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Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Veil Nebula, reprocessed with some new data



I found some forgotten data, from my hard, disk for the Veil Nebula. Image of this supernova remnant was originally published at 30. October 2011. I reprocessed the whole image with new data, here is the result.


Veil Nebula
Supernova remnant in constellation Cygnus

Image is in Natural color palette from the emission of ionized elements, 
R=Hydrogen + Sulfur, G=Oxygen and B=Oxygen + Hydrogen.

Note. The "noise" in the background is not a noise but countless stars!

Veil Nebula is a cloud of ionized gas and dust, leftovers from an exploded star. The star went off some 5000-8000 years ago at distance of about 1470 light years. This, relatively faint target, is difficult to image due to 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 shapes 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, March 19, 2012

IC 443, NGC 2174 & neighbors as a two panel mosaic



 I managed to get some data for second part of two frame mosaic of IC 443, SNR, and NGC 2174, the "Monkey Head Nebula". Nights are getting shorter and shorter very fast, up here 65N. In a two weeks, we'll be out of astronomical darkness for a six months.

A two frame mosaic of IC 443, NGC 2174 and Sharpless objects 247, 254, 255, 256 and 257
In constellation Gemini 

HST-palette, from the emission of ionized elements, R=Sulfur, G=Hydrogen and B=Oxygen.
Note. A largish image, about 2 meg and 1200 x 1600 pixels.

Closeups


An upper half of the mosaic, details here:

Closeup of IC 443


A closeup from bottom Right, Sharpless objects 254, 255, 256 and 257


 A closeup from top Right, Messier 35


A closeup from middle Right, Sharpless 247, Sh2-247, at Right



Image in visual spectrum

Image is in visual spectrum from narrowband channels.


IC 443, also known as Sharpless 248 (Sh2-248) or the "Jellyfish Nebula", is a supernova remnant in the constellation Gemini at distance of about 5000 light years. The actual size of the SNR is roughly 70 light years. This image spans about 10 degrees of sky. (Twenty Moons side by side in the sky.) 
At top Right lays an open group, Messier 35
At bottom Right, the Sharpless object 247, Sh2-247, can be seen as a bright dot.

NGC 2174, the "Monkey Head Nebula", (OCL 476 or Cr 84) is an open cluster surrounded by emission nebula in Gemini at distance of about 6400 light years.

A map

Constellation Gemini, Simeis 147 can be seen at upper Right.


Older versions

Older version of IC 443, shot with Tokina AT-X 300mm f2.8 lens and QHY9 at February 2009, can be seen here:
http://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2009/02/ic443-in-hst-palette.html Colors in this new image are partly borrowed from this older one.

A closeup of NGC 2175, the "Monky Head Nebula"

A study about the apparent scale in the sky can be seen here:


Technical details:

Processing work flow:
Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07.
Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack2.
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 arc-seconds/pixel
Only four 1200s exposures of H-alpha emission for both panels.
Other channels, O-III and S-II, are from an older image of mine.
(Link above, under "Older versions")

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Supernova remnant IC 443



This image might be the last image for the Spring season 2012. We'll be out of astronomical darkness at 08.04.2012 and nights are getting shorter very fast. I will try to enlarge this image with one panel, to show the nearby NGC 2175 (Sh2-252), the "Monkey Head Nebula"

IC 443
A supernova remnant in constellation Gemini

HST-palette, from the emission of ionized elements, R=Sulfur, G=Hydrogen and B=Oxygen.
Note. A largish image, about 2 meg and 1600 x 1200 pixels.

A closeup
Note. No sharpening or star reduction used, just a perfect focus is maintained.


IC 443, also known as Sharpless 248 (Sh2-248) or the "Jellyfish Nebula", is a supernova remnant in the constellation Gemini at distance of about 5000 light years. The actual size of the SNR is roughly 70 light years. This image spans about 5 degrees of sky. (Ten Moons side by side in the sky.) 
At top Right lays an open group, Messier 35
At bottom Right, the Sharpless object 247, Sh2-247, can be seen as a bright dot.


Image is in visual spectrum from narrowband channels.

Older versions

Older version, shot with Tokina AT-X 300mm f2.8 lens and QHY9 at February 2009, can be seen here:
http://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2009/02/ic443-in-hst-palette.html  Colors in this new image are partly borrowed from this older one.

