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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

Monday, January 26, 2015

New exhibition in Oulu, Finland



Astronomical nature photographing, an exhibition
Monday, Wednesday and Thursday from 12-18.00 every week until the end of the February.
Kajaaninkatu 13, Oulu, welcome!

An exhibition poster, my photo of NGC 281 at background

A MAP



Some photos from the exhibition, many new photos as a high quality aluminium prints

An aluminium print of constellation Cygnus at right, 90 x 144cm


A photographic print of Veil nebula at light of ionized Oxygen only, 30x40cm


NGC 1499, the California Nebula, an aluminium print, 55x70cm


At to, an aluminium print of the Tulip nebula, 58x70cm. At bottom, Sharpless 132, as an aluminium print, 50x70cm.

The Pelican Nebula at bottom left, an aluminum print at size of 62x110cm and many others.


A collection of real museum quality photographic prints at many sizes




Sunday, January 11, 2015

Veil Nebula in light of ionized oxygen only



This must be the worst winter season ever! Last time we have had clear skies, up here 65N, was at end of the October, almost two and half months ago! Now it's cloudy, -13celsius (~8 fahrenheit) with a storming wind to a top of that. Next ten days will be no better by weather forecast. Few words comes to in my mind but I say only one, frustrated.



Veil Nebula in O-III light only
Click for the large image

This photo of the Veil Nebula supernova remnant in Cygnus shows only an emission from the ionized oxygen (O-III). All the stars are suppressed to show the actual shapes of the ionization front better.
The ionized oxygen, O-III, glows at wavelength of 500,7 nanometer. To a human eye it shows as a turquoise color. 

Info

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.


Some closeup photos in emission of ionized oxygen only


IC 1340 in ionized Oxygen light, O-III

More info about this photo of mine can be see HERE



Pickering's Triangle in ionized Oxygen light, O-III

More info about this photo of mine can be see HERE



Eastern Veil in ionized Oxygen light, O-III

More info about this photo of mine can be see HERE



Witch Broom Nebula in ionized Oxygen light, O-III

More info about this photo of mine can be see HERE



The Veil Nebula in colors

This photo of the Veil nebula shows it in full colors. Colors are combined from the emission of ionized elements, hydrogen, sulfur and oxygen.(H-alpha, S-II and O-III) More info about this photo of mine can be see HERE




Thursday, January 8, 2015

Astro Anarchy gets published




CNET article by Michelle Starr about my "It looks like..." photo pairs


You can read the story from HERE


A sample image, the Twirling Dancer

Melotte 15 cluster in IC 1805, info about this photo can be seen HERE

All my "It looks like...image pairs can be found from THIS blog post.



Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Cygnus Wall in visual colors


This photo is originally published at 31.10. last year. At the time I made only a mapped color version of it.
Now I'm publishing the same image in visual spectrum. It's combined from three component exposures of an emission from the ionized elements, hydrogen , oxygen and sulfur. (H-alpha, O-III and S-II) Channels are combined by following method, Red = 75%H-alpha + 25%S-II Green = O-III and Blue = 80%O-III+20%H-alpha (to compensate otherwise missing H-beta emission.)

The Cygnus Wall, a part of the much larger North america Nebula, NGC 7000. This is a relatively bright formation, three hours of H-alpha light and half an hour of O-III was captured for this photo. S-II channel is borrowed from an older wide field image, since the clouds rolled in before I was able to shoot it.

Cygnus Wall
Click for a large image

Image is in visual spectrum from an emission of  the ionized elements. 
The Red glow is mainly from ionized hydrogen, bluish hues are from ionized oxygen.

Detail from the image above



INFO
Source: NASA APOD

The North America nebula on the sky can do what the North America continent on Earth cannot -- form stars. Specifically, in analogy to the Earth-confined continent, the bright part that appears as Central America and Mexico is actually a hot bed of gas, dust, and newly formed stars known as the Cygnus Wall. The above image shows the star forming wall lit and eroded by bright young stars, and partly hidden by the dark dust they have created. The part of the North America nebula (NGC 7000) shown spans about 15 light years and lies about 1,500 light years away toward the constellation of the Swan (Cygnus).

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
Color combine in PS CS3
Levels and curves in PS CS3.

Imaging optics
Celestron Edge HD 1100 @ f7 with 0,7 focal reducer for Edge HD 1100 telescope

Cameras and filters
Imaging camera Apogee Alta U16 and Apogee seven slot filter wheel
Guider camera, Lodestar x2
Astrodon filter, 5nm H-aplha
Astrodon filter, 3nm O-III

Exposure times
H-alpha 6 x 1200s = 3h
O-III 3 x 600s = 30min. 
S-II is borrowed from my older wide field image

Orientation

The area of interest is marked as a white rectangle, Photo is in mapped colors.


A single un cropped, calibrated and stretched 20 min. H-alpha frame