a big difference. Working with an extreme fast lens, like this, is very demanding. Tolerances are very small, the critical focus zone is only 7microns, that's 7/1000mm!
Other channels, O-III and S-II are taken from an older image from year 2008. Star colors are borrowed from an RGB-image, shot at 2007.
R=Hydrogen + Sulfur, G=Oxygen and B=Oxygen + Hydrogen.
An animated image to show the nebula with and without stars.
Technical details:
Processing work flow:
Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07.
Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack2.
Deconvolution with a CCDStack2 Positive Constraint, 33 iterations, added at 50% weight
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
New exposures H-alpha 13x900s,
S-II and O-III information are from an older image
Monday, October 31, 2011
Veil Nebula as a Stereo pair 3D-study
Other 3D-formats:
Original 2D:
NOTE! This is a personal vision about forms and shapes, based on some known facts and an artistic impression.
Veil Nebula as an anaglyph Red/Cyan 3D
3D-NOTE!
You'll need Red/Cyan Eyeglasses to be able to see images as 3D.If you have a Red and Blue filters, you can use them! Red goes to Left eye.
Original 2D:
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Veil Nebula, a supernova remnant
Veil Nebula
Supernova remnant in constellation Cygnus
Note. Image is updated at 27.03.2012 with a new data, it was buried in my hard disk.
R=Hydrogen + Sulfur, G=Oxygen and B=Oxygen + Hydrogen.
Image is not as deep as I wanted but the weather has been working against me for a long time now...
Veil Nebula is a cloud of ionized gas and dust, leftovers from an exploded star. The star exploded some 5000-8000 years ago at distance of about 1470 light years. This, relatively faint target, is difficult to image due the large angular diameter, about three degrees, and a dense star field.
This is a second version of this object, older version can be seen Here. I have made a 3D-animation about the possible shape of this SNR, it can be seen Here.
HST-palette, from the emission of ionized elements,
R=Sulfur, G=Hydrogen and B=Oxygen.
1:1 cropped image to show the resolution.
Not a bad one for the 200mm camera lens...
Technical details:
Processing work flow:
Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07.
Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack2.
Deconvolution with a CCDStack2 Positive Constraint, 33 iterations, added at 50% weight
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
New exposures H-alpha 13x1200s,
S-II and O-III information are from an older image
Monday, October 24, 2011
Image processing test with Sharpless 119
I made a test, how image resolution gets effected by a stacking algorithm. When images are registered, they are moved and rotated by a fraction of the pixel accuracy. Depending on used algorithm, there will be some level of blurring in a final stacked image. In this test, CCDStack software is used to calibrate, register and stack the raw-images. Two similar processing are made from the same material, one with normal workflow and the second with images scaled up 200%.
10 x 1200s H-alpha with a QHY9 camera and the Tokina AT-X 300mm camera lens at f2.8.
"Mitchell" algorithm is used for up scaling all of the 200% sized frames.
An animation from a single, cropped and 400% up scaled, 1200s H-alpha exposure.
One image is registered and second not. HWFM in none registered image is 1,6 and in registered 2,4.
Method of register is most commonly used Bicubic B-spline.
One image is registered and second not. HWFM in none registered image is 1,6 and in registered 2,4.
Method of register is most commonly used Bicubic B-spline.
Down side of up scaling images to 200% large, is the needed amount of computer power and memory! Images will be four times large in file size. In this case a single frame, saved as a 16bit TIFF, will be about 130 MB.
CCDStack will use much more memory per image since images are internally processed as a 32bit floating point image space. All post processing in PhotoShop is done to a 200% sized version.
I have reprocessed Sh2-119 images with a new method, original versions can be found here: http://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2011/10/sharpless-119-sh2-119.html
Sharpless 119
In constellation Cygnus, Ra 21h 18m Dec +44 00'
Image is in Natural color palette from the emission of ionized elements,
R=Hydrogen + Sulfur, G=Oxygen and B=Oxygen + Hydrogen.
HST-palette from an emission of ionized elements, R=Sulfur, G=Hydrogen and B=Oxygen.
Technical details:
Processing work flow:
Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07.
Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack2.
Deconvolution with a CCDStack2 Positive Constraint, 33 iterations.
Levels, curves and color combine in PS CS3.
Optics, Tokina AT-X 300mm camera lens at f2.8
Camera, QHY9
Guiding, Meade LX200 GPS 12" and a Lodestar guider
Guiding, Meade LX200 GPS 12" and a Lodestar guider
Image Scale, 3,5 arcseconds/pixel
Exposures H-alpha 10x1200s, binned 1x1O-III 3x1200s, binned 3x3
S-II 3x1200s, binned 2x2
Total exposure time ~5h
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
IC 1396 as a Stereo Pair 3D
Parallel vision 3D
Cross vision 3D
Other 3D-formats:
Original 2D:
IC 1396 as an anaglyph Red/Cyan 3D
3D-NOTE!
You'll need Red/Cyan Eyeglasses to be able to see images as 3D.If you have a Red and Blue filters, you can use them! Red goes to Left eye.
Other 3D-formats:
Original 2D:
NOTE! This is a personal vision about forms and shapes, based on some known facts and an artistic impression.
Dark dust in Cygnus as a stereo pair 3D
Other 3D-formats:
Original 2D:
Dark dust in Cygnus as an anaglyph Red/Cyan 3D
3D-NOTE!
You'll need Red/Cyan Eyeglasses to be able to see images as 3D.
If you have a Red and Blue filters, you can use them! Red goes to Left eye.
If you have a Red and Blue filters, you can use them! Red goes to Left eye.
Other 3D-formats:
Original 2D:
Monday, October 17, 2011
IC 1396, the home of the "Elephant's trunk Nebula"
IC 1396
In constellation Cepheus
HST-palette, from the emission of ionized elements,
R=Sulfur, G=Hydrogen and B=Oxygen.
At the same night, 16. October, I shot my previous target, I had some time left before dawn.
I shot few frames, 6x1200s, of H-alpha for IC 1396. Last time I shot this target, I was using a HY8 single shot color astronomical camera. As it's a color camera, bayer matrix cuts down the effective resolution about 1/4 of the native resolution of CCD. I wanted to test, how visible this difference is.
Older image of IC 1396 can be seen HERE. The difference in resolution is impressive, stars are much tighter now. i did use O-III and S-II channels from this older image to build color compositions. (Resolution of those channels doesn't have any effect to my final image, since I'm using my "Tone Mapping" technique.
IC 1396 spans hundreds of light years at distance of about 3000 light years in constellation Cepheus. The famous formation of glowing gases, the "Elephant's Trunk Nebula" can be seen at six a clock position.
This is an active star formation region and it has several massive young stars inside of it, coursing the ionization of elements in this emission nebula.
I have made a study about the apparent size in a sky:
R=Hydrogen + Sulfur, G=Oxygen and B=Oxygen + Hydrogen.
Older, longer focal length, closeup image of the "Elephant's trunk Nebula"
http://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2011/01/elephants-trunk-nebula-inside-ic-1396.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, Tokina AT-X 300mm camera lens at f2.8
Camera, QHY9 , a cooled astronomical camera
Guiding, Meade LX200 GPS and the Lodestar guider
Image Scale, ~3,5 arcseconds/pixel
Exposures H-alpha 6x1200s, binned 1x1
(S-II and O-III are borrowed from an older image)
O-III 8x1200s, binned 2x2, QHY8
S-II 3x1200s, binned 2x2, QHY8
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