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Saturday, November 3, 2018

Just for a fun


Natural phenomenons has a tendency to have the same patterns.


Brain vessels VS Supernova remnant
Please, click for a large image

At left, a MRA-image of the human brain vessel system. At right, a supernova remnant Simeis 147 in constellation Taurus.

The MRA photo of brain vessels is form here:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07182-7

My photo of Simeis 147 supernova remnant can be seen here:
https://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2013/09/a-supernova-remnant-simeis-147.html



LBN 243



I have been using my large 18-panels mosaic image of the Cygnus Nebula Complex as a map to a some rarely imaged dimmer nebulae in that area. The large mosaic photo was taken with a Canon EF 200mm@f1.8 camera lens. I have shot many interesting areas from that photo with much longer focal length instruments. 

Last few years I have been using an excellent telescope for that task, Celestron Edge 11"  reflecting telescope with 0.7 focal reducer. BTW, this is one of the very best focal reducers I have ever been using! Its build like a tank and optical quality is next to nothing. The reducer cost about as much as an good quality refracting telescope but it's worth of every penny. With this reducer my Apogee Alta U16 camera has a spatial resolution of about one arcsecond per pixel. That image scale is pretty much optimal for my imaging purposes.

This time I picked up an interesting looking object from Cygnus Nebula Complex, the emission nebula LBN 243. It's a kind of dim target and I was able to dig out some extreme dim emission of ionized oxygen too (O-III) I haven't seen any pictures focusing to this target so far.


LBN 243
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Image is in mapped colours, from the emission of ionized elements, R=Sulphur, G=Hydrogen and B=Oxygen. The signal for ionized oxygen, O-III, was very weak.




An experimental starless version
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It's much easier to see the shapes and details in actual nebula, when the stars are removed.


Orientation in large context
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The area of interest is marked as a white rectangle.


Technical details

Processing workflow

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 @ f10 with 0,7 focal reducer for Edge HD 1100 telescope

Mount
10-micron 1000

Cameras and filters
Imaging camera Apogee Alta U16 and Apogee seven slot filter wheel
Guider camera, Lodestar x 2 and SXV-AOL

Astrodon filters,
5nm H-alpha 3nm S-II and 3nm O-III

Exposure times

H-alpha, 13 x 1200 s, binned 2x2 = 4 h
O-III, 6 x 1200 s, binned 4x4 = 2 h.
S-II, 3 x 1200 s. binned 4x4 = 1 h


APOD by NASA, Astro Anarchy gets published


Astronomy Picture of the Day

My shot of the Cygnus Shell, supernova remnant W63, was selected today as an APOD (Astronomy Picture of the Day) by NASA. You can see the NASA page here: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap181102.html


Cygnus Shell, W63
Please, click for a large photo it's worth it!


Image is in mapped colours, from the emission of ionized elements, R=Sulphur, G=Hydrogen and B=Oxygen. This mosaic image of twelve individual panels covers about four degrees of sky vertically.
Original blogpost with the technical details can be found from here:
https://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2018/10/a-very-rare-photo-cygnus-shell.html


Thursday, November 1, 2018

The sky on fire, filaments of the Western cygnus

I have shot the constellation Cygnus for many years with different instruments. Due to that, I'm able to build mosaic by using some overlapping images.

This is a two frame mosaic from the Western part of the Cygnus nebula complex. Blueish hues are emission from the Cygnus Shell, a supernova remnant W63

This two panel mosaic image has a total exposure time of about 28 hours.
Each panel is shot with Celestron Edge 11" reflecting telescope (with a 0.7 focal reducer), Apogee Alta U16 cooled astrocamera and Astrodon narrowband filter set (5nm H-alpha, 3nm S-II and 3nm O-III)

The Sky on Fire
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Image is in Natural color palette from the emission of ionized elements, R=Hydrogen + Sulphur, G=Oxygen and B=Oxygen + 10% Hydrogen to compensate the missing H-beta emission.




Photo in mapped colors
Please, click for a large image

Image is in mapped colours, from the emission of ionized elements, R=Sulphur, G=Hydrogen and B=Oxygen. This mosaic image of two individual panels covers about one and half degrees of sky vertically.



H-alpha emission alone
Please, click for a large image