View allAll Photos Tagged ReflectionNebula
About 600 light years away on the border of Lupus and Scorpius is the enigmatic nebula Lupus 3
A two-part mosaic totalling 51 hours of exposure taken with a 10" R/C at f/6 and Baader LRGB filters with a Moravian G3-11000 camera.
NGC 7129 (Rosebud Nebula) and nearby cluster NGC 7142, c.100 minutes integration time. Officina Stellare 130, modded Canon 600D, NEQ6 mount.
24 August 2014, Coombe Bissett, Salisbury UK
Date: September 5 and October 5 - 6 2013
Integration: 77 x 300 seconds
Canon Rebel T3i / 600D/ Kiss X5 - astro-modded.
Telescope: Officina Stellare APO APM130-780.
Astronomik's CCD CLS Clip Filter.
Mounted on a SkyWatcher NEQ6 Pro Mount.
Guiding: Skywatcher Startravel 80/ QHY5 Guider
Imaged at Combe Bissett, Nr Salisbury, Wiltshire and at the Disciples of the Dark Arts star Party at Brighstone Isle of Wight, UK.
This is a region of gas and dust: The bright blue (reflection) nebula left of center is IC2631; the little galaxy to the left of IC2631 is NGC3620; the other blue (reflection) nebula (just below center) is Ced 111, and the ivory-colored nebula in the center of the image is Ced 110; the small, reddish triangular nebula just below Ced 110 is the Chameleon Infrared Nebula, GN11.07.3; the dark nebula to the right of IC2631 is Bernes 142; the dark cloud below Ced 110 is Sandqvist 135. The cloud is estimated to be 400 to 600 light years from us.
This image was my most challenging to date. Being so close to the south celestial pole I had a lot of trouble tracking the target. Also, being so dim I needed long exposures to capture it. I eventually managed to extend my subs out to 5 minutes unguided to get this. What you see here is a total of 4 hours of exposures. Taken with the Canon 6D and 70-200mm f/4L IS lens at 200mm stopped down to f/5.6 and ISO3200. Imaged from Ilford in New South Wales, Australia.
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Hubble captured this image of the hazy reflection nebula Caldwell 68 using its Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. Reflection nebulae are star-forming clouds of gas and dust that glow with the energy emitted from a hot, nearby star. The nebulae can glow across various wavelengths of light, but this particular image was captured in the visible range of the electromagnetic spectrum. The star that illuminates Caldwell 68 is known as a T Tauri star — a type of young star whose brightness fluctuates over time. Often, T Tauri stars have circumstellar disks. These debris disks surround some young stars and could develop into solar systems much like our own. The observations used to create this image were part of a survey of nearby T Tauri stars searching for visible circumstellar disks.
Caldwell 68, also known as NGC 6729, is located roughly 400 light-years away in the constellation Corona Australis, making it one of the closest star-forming regions to Earth. It is a small part of the larger Corona Australis Molecular Cloud. It was discovered by the German astronomer Johann Friedrich Julius Schmidt in 1861 and has an apparent magnitude of 9.5. The fan-shaped nebula appears to extend out from the star R Coronae Australis (on the right in this Hubble image) toward the star T Coronae Australis (on the left in the image). It also appears near other, larger nebulae known as NGC 6726, NGC 6727, and IC 4812. The best time of year to spot Caldwell 68 is during the late summer in the Northern Hemisphere and late winter in the Southern Hemisphere. It can be seen using a small telescope.
Credit: NASA, ESA, and K. Stapelfeldt (Jet Propulsion Laboratory); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
For Hubble's Caldwell catalog website and information on how to find these objects in the night sky, visit:
🌌 IC 4604 – The Blue Nebula of Rho Ophiuchi 🔥✨
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Here is IC 4604, one of the most stunning reflection nebulae in the sky, located at the heart of the Rho Ophiuchi region, about 460 light-years away in the constellation Ophiuchus. Its intense blue color is caused by nearby hot stars, whose light is scattered by fine interstellar dust.
📍 Constellation: Ophiuchus ♒
🌍 Distance: ~460 light-years
💫 Type: Reflection Nebula
🔭 Apparent Magnitude: ~4.6
📏 Apparent Size: ~3° × 2°
️ Coordinates (J2000): RA 16h 25m 35s | Dec -23° 26′ 49″
✨ Fun Facts:
The Rho Ophiuchi region is a massive stellar nursery, full of young stars in formation. 🌟🌀
The intense blue color is due to Rayleigh scattering, the same phenomenon that makes our daytime sky blue! 🌍💙
This nebula is one of the closest star-forming regions to Earth, making it a natural laboratory for studying young stars. 🔬💫
A breathtaking corner of the cosmos, where dust and gas mix to create wonders. Who else loves reflection nebulae? ✨💙
Lights: 131x300" (LRGB)
Telescope: Takahashi FSQ-106ED
Camera: QHY 600M
Filters: LRGB Astrodon
Processed: Pixinsight
Date: 11/07/2023
From Wikipedia: IC 405 (also known as the Flaming Star Nebula, SH 2-229, or Caldwell 31) is an emission/reflection nebula in the constellation Auriga, surrounding the bluish star AE Aurigae.l coordinates are R It shines at magnitude +6.0.The nebula measures approximately 37.0' x 19.0', and lies about 1,500 light-years away.It is believed that the proper motion of the central star can be traced back to the Orion's Belt area.The nebula is about 5 light-years across.
