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This infrared image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows the centre of the Milky Way, 27 000 light-years away from Earth. Using the infrared capabilities of Hubble, astronomers were able to peer through the dust which normally obscures the view of this interesting region. At the centre of this nuclear star cluster — and also in the centre of this image — the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole, known as Sagittarius A*, is located.
Sagittarius A* is not the only mystery lurking in this part of the galaxy. The crowded centre contains numerous objects that are hidden at visible wavelengths by thick clouds of dust in the galaxy's disc. In order to truly understand the central part of our galaxy astronomers used the infrared vision of Hubble to peer through this obscuring dust. To reveal the image in all its glory the scientists then assigned visible colours to the different wavelengths of infrared light, which is invisible to human eyes.
The blue stars in the image are foreground stars, which are closer to Earth than the nuclear star cluster, whilst the red stars are either behind much more intervening dust, or are embedded in dust themselves. Some extremely dense clouds of gas and dust are seen in silhouette, appearing dark against the bright background stars. These clouds are so thick that even Hubble's infrared capability cannot penetrate them. In addition to the stars hidden by the dust astronomers estimate that there are about 10 million stars in the cluster which are too faint to see, even for Hubble.
Read more here.
Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA). Acknowledgment: NASA, ESA, T. Do and A. Ghez (UCLA), and V. Bajaj (STScI)
2 picture mosaic (43*60sec, 50mm, f3.5, ISO3200). I love this area of Milky Way, full of light/dark nebulas, stars and starclusters.
Unmodified Pentax k-50, Skywatcher Star Adventurer tracker.
This is a framing of the main area of central Auriga filled with an array of Messier star clusters and faint IC emission nebulas.
The nebula at right is the Flaming Star, aka IC 405. The nebula below centre is IC 410 with the star cluster NGC 1893. The nebula above centre is IC 417 with the star cluster Stock 8. The nebula at upper left is Sharpless 2-235; while the large elongated patch of nebulosity at top centre is Sharpless 2-230. The star cluster at top is Messier 38 with the small cluster NGC 1907 below it, while the large cluster left of centre is Messier 36. The group of stars between IC 405 and IC 410 right of centre is Melotte 31, aka the Little Fish or Flying Minnow asterism.
This is a stack of: 10 x 6-minute exposures at ISO 3200 through a IDAS NB1 dual narrowband nebula filter in a dark moonless sky, blended with 8 x 4-minute exposures at ISO 800 with an Antlia RGB multi-band filter, with the latter set taken in bright moonlight a week later, with all frames with the filter-modified (by AstroGear.net) Canon R camera. These were all with the SharpStar 61mm EDPH II refractor at f/4.5, on the Sky-Watcher EQM-35 mount autoguided with the ASIAir Mini and ZWO 30mm guidescope, as a test of the combination of entry-level gear, and of the Antlia filter to work under bright skies. However, the moonlit RGB filtered image stack was quite muddy when the blue moonlight was color corrected out, and doesn't contribute a lot to the final image. So most of this scene is from the narrowband filtered image stack, which records the nebulosity well but doesn't provide well-balanced natural star colours. Diffraction spikes added with AstronomyTools actions to add a sparkling effect to the stars to partly counter their off-colour.
Taken in late March 2023, late in the season for this area of sky, so it was well over in the west with only a limited time each night to shoot it. Cloudy nights prevented getting a non-filtered set in a dark sky.
Dazzling planet Venus and the Seven Sisters!
Absolutely thrilled that the sky cleared just long enough for the 2nd night in a row for us to photograph Venus (third brightest celestial object to light the heavens after the Sun and Moon) and the Pleiades star cluster! The Pleiades is noticeable for being small and distinctively shaped - a tiny dipper - you will see this cluster if you look in the west after sunset!
#Astronomy #Astrophotography #Venus #planet #Pleiades
Aberkenfig, South Wales
Lat +51.542 Long -3.593
Skywatcher 254mm Newtonian Reflector, Nikon D780 at prime focus with Skywatcher Coma Corrector, EQ6 Syntrek Mount.
Imaging session commenced 02:12 UT
28 x 30s at ISO 5000
15 dark frames & 15 flats.
Processed with Deep Sky Stacker and levels adjusted with Lightroom & G.I.M.P.
Full frame image cropped on final processing
Some noise in the lower half of the frame but a satisfying outcome for a short sequence of data capture.
A framing of some of the main star clusters (and some nebulas) in Cassiopeia and Perseus, in a wide-field image.