A study about the apparent scale in the sky can be seen here:
http://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2011/07/ic-443-snr-scale-in-sky-zoom-in-series.html

A closeup in HST-palette. Meade LX200 GPS 12" telescope at f5,  QHY9 cooled astronomical camera and Baader narrowband filter set. Total exposure time ~12h. Original blog post and details: 


Technical details:

Processing work flow:
Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07.
Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack2.
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 arc-seconds/pixel
Only four 1200s exposures for H-alpha emission.
Other channels, O-III and S-II, are from an older image of mine.
(Link above, under "Older versions")





Thursday, March 8, 2012

The Auriga panorama gets bigger, 12 panels now



As usually, things easily gets out of my hands...
This time I shot eight new mosaic frames for Auriga image, total frames are now 12.
This panoramic mosaic spans about 21 degrees of sky. That's 42 full Moons side by side.)
I combined older long exposure images from Simeis 147 and Sharpless objects 224 and 225 to this new data.
Total exposure time, with an older data, is now about 70 hours together.

12 panel mosaic of Auriga
21 degrees of sky

HST-palette, from the emission of ionized elements, R=Sulfur, G=Hydrogen and B=Oxygen.
Note. Large image 2200 pixels wide and ~3MB. Original resolution about 15000 x 9000 pixels.

Image in visual spectrum
Note. There is a small circle at lower Left corner. It show the angular size of the full Moon in the sky.
(Apparent size of the full Moon is 30', or 0,5 degrees)


Images above are more informative, than beautiful, I think.
There are some rarely imaged objects, like Sharpless supernova remnants Sh2 224, 225 and 240 (Simeis 147). At middle there are several open clusters and Sharpless objects. (Look for an attached map at end of this page.) Outer parts of IC 405 and 410 Nebula complex are seen too. There is an interesting looking loop of gas at the Left end of the complex.


A composition from the central parts of mosaic
I made a cropped image out of this panorama. I think, it's more visually pleasing.

HST-palette, from the emission of ionized elements, R=Sulfur, G=Hydrogen and B=Oxygen.
Eight panels are used for this mosaic image. Original resolution about 9000 x 7000 pixels.

Previous version, a four panel mosaic
Original resolution about 7000 x 5000 pixels.

Blog post, with technical detail, can be seen here:
http://www.astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2012/03/four-panel-panoramic-mosaic-of-auriga.html


Detail images from the mosaic,
to show the resolution, click for large version

NOTE
No sharpening or star reducing methods are used!



Mosaic image is build around this one frame image, original blog post, with technical details, can be seen here:

Messier 38 at middle of the large image

A closeup of IC 410

Sharpless 232

Sharpless 224
Image, with technical data, can be seen here:





A map

Image is implemented in a map from Cartes du Ciel


An animation

This experimental GIF-animation shows the image without stars and
the actual nebula complex is better seen.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

A four panel panoramic mosaic of Auriga, IC 405 & 410



This image shows a wider field view to Auriga Nebulae, IC 405 and 410.
Also Sharpless 232, Sh2-232, IC 417, Messier 38 and NGC 1907 are seen in the image.
Image is composed from four panels and covers about nine degrees horizontally, that's equal to area of 18 full Moons side by side in the sky. There are not many images around to show the whole nebula complex.

IC 405 & 410 
In constellation Auriga

HST-palette, from the emission of ionized elements,
R=Sulfur, G=Hydrogen and B=Oxygen.

An older study about the scale in a sky can be seen here:

mage is in Natural color palette from the emission of ionized elements, 
R=Hydrogen + Sulfur, G=Oxygen and B=Oxygen + Hydrogen.


An animated image to show the nebula with and without stars.
Click to see an animation



Mosaic image is build around this one frame image


A blog post, with technical details, can be found here:
http://www.astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2011/11/ic405-410.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, Canon EF 200mm camera lens at f1.8
Camera, QHY9
Guiding, Meade LX200 GPS 12" and a Lodestar guider
Image Scale, ~5 arcseconds/pixel
Total exposure time for all channels (H-a, O-III and S-II) about 10 hours.

A map