Camera: Canon T3i ( a new acquisition)
Scope: Takahashi FSQ 106ED at 530mm F5
ISO 1600
22 subs of 5 mins each
Location: Yakima Canyon
A reprocessing of the same data from this image. I tried to make them look a little more balanced and less like Skittles. My favorite part of the image are the tendrils of dust that look much like a brush stroke near Merope, to the lower left of center. It's one of those features that don't really show up in visible light for whatever reason.
The bottom edge of the picture includes only monochrome MIPS data that was colorized according to contextual data. Doing so gives Electra a little more breathing room.
Red: MIPS24 (24 microns)
Orange: IRAC4 (8 microns)
Green: IRAC3 (5.8 microns)
Cyan: IRAC2 (4.5 microns)
Blue: IRAC1 (3.6 microns)
North is NOT up. It is 78.2° clockwise from up.
The Pleiades or the Seven Sisters or the Subaru Cluster in Taurus. The reflection nebula carries a blue cast due to the starlight from the brighter stars. This is a deeper image than my previous attempt earlier this year, giving more detail to the nebulosity.
Imaging scope: Astro-Tech 106mm Triplet
Imaging Camera: ST8300M (capture with Equinox Image)
Filters: Baader filters in FW5-8300 filter wheel
Guide scope: Astro-Tech 65 Quadruplet
Guide camera: Starfish Fishcamp (guided with PHD)
Mount: Atlas EQ-G
Calibrated in Equinox Image and processed in PixInsight.
L: 10x5min (1x1)
RGB: 6x5min each (2x2)
The Orion Nebula (also known as Messier 42, M42, or NGC 1976) is a diffuse nebula situated in the Milky Way, being south of Orion's Belt in the constellation of Orion.[b] It is one of the brightest nebulae and is visible to the naked eye in the night sky with apparent magnitude 4.0. It is 1,344 ± 20 light-years (412.1 ± 6.1 pc) away and is the closest region of massive star formation to Earth. The M42 nebula is estimated to be 24 light-years across (so its apparent size from Earth is approximately 1 degree). It has a mass of about 2,000 times that of the Sun. Older texts frequently refer to the Orion Nebula as the Great Nebula in Orion or the Great Orion Nebula.
🌌 Bortle 2
📅 November 2022
📍 Possum Brush NSW #
🔭 Skywatcher ED72 Evostar w/.85 FR/C
Skywatcher HEQ5 Pro
📷 ZWO ASI533MCPro
📷 ZWO 30mm w/ ASI120mm Mini GC
ZWO ASIAIR Plus
Optolong L-Pro
️ PixInsight
️ 60 x 300 w/DFB
The Northern Triffid. Located "up North" in Perseus compared with the larger Triffid nebula "down South" in Sagittarius.
Work in progress: 36 x 6 minute exposures stacked and processed in PixInsight.
Discovered by William Herschel on 3rd December 1788.
Rather amazingly, this is classified as a reflection nebula - normally something this pink would be thought of as an emission nebula but the dust surrounding the central bright stars has diffracted the starlight towards the red end of the spectrum.
Im planning to get some more subs and see if I can bring out the dust clouds further. If I do that, I'll drizzle the images which should improve resolution.
Date: September 5 and October 5 - 6 2013
Integration: 77 x 300 seconds
Canon Rebel T3i / 600D/ Kiss X5 - astro-modded.
Telescope: Officina Stellare APO APM130-780.
Astronomik's CCD CLS Clip Filter.
Mounted on a SkyWatcher NEQ6 Pro Mount.
Guiding: Skywatcher Startravel 80/ QHY5 Guider
Imaged at Combe Bissett, Nr Salisbury, Wiltshire and at the Disciples of the Dark Arts star Party at Brighstone Isle of Wight, UK.
This is a reflection nebula in Orion in a dark corner of the constellation. I didn't process this data at the time as I didn't think they were usable. Since then I've had a rethink and this is the result.
T: RC10 plus x0.7 reducer
C: ASI 071 MC Pro
M: EQ8
35 x 120s RGB
Canon 60D unmodded
Canon 400mm f5.6L
Astrotrac
ISO 2500-3200
23 exposures @ f 5.6
100-167 seconds
10/20/2012
Had some great conditions last night. I wish I had the endurance to keep going. Still happy with the result. My best pleiades yet.
The Horsehead and Flame Nebulae in Orion are a part of the vast Orion nebular complex. The Flame's source of energy is the brightest star in the frame, Alnitak. The reflection nebula to the lower right is NGC2023, a 4 light year wide molecular hydrogen cloud.
Imaging scope: Astro-Tech 106mm TripletImaging Camera: ST8300M (capture with Equinox Image)Filters: Baader filters in FW5-8300 filter wheelGuide scope: Astro-Tech 65 QuadrupletGuide camera: Starfish Fishcamp (guided with PHD)Mount: Atlas EQ-GCalibration and processing in PixInsight.