At left are the Heart and Soul Nebulas in Cassiopeia, aka IC 1805 and IC 1848 respectively plus the smaller and more intense patch of nebulosity NGC 896. With these nebulas are the star clusters NGC 1027 and Mel 15. At bottom is the famous Double Cluster, NGCs 884 and 869. The small cluster NGC 957 is to the left of the Double Cluster. At upper right below the line joining the two bright stars in Cassiopeia is the prominent star cluster NGC 663, with NGC 654 above and M103 to the right. The reddened object left of NGC 663 is the cluster IC 166. At far right is NGC 457, the ET Cluster.
This is a stack of 15 x 2-minute tracked but unguided exposures with the Canon EF135mm lens at f/2.8 and Canon Ra at ISO 1250, with a NISI Natural Night broadband filter on the lens to enhance the nebulosity. Taken from home on a very clear night September 20, 2022. Taken with the Star Adventurer GTi tracker/equatorial mount as part of testing the mount.
Taken w/ Skywatcher Evostar Pro 80 ED (w/.85x reducer/corrector & QHYCCD Polemaster), Skywatcher EQM-35, Nikon D7500.
35 lights x 60 s @ ISO 800, ~45 dark, ~45 flat, ~100 bias, stacked in DSS and post-processed in Photoshop
Pretty bloom and contrasting colours. Pentas lanceolata, commonly known as Egyptian starcluster, is a species of flowering plant in the madder family, Rubiaceae that is native to much of Africa as well as Yemen. It is known for its wide use as a garden plant where it often accompanies butterfly gardens. 14303
The Rosette Nebula consists of an open star cluster and a large emission nebula. It is a few degrees east of the star Betelgeuse in the sky. Although I have captured it many times in wide field shots of the area around Orion, I never made a dedicated effort on the nebula itself before this. The light used here was all from the 656 nm line of hydrogen emission. I might go back later and add an oxygen channel, but I thought this result was worth sharing.
I shot this mosaic over seveal nights from 2022-01-28 through 2022-02-01. It's a five panel mosaic, with stacks of 2 minute exposures for each of the five tiles, ranging from 31 up to 54 subframes. Imaging was done with a Celestron Edge HD 925 with Hyperstar and an Atik 414-EX monochrome CCD with an Atik H-alpha filter. Preprocessing in Nebulosity; mosaic compilation and other processing done in PixInsight.
Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) in the constellation of Taurus on the night of Feb 10, 2023. The comet is the cyan-coloured glow above bright orange Mars at upper left.
The framing takes in the major star clusters in Taurus: At upper right is the Pleiades star cluster, while the Hyades star cluster with reddish Aldebaran is at bottom. Other NGC catalogue star clusters are in this framing: NGC 1647 to the left of the Hyades and NGC 1746 to the left of the comet and Mars. Mars appears to be at the tip of a dark lane of interstellar dust in the Taurus Dark Clouds.
This is a stack of 10 x 2-minute exposures at ISO 1600 with Canon R5 and with the RF70-200mm lens at f/4 and 89mm. Tracked but unguided on the AP Mach1 mount, and taken from home. A mild diffusion effect added with Radiant Photo plug-in. Faint nebulosity brought out with luminosity masked curves from Lumenzia.
Comet Wirtanen 46P on December 15, 2018 taken in the blue-sky moonlight, with the first quarter Moon still well up in the southwest, and when the comet was passing near the Pleiades star cluster, Messier 45, in Taurus. Some high cloud and haze was just beginning to move in, thwarting any further efforts to shoot the scene under darker skies later that night after moonset. The comet was nearest to Earth on this weekend, Dec 15-16, 2018.
This is a stack of 2 x 90-second exposures aligned on the stars, and 2 x 30-second exposures aligned on the comet and blended in for the core of the comet coma to reduce its intensity and size. All with the 200mm Canon L lens at f/2.8 and Canon 6D MkII at ISO 800. Lens focused with the Bhatinov mask. Diffraction spikes added with Astronomy Tools action, for photogenic effect. They look pretty!
Through binoculars, one looks like the ghost of the other. Taken in a parking lot in a very light-polluted area because if star clusters won't make it through the light, what will.
1 stack of 95 30s images, Canon 800D at ISO 800, Canon 400mm f5.6 lens at f6.3, iOptron Skyguider Pro tracker. 100 darks, 120 biases. Processed in PixInsight
Scientists taking a “deep dive” into one of Webb’s iconic first images have discovered dozens of energetic jets and outflows from young stars previously hidden by dust clouds. The discovery marks the beginning of a new era of investigating how stars like our Sun form, and how the radiation from nearby massive stars might affect the development of planets.
The Cosmic Cliffs, a region at the edge of a gigantic, gaseous cavity within