Astro Anarchy

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Christmas Tree cluster, Cone and the Rosette Nebulae

Images are reprocessed with my new method. This new technique will provide better color handling, softer look and high details at the same time.

Be sure to click the images to see them at a full glory.

A Cone and the Rosette Nebulae

A two panel mosaic

A two panel mosaic in mapped colors, from the emission of ionized elements,

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

Buy a photographic print from HERE

A Cone nebula and the Christmas Tree Cluster

A closeup from the left part of the mosaic above
(And yes, the names are real ones, I didn't made the up...)

This very seasonal closeup shows the Cone Nebula and a Christmas Tree Cluster around it.

Buy a photographic print from HERE

Cone Nebula closeup

Click for a large image

Rosette Nebula closeup

Click for a large image

Visual color compositions

Be sure to click the images to see them at a full glory.

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.

A closeup

INFO

In the constellation of Monoceros, just east of Orion, lies this huge nebulous duo with the famous Rosette Nebula at right and the Cone Nebula at left. The Rosette is easily recognized as a large flower to the left with bright central stars. In . The nebula on the left halves of the mosaic contains 'The Christmas Tree' star cluster in the center. The Cone Nebula lays at distance of ~2500 light years and the Rosette about a distance at 5200 light years.

An experimental starless image

This image shows the are with suppressed stars, the nebula itself stands out better by this way.

The scale in the sky

Zoom in image series with a Moon as a scale

Cone Nebula:

http://astroanarchy.blogspot.fi/2011/05/ngc2264-cone-nebula-apparent-scale-in.html

Rosette Nebula:

http://astroanarchy.blogspot.fi/2011/05/rosette-nebula-scale-in-sky-zoom-in.html

Technical details

Camera QHY9

Guiding QHY5

Optics Canon EF 200mm f1.8 lens, full open

Imaging platform and guiding LX200 GPS 12"

Exposures for Cone Nebula part:

H-a = 2 x 1200s

S-II = 2 x 600s

O-II = 2 x 600s

Exposures for Rosette Nebula part:

H-a = 3 x 1200s

S-II = 2 x 600s

O-III = 2 x 600s

Final image is 7000 x 2500 pixels and the resolution is 5,5 pixels/arc second

Original image from the year 2009

http://astroanarchy.blogspot.fi/2009/02/cone-and-rosette-nebula-mosaic.html

Monday, December 17, 2012

Heart Nebula collection

I collected my images of the Heart nebula in this blog post. Most of the images are reprocessed with my new method. This new technique will provide better color handling, softer look and high details at the same time.

I have shot many targets with instruments of different focal lengths, this makes possible to show the fractal nature of our universum, more and more details shows up as focal length gets longer.

Be sure to click the images to see them at full glory.

Heart Nebula, collection of IC 1805 images
Zooming to the heart of the Heart, Melotte 15.

Heart & Soul Nebulae

IC 1805 in mapped colors, from the emission of ionized elements,

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

Heart Nebula, IC 1805, Sharpless 190 (Sh2-190) in Cassiopeia

Ra 02h 32m 36s Dec +61° 29′ 2″

Center parts of the Heart Nebula

Melotte 15, the heart of the Heart

Tip of the Heart Nebula, a closeup

IC 1795, a bright area at the tip of the Heart Nebula

INFO

The "Heart Nebula", IC1805 locates about 7500 light years away in constellation Cassiopeia. This is an emission nebula showing glow of ionized elements in a gas cloud and some darker dust lanes.

In a very center of the nebula, lays Melotte 15, it contains few very bright stars, nearly 50 times mass of our Sun, and many dim ones. The solar wind, a radiation pressure, from massive stars makes the gas twist to a various shapes.

A study about an apparent scale in the sky

Note, a Moon size circle as a scale, click for a large image!

Technical data

Information for all of the images in this post, can be found from my portfolio:

http://astroanarchy.zenfolio.com/

Messier 27, the Dumbbell Nebula

I reprocessed this image since weather doesn't support imaging up here and my processing work flow is somehow different now. My new work flow produces softer images with high details.

Messier 27, the "Dumbbell Nebula"

Ra 19^h 59^m 36.340^sDec +22° 43′ 16.09″

M27 in mapped colors, from the emission of ionized elements,

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

Click for a large image.

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.

A closeup from the image center,

the central star shines at magnitude 13,5

M27 in visual colors

Click for a large image.

Closeup

A mapped color closeup with a different orientation.

Technical details:

Processing work flow:

Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07.

Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack.

Deconvolution with a CCDSharp, 30 iterations.

Levels, curves and color combine in PS CS3.

Telescope, Meade LX200 GPS 12" @ f5

Camera, QHY9 Guiding, SXV-AO @ 6,5Hz

Image Scale, 0,75 arcseconds/pixel

Exposures H-alpha 14x1200s, binned 1x1

2 x S-II 1x600s, binned 3x3

6 x O-III 1x600s, binned 2x2

A single 20 min. H-alpha light frame

Calibrated with Bias corrected flat and Dark masters in CCDStack

1200 seconds of light from the ionized Hydrogen with Meade LX200 12" @ f5, Baader 7nm H-a filter and a cooled astrocam QHY9. Image is scale down ~50% from the original.
At the time of imaging, the seeing was kind of good, FWHM around 2,5.

Original version, from 2009, of Messier 27 can be seen here

http://astroanarchy.blogspot.fi/2009/09/m27-in-two-palettes.html

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Soul Nebula, up close & personal

In this blog post of mine, I'm showing a collection of the Soul Nebula images. Some of them are shot in previous years and some at this Autumn season. All images are reprocessed since I have now a better technique.

IC 1848, the "Soul Nebula"

Ra 02^h 51^m 36.24^s Dec +60° 26′ 53.9"

Image is in mapped colors, from the emission of ionized elements,

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

Soul nebula in wider field image

In this wide field image, the Soul Nebula is shown with its neighbor, the Heart nebula.

Image is shot with the Canon EF 200mm f1.8 lens, Baader narrowband filters and the QHY9 cooled astronomical camera.

Info

Soul Nebula, (Sh2-199, LBN 667) is an emission nebula in constellation Cassiopeia. IC 1848 is a cluster inside Soul Nebula. Distance is about 7.500 light years. This complex is a Eastern neighbor of IC 1805, the "Heart Nebula" and they are often mentioned together as Heart and Soul.

Closeups of the Soul Nebula

Images are shot with a Meade LX200 12" telescope

Image is in mapped colors, from the emission of ionized elements,

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