Synthetic luminance from all frames
L(HaR)GB:
Ha: 3x6min (2x2), 11x5min (1x1)
R: 1x3min, 7x5min (2x2)
G: 1x3min, 5x5min (2x2)
B: 3x3min, 5x5min (2x2)
HQ version here
Edit 2015 March 02: ESA's website spacetelescope.org now features their version of this object. If you want to know more about the star and also see it without its diffraction spikes removed, click here: www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1509a/
I love finding these sorts of things hidden away in the archive. This is a variable star named V1331 Cyg nestled within some clouds. It looks like a gate to some fantasy world. The blank quadrant in the upper right is actually the tip of a dust cloud present in the foreground. See some context here. V1331 Cyg is at the top center edge in Adam Block's image.
The clouds are actually rather monochrome, I think. Some slight variations in color you see are due to some banding anomalies which are rather difficult to deal with. I greatly reduced some very large diffraction spikes and charge bleeds to a point where they are hardly visible. This makes it easier to see the cloud formations which are very near the star. There were also some very short exposures I used to make the central star really tiny.
Data came from two proposals: 11976 & 08216
Red: WFPC2 WF F814W (11976)
Green: WFPC2 WF F606W (11976 & 08216)
Blue: WFPC2 WF F450W (11976)
North is NOT up. It's 7.6° counter-clockwise from up.
This has already been done:
www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1130a/
However, I used some infrared data to see through the flare and reduce it quite a bit. This also caused me to have to crop it to a landscape and take away some data so it wasn't awkward so I guess it was a trade-off.
HST_9741_01_ACS_WFC_F625W_sci
HST_9741_01_ACS_WFC_F475W_sci
HST_9741_01_ACS_WFC_F658N_sci
HST_9741_01_ACS_WFC_F850LP_sci
hst_11548_9o_wfc3_ir_f160w_sci
A wonderful patch of reflection nebula that looks very much like the head of a witch when oriented appropriately as done here.
In the constellation of Taurus the Bull resides The Seven Sisters. Or, the Pleiades star cluster. Also known as M45 in the Messier Catalog. The Japanese call it Subaru. The eponymous car company's logo is a stylized Seven Sisters.
This is a stack of eight 2-minute exposures. I bought Noel Carboni's Astronomy Actions pack tonight. This is the first image I tried it with. The bluish glow around the bigger stars is what is known as a reflection nebula. Or, more likely it is overflow of the photo sites on the camera sensor caused by the brightness of the larger stars. If it is to be interpreted as the reflection nebulae, then only the brighter portions of the nebulae can be seen through the light pollution from my backyard. There was also a thin layer of clouds so it was not completely transparent seeing.
Also designated Caldwell 4. The Iris Nebula is illuminated from the inside by a 7th magnitude star. This image was produced with 5 hours worth of exposure but with such a bright sky (downtown light pollution) I could only pull out hints of the outer nebulosity. Still a fascinating target thought!
Definitely click on this one to view large. Looks MUCH better on a dark background.
Technical info about the image:
Object: NGC 7023, Caldwell 4, The Iris Nebula
Mount: CGEM
Imaging scope: C9.25 at f/6.3
Imaging FL: 1480mm
Imaging camera: unmodified Nikon D700
Lights: 100x180s (5h) at ISO 400
Calibration: 12 sky flats, no darks
Guide scope: Orion 9x50 finder scope!
Guide camera: Philips SPC900NC (LX modified, 2s intervals)
Other details: Images acquired with ImagesPlus Camera Control, guided with PHD (using GPUSB), calibrated and stacked using Deep Sky Stacker, post-processed in Photoshop CS5.
Here's a beautiful shot of the central region on APOD.
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For all the iPhone-carrying astro-geeks, head over to my profile for a link to a project that you might be interested in...
The area around the head of Scorpius, including the bright star Antares at lower left of centre and the dark lanes leading to the star Rho Ophiuchi. The area is filled with colourful nebulosity, including yellow and blue reflection nebulas and magenta emission nebulas. To the right of Antares is the globular cluster Messier 4. The field is similar to what binoculars would take in.
I shot this the morning of May 4, 2014, from the Four Bar Cottages near the Arizona Sky Village, near Portal Arizona. This is a stack of 10 x 4 minute exposures at f/2.8 with the 135mm lens and Canon 5D Mark II (filter modified) at ISO 1600. This overexposed the frames but gave enough signal to bring out the faint dark nebulas without introducing a lot of noise. Even so, I forgot to turn on Long Exposure Noise Reduction so no dark frames were applied to these images. The camera was tracking, but not guiding, on the iOptron SkyTracker. Stacked with Median combine to eliminate satellite trails.
Everyone’s favorite Cluster!!!
M45 The Pleiades aka "The Seven Sisters" Open Star Cluster in Taurus. Easily visible to the unaided Eye, even from the city, this bright cluster is an amazing view in Binoculars or a small wide angle telescope. M45 is one of the nearest Galactic Open Clusters, sitting about 444 light years away, and shining at Magnitude 1.6.
I did also pick up a faint background Edge on spiral galaxy, look to the upper left of Electra to spot it!
M45 is an open star cluster containing middle-aged hot B-type stars located in the constellation of Taurus. It is among the nearest star clusters to Earth and is the cluster most obvious to the naked eye in the night sky. The celestial entity has several meanings in different cultures and traditions.
The cluster is dominated by hot blue and extremely luminous stars that have formed within the last 100 million years.
Dust that forms a faint blue reflection nebulosity around the brightest stars was thought at first to be left over from the formation of the cluster (hence the alternative name Maia Nebula after the star Maia), but is now known to be an unrelated dust cloud in the interstellar medium, through which the stars are currently passing.
New Computer simulations have shown that the Pleiades was probably formed from a compact configuration that resembled the Orion Nebula.
Astronomers estimate that the cluster will survive for about another 250 million years, after which it will disperse due to gravitational interactions with its galactic neighborhood.
Greek Mythology states that Mighty Atlas (son of a Titan) and his wife Pleione had 7 Incredibly beautiful Daughters, Atlas place his Seven daughters in the heavens to protect them from Mortal men! And to this day Orion the hunter who is in love with several of the Sisters follows them around the sky.
Modified Canon Rebel Xsi DSLR & 5.5 inch Diameter Vixen Newtonian Reflector scope, ISO 1600, for a 76 minute exposure at my Observatories in JBSPO in Yellow Springs, Ohio.
Best Regards,
John Chumack
Everyone’s favorite Cluster!!!
M45 The Pleiades aka "The Seven Sisters" Open Star Cluster in Taurus. Easily visible to the unaided Eye, even from the city, this bright cluster is an amazing view in Binoculars or a small wide angle telescope. M45 is one of the nearest Galactic Open Clusters, sitting about 444 light years away, and shining at Magnitude 1.6.
I did also pick up a faint background Edge on spiral galaxy, look to the upper left of Electra to spot it!
M45 is an open star cluster containing middle-aged hot B-type stars located in the constellation of Taurus. It is among the nearest star clusters to Earth and is the cluster most obvious to the naked eye in the night sky. The celestial entity has several meanings in different cultures and traditions.
The cluster is dominated by hot blue and extremely luminous stars that have formed within the last 100 million years.
Dust that forms a faint blue reflection nebulosity around the brightest stars was thought at first to be left over from the formation of the cluster (hence the alternative name Maia Nebula after the star Maia), but is now known to be an unrelated dust cloud in the interstellar medium, through which the stars are currently passing.
New Computer simulations have shown that the Pleiades was probably formed from a compact configuration that resembled the Orion Nebula.
Astronomers estimate that the cluster will survive for about another 250 million years, after which it will disperse due to gravitational interactions with its galactic neighborhood.
Greek Mythology states that Mighty Atlas (son of a Titan) and his wife Pleione had 7 Incredibly beautiful Daughters, Atlas place his Seven daughters in the heavens to protect them from Mortal men! And to this day Orion the hunter who is in love with several of the Sisters follows them around the sky.
Modified Canon Rebel Xsi DSLR & 5.5 inch Diameter Vixen Newtonian Reflector scope, ISO 1600, for a 76 minute exposure at my Observatories in JBSPO in Yellow Springs, Ohio.
Best Regards,
John Chumack
A unique peanut-shaped cocoon of dust, called a reflection nebula, surrounds a cluster of young, hot stars in this view from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The "double bubble," called N30B, is inside a larger nebula. The larger nebula, called DEM L 106, is embedded in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way lying 160,000 light-years away. The wispy filaments of DEM L 106 fill much of the image. Hubble captures the glow of fluorescing hydrogen and sulfur, as well as the brilliant blue-white colors of the hot stars.
The very bright star at the top of the picture, called Henize S22, illuminates the dusty cocoon like a flashlight shining on smoke particles. This searing supergiant star is only 25 light-years from the N30B nebula. Viewed from N30B, the brilliant star would appear 250 times as bright as the planet Venus does in Earth's sky.
Astronomers have made a clever use of the reflection nebula around N30B. By obtaining spectroscopic observations at various points across the nebula, they can study the spectrum of S22 from different angles. Remarkably, they have found that the star's spectrum changes with the viewing angle, suggesting that the star is surrounded by a flattened disk of gas expelled from its equator.
Astronomers R. Davies, K. Elliot, and J. Meaburn, who created the "DEM" catalogs of both the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, originally cataloged DEM L 106 in the 1970s. N30B was discovered in the 1950s by astronomer K. Henize, who later became a NASA astronaut.
DEM L 106 was imaged with Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2). Hubble data taken in 1998 were combined with data taken by the Hubble Heritage Team in late 2001.
For more information please visit: hubblesite.org/image/1272/news_release/2002-29
Credit: NASA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Acknowledgment: M.S. Oey (Lowell Observatory) and Y.-H. Chu (Univ. of Illinois)
A wide view of Sagittarian trio of nebula.
Though really much more than a trio when viewed up close, the two most recognisable of the bunch are the Lagoon nebula at bottom and the Trifid Nebula at the top.
In Sagittarius the pink emission nebula IC1283-4 are near center with two small blue reflection nebulae NGC6589 and NGC6590. Bordered by the dark nebula vdB118 & 119.
I am finally done my "winter project" of M78 in the constellation Orion. The winter weather in the Niagara Region doesn't bode to well for astrophotographers as the clear nights are slim to none. Last night, however, I was able to squeeze in another 1.5 hours of shooting on this beautiful subject. I am satisfied with my results, and look forward to moving on to my next project, The Orion Nebula:) Thanks for looking!
72 frames
4 and 4.5 minute exposures
5 hours 30 minutes total exposure
Stacked with darks
ES ED80 Triplet Apo
ASCG-5 GT
Orion Mini Guidescope
Meade DSI II
Canon 450d unmodded
Stacked in DSS
Processed in PS CS5
The Great Orion Nebula (Messier 42) poses with it's companions the Messier 43 and the Running Man Nebula (NGC 1977) in this LRGB HDR mosaic with 30s, 5min and 10min exposures as 2 panels.
It's still not perfect, but this will have to do for the foreseeable future for this object. The actual mosaic is 6300x8200, so it might make a nice print at some point.
Shot over multiple winter nights in 2012-2013. Photographed with WO FLT-110, WO 0.8x mk4 reducer, Baader LRGB filters in Atik EFW2 wheel, StarlightXpress SXVR-H18 CCD-camera on Synta EQ6 using MaxImDL and AstroTortilla. Processed in PixInsight.
This is what the infrared Pleiades look like with a normal wavelength arrangement. Wasn't going to post it, but after asking around I found out that it's split maybe 50/50 on preference. Enjoy! More info at: WISE Pleiades
Red: W4 (22 μm)
Yellow-Green: W3 (12 μm)
Cyan: W2 (4.6 μm)
Blue: W1 (3.4 μm)
North is up.
The Iris Nebula (NGC 7023). This has proved to be a tricky target to get right in the past and this attempt was no exception, but it's the first time we’ve imaged NGC 7023 with this camera and a good polar alignment so the image is an improvement on previous attempts. The problems were due to having only one set of flat files when ideally we should have shot another set for after the meridian flip. This meant gradients and dust devils appeared in the processing as well as a mysterious cross-hatch noise pattern. After trying various processes to tame the background I cropped the image to lose the noisier parts and that made it look better but it meant sacrificing some of the fainter gas and dust clouds surrounding the nebula.
From Wkipedia [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_Nebula]:
The Iris Nebula, also known as NGC 7023 and Caldwell 4, is a bright reflection nebula and Caldwell object in the constellation Cepheus. NGC 7023 is actually the cluster within the nebula, LBN 487, and the nebula is lit by a magnitude +7 star, SAO 19158. It shines at magnitude +6.8. It is located near the Mira-type variable star T Cephei, and near the bright magnitude +3.23 variable star Beta Cephei (Alphirk). It lies 1,300 light-years away and is six light-years across.
037 x 300 second exposures at Unity Gain (139) cooled to -20°C
050 x dark frames
040 x flat frames
100 x bias frames (subtracted from flat frames)
Binning 1x1
Total integration time = 3 hours and 5 minutes
Captured with APT
Guided with PHD2
Processed in Nebulosity, Lightroom and Photoshop
Equipment:
Telescope: Sky-Watcher Explorer-150PDS
Mount: Skywatcher EQ5
Guide Scope: Orion 50mm Mini
Guiding Camera: ZWO ASI120MC
Imaging Camera: ZWO ASI1600MC Pro
Baader Mark-III MPCC Coma Corrector
Light pollution filter
This is the flame nebula in the constellation Orion. It has always been one of my favorites because it actually looks like a flame. The bright star in the image is one of the three stars making up Orion's belt. The light from the star is lighting up a big patch of gas, making a reflection nebula. About half of the constellation Orion has giant clouds of hydrogen floating around.
The famous horsehead nebula is also just barely visible at the bottom of the image.
This image turned out total crap no matter what I did with it... The relatively short total imaging time, the DSLR which blocks most hydrogen-alpha emissions, and the fact that it was plain old out of focus made it come out pretty blah no matter what.
20 x 90sec at ISO 1600 on an 8" newtonian (F/4.9)
Prime focus, 1000mm focal length.
This area is a complex of dust near the bright star Navi in Cassiopeia. The nebula glows with a combination of emission and reflection, giving a reddish and blueish white color. The whole complex of IC 59 and IC 63 also are in the Sharpless Catalog as Sh2-185.
Taken over two days while at Calstar 2013 in October. Most data was collected on the first night after I'd done polar alignment and while I was struggling with polar alignment and guiding of the GM8 for film work. The rest of the data was gathered piece-meal as I had shut down the GM8 and went piggyback for the film camera.
Standard setup for my digital work:
Stellarvue SV4 telescope using SSF6 flattener
Modified and Cooled Pentax K10D camera
No light pollution filter, just used the B+W 486 UV/IR filter. For a time I was using this filter to control NIR and UV on the full spectrum camera to control what I thought was out of focus light causing problems.
10 subexposures at 1200 seconds each giving 3 hours and 20 minutes of integration time.
Guiding and calibration with Maxim DL.
Stacked with DSS.
Processed with PixInsight: crop, DBE, masked stretch script, histogram stretch to reset black point, masked use of SCNR to control green, MT with a mask for brightest areas, finally unmasked curves to boost contrast a bit.
I had some challenges with flare on this data. Because the bright star Navi (Gamma Cassiopeiae) is near the center of the frame, it blazes at 2.5 magnitude, causing reflections to show up around the scene, specifically near HR266. The limited amount of data I had to use made it difficult to control the flare. Only by stacking with rigorous rejection routines (DSS Kappa Sigma K=1 x 49) was it possible to control the flare. Here are some notes from that effort. blog.migol.com/2013/10/calstar-2013-calibration-and-stack...
I have not taken a similar image recently that features such a bright star. I'm curious what the recent centering and alignment and flocking work I've been doing will change the behavior of the system.
Here's the plate solve from PI:
Image Plate Solver script version 3.4.1
=======================================
Referentiation Matrix (Gnomonic projection = Matrix * Coords[x,y]):
+6.55284e-006 -0.000530856 +0.631552
+0.000530703 +6.70795e-006 -0.947467
+0 +0 +1
Projection origin.. [1769.992960 1211.534127]pix -> [RA:+00 56 47.60 Dec:+61 03 08.20]
Resolution ........ 1.911 arcsec/pix
Rotation .......... 90.707 deg
Focal ............. 653.03 mm
Pixel size ........ 6.05 um
Field of view ..... 1d 52' 44.8" x 1d 17' 10.2"
Image center ...... RA: 00 56 47.613 Dec: +61 03 08.21
Image bounds:
top-left ....... RA: 01 01 51.623 Dec: +60 05 55.84
top-right ...... RA: 01 02 22.028 Dec: +61 58 35.00
bottom-left .... RA: 00 51 32.283 Dec: +60 06 52.69
bottom-right ... RA: 00 51 24.872 Dec: +61 59 35.24
========================================
A beautiful region of Sagittarius, largely overlooked because of it's proximity to the much brighter and spectacular Lagoon and Trifid nebulae .
Exposures: L: 40 + R:20 G:20 B:20 minutes (1.7 hours)
Date: 14th June 2010
Location: Macedon Ranges, Victoria.
Processing:
Sub-Image calibration, colour image sigma rejected addition and RGB image creation with CCDStack.
Background correction using the PixInsight software's Dynamic Background Extraction Tool.
Adobe RGB 1998 colourspace conversion, Mild sharpening, levels and a slight desaturation with Adobe Photoshop CS4.
Image planned, acquired, captured and processed from the Gold Coast, using the remote telescope at Southern Galactic in the Macedon Ranges in Victoria.
Telescope: 16"; f8.4 Richey-Chretien
Focal Length: 3414mm
Camera: Apogee Alta U9000
Pixels: 3056 x 3056 x 12um
The colourful region around yellow Antares (bottom) in Scorpius and blue Rho Ophiuchi (top) in Ophiuchus. The nebulas are largely reflection nebulas, taking on the colour of the stars embedded in the nebulas. However, the field also contains a lot of emission nebulosity, hydrogen gas glowing red and magenta. Plus there are fingers of brown dark dusty nebulosity. It is one of the most colourful regions of the sky.
At right of Antares are two globular clusters, NGC 6144 (small, at 2 o'clock from Antares) and the larger Messier 4 right of Antares.
This is a stack of 5 x 8 minute exposures with the Borg 77mm astrographic apo (330mm focal length) at f/4.3 and the filter-modified Canon 5D Mark II at ISO 800. I took this March 31/April 1 from Coonabarabran, NSW, Australia.
Finally got to process this old data from December. There were some weird artifacts on this one, likely from the nearby bright stars just outside the frame. The noise and artifacts wouldn't allow much stretching unfortunately. Combined to LHa-(HaR)GB
Imaging scope: Astro-Tech 8-inch RC
Imaging Camera: ST8300M (capture with Equinox Image)
Filters: Baader filters in FW5-8300 filter wheel
Guide scope: Orion EON 80mm
Guide camera: Starfish Fishcamp (guided with PHD)
Mount: Atlas EQ-G
Calibration and processing in PixInsight.
LHa-(HaR)GB
L: 9x3min (2x2)
RGB: 4x3min (3x3) each
Halpha: 6x5min (2x2)
A work in progress, this is the Witch Head Nebula (IC 2118) near Rigel. Seen over two nights of data collection at Montebello OSP.
I'm trying some different ways of gathering data to see what I can do. These are 20 minute subs at 100 ISO. 24 subs made up this stack for about 8 hours of integration.
Still calibrating with Maxim and stacking with DSS before going to PI.
What I've found is that for the setup, the temperature range doesn't seem to matter as much any more. Using a "set point" for the cooler at 0C seems to give a flat response for noise across the session. Thus, there's not as much need to keep as large of a library of darks. This is a good thing. Also the texture of the noise changed, so I'll have to figure out new settings in Atrous wavelet processing.
There are still flexure issues with the camera. I think I know where the problem is. I'll try a fix tomorrow and test it out this weekend.
Here is the plate solve from PI:
Referentiation Matrix (Gnomonic projection = Matrix * Coords[x,y]):
+0.000028253472 -0.000530158975 +0.507957495766
+0.000530163848 +0.000028685662 -0.939069255758
+0.000000000000 +0.000000000000 +1.000000000000
Resolution ........ 1.911 arcsec/pix
Rotation .......... 93.073 deg
Focal ............. 655.06 mm
Pixel size ........ 6.07 um
Field of view ..... 1d 49' 14.0" x 1d 6' 51.9"
Image center ...... RA: 05 05 55.880 Dec: -06 47 38.51
Image bounds:
top-left ....... RA: 05 07 58.890 Dec: -07 43 57.76
top-right ...... RA: 05 08 21.797 Dec: -05 54 53.67
bottom-left .... RA: 05 03 29.430 Dec: -07 40 20.61
bottom-right ... RA: 05 03 53.350 Dec: -05 51 17.32
Horsehead and Flame Nebula. Wider field than my earlier attempt. The clouds were invading again, making the bright star Alnitak severely bloated with a halo. This almost completely trashed my luminance frames. No matter, the halpha provided some nice definition in the Horsehead and Flame nebulae, given the conditions.
Imaging scope: Astro-Tech 106mm Triplet
Imaging Camera: ST8300M (capture with Equinox Image)
Filters: Baader filters in FW5-8300 filter wheel
Guide scope: Orion EON 80mm
Guide camera: Starfish Fishcamp (guided with PHD)
Mount: Atlas EQ-G
Calibrated in Equinox Image and processed in PixInsight.
Lum: 3x3min (1x1)
R: 6x3min (2x2)
G: 6x3min (2x2)
B: 6x3min (2x2)
Halpha: 6x3min (2x2)
RA: 04h 21m 47.46s, Dec: +19°30′28.3"
www.astrobin.com/qwf2le/B/?nc=user#sky-plot
Hind’s Variable Nebula is a variable nebula located 400 light-years away in the constellation Taurus. The nebula is about 4 light-years across. It is illuminated by the young pre-main sequence star T Tauri. Hind’s Nebula is a Herbig-Haro object, a bright patch of nebulosity in which new stars are forming. Visually, it changes in apparent size and magnitude over weeks and months. It varies in brightness because of material that occasionally comes between it and the variable star T Tauri.
Source: www.constellation-guide.com/hinds-variable-nebula-ngc-1555/
OTA: Dreamscope 16" f/3.7 astrograph (SkyPi, Pie Town, NM, US)
Camera: ZWO ASI 6200MM Pro
Pixel Size: 3.76 x 3.76 micron
Image Scale (1x1): x arcsec/pixel
FOV: 1.37° x 0.92°
Mount: Paramount ME
Guiding: Unknown
Imaging data: ATEO-1 at SkyPi, Pie Town, NM USA
Available from the Starbase website starbase.insightobservatory.com/inventory
Subs (9/11/21 - 12/11/21):
10 x 300 sec RED (bin x1)
10 x 300 sec GREEN (bin x1)
10 x 300 sec BLUE (bin x1)
10 x 300 sec LUMINANCE (bin x1)
Integration: 3 hrs 20 min
Initial image processing (channel combination, background removal, RC-Astro toolkit, non-linear stretch): PixInsight
Post-processing & finishing: Adobe Photoshop, Corel PSP2019 & Adobe Lightroom
A beautiful region of Sagittarius, largely overlooked because of it's proximity to the much brighter and spectacular Lagoon and Trifid nebulae .
Exposures: L: 40 + R:20 G:20 B:20 minutes (1.7 hours)
Date: 14th June 2010
Location: Macedon Ranges, Victoria.
Processing:
Sub-Image calibration, colour image sigma rejected addition and RGB image creation with CCDStack.
Background correction using the PixInsight software's Dynamic Background Extraction Tool.
Adobe RGB 1998 colourspace conversion, Mild sharpening, levels and a slight desaturation with Adobe Photoshop CS4.
Image planned, acquired, captured and processed from the Gold Coast, using the remote telescope at Southern Galactic in the Macedon Ranges in Victoria.
Telescope: 16"; f8.4 Richey-Chretien
Focal Length: 3414mm
Camera: Apogee Alta U9000
Pixels: 3056 x 3056 x 12um
Messier 45 the Pleiades Cluster.
Combined data from Kelling Heath Star Party data 2009/2010 and from Gloucestershire
Exposure as follows
21 x 7mins
4 x 10 mins
11x 10 mins
The trifid nebula displays three types of nebula - red emission, blue reflection, and dark. The dark nebula in the red region divides it into its namesake three parts (although it looks more like 4 parts to me...the "quadrid nebula" maybe)?
This is one hour total exposure time. The transparancy was a little hit or miss, as some high level clouds drifted through. Taken at 12,000 feet atop Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park, CO.
Corona Australis Nebula
Corona Australis Nebula is a bright reflection nebula, about 420 light years distant, formed by several bright stars which produce a characteristic color as blue light reflected by the cosmic dark cloud of dust. The cloud is a star-forming region with clusters of young stars embedded within it.
The nebula consists of several nebulous regions, NGC 6726/NGC 6727, and NGC 6729.
NGC 6723 is a globular star cluster located some 29,000 light-years away from Earth, and spans about 65 light-years in size.
Hubble's Variable Nebula 0n 10-26-2014.Although it may look like one, NGC-2261 is NOT a comet!!!!…. it is a very interesting and quite a different object! Here is my close-up photo of this cool object!
NGC 2261 (also known as Hubble's Variable Nebula or Caldwell 46) is a variable nebula located in the constellation Monoceros. It is illuminated by the star R Monocerotis (R Mon), which is not directly visible itself.
NGC 2261 was originally imaged as Palomar Observatory's Hale Telescope's first light by Edwin Hubble on January 26, 1949. Edwin Hubble studied this nebula at several other Observatories(Yerkes & Mount Wilson) as well….it is variable, changing in brightness and the dust clouds are occasionally blocking the light from R Monocerotis changing the appearance of the triangular shaped light you see in as little time as hours to as much as several weeks or even months.
It shines at about 9th magnitude in the constellation of Monoceros (The Unicorn) just East of Orion. NGC2261 Hubble’s Variable Nebula is about 2,500 Light Years Away. You can just make out some the Variable dust clouds in this image.
This is a single 5 minute exposure at ISO 3200 with my Canon 6D DSLR, and my Home-built 16” diameter telescope from my observatories at JBSPO in Yellow Springs, Ohio.
Best Regards,
John Chumack
Canon 60D unmodded
Canon 400mm f5.6L
Astrotrac
ISO 3200
23 exposures @ f 5.6 100-167 seconds
+ 37 exposures at 120 seconds
11/17/2012
Added 37 more exposures to last month's attempt.
The Cocoon Nebula, IC 5146, a bright red emission and blue reflection nebula 4000 light years away in Cygnus, located at the end of a long dark nebula B168. This is a Mean combine stack of 5 x 12 minute exposures with the TMB 92mm apo refractor with Borg 0.85x flattener/reducer for f/4.8, and filter-modified Canon 5D MkII camera at ISO 800. Taken from home October 5, 2013.
This area is a complex of dust near the bright star Navi in Cassiopeia. The nebula glows with a combination of emission and reflection, giving a reddish and blueish white color. The whole complex of IC 59 and IC 63 also are in the Sharpless Catalog as Sh2-185.
Taken over two days while at Calstar 2013 in October. Most data was collected on the first night after I'd done polar alignment and while I was struggling with polar alignment and guiding of the GM8 for film work. The rest of the data was gathered piece-meal as I had shut down the GM8 and went piggyback for the film camera.
Standard setup for my digital work:
Stellarvue SV4 telescope using SSF6 flattener
Modified and Cooled Pentax K10D camera
No light pollution filter, just used the B+W 486 UV/IR filter. For a time I was using this filter to control NIR and UV on the full spectrum camera to control what I thought was out of focus light causing problems.
10 subexposures at 1200 seconds each giving 3 hours and 20 minutes of integration time.
Guiding and calibration with Maxim DL.
Stacked with DSS.
Processed with PixInsight: crop, DBE, masked stretch script, histogram stretch to reset black point, masked use of SCNR to control green, MT with a mask for brightest areas, finally unmasked curves to boost contrast a bit.
I had some challenges with flare on this data. Because the bright star Navi (Gamma Cassiopeiae) is near the center of the frame, it blazes at 2.5 magnitude, causing reflections to show up around the scene, specifically near HR266. The limited amount of data I had to use made it difficult to control the flare. Only by stacking with rigorous rejection routines (DSS Kappa Sigma K=1 x 49) was it possible to control the flare. Here are some notes from that effort. blog.migol.com/2013/10/calstar-2013-calibration-and-stack...
I have not taken a similar image recently that features such a bright star. I'm curious what the recent centering and alignment and flocking work I've been doing will change the behavior of the system.
Here's the plate solve from PI:
Image Plate Solver script version 3.4.1
=======================================
Referentiation Matrix (Gnomonic projection = Matrix * Coords[x,y]):
+6.55284e-006 -0.000530856 +0.631552
+0.000530703 +6.70795e-006 -0.947467
+0 +0 +1
Projection origin.. [1769.992960 1211.534127]pix -> [RA:+00 56 47.60 Dec:+61 03 08.20]
Resolution ........ 1.911 arcsec/pix
Rotation .......... 90.707 deg
Focal ............. 653.03 mm
Pixel size ........ 6.05 um
Field of view ..... 1d 52' 44.8" x 1d 17' 10.2"
Image center ...... RA: 00 56 47.613 Dec: +61 03 08.21
Image bounds:
top-left ....... RA: 01 01 51.623 Dec: +60 05 55.84
top-right ...... RA: 01 02 22.028 Dec: +61 58 35.00
bottom-left .... RA: 00 51 32.283 Dec: +60 06 52.69
bottom-right ... RA: 00 51 24.872 Dec: +61 59 35.24
========================================
Valdin, Galicia, TS ToupTek 2600MP mono CMOS with RGB filters, TS Optics ONTC coma-corrected Newtonian, D = 300 mm f/4.55, (8,7,7) exposures of 5 min each at gain 100. Photometric colour calibration in Siril. Repeated, simple curve stretch in Gimp. Named Trifid nebula.
8.5 hours of exposure time and processed in PixInsight with a number of processes. I first saw this target a couple of years ago in an EAA device. So nice to start seeing how it looks with more exposure.
USA
L-Ultimate dual band filter
ASI 2600mc pro camera
ASI 290mm guide
ZWO AM5 mount
SV 90mm triplet
Askar FMA180Pro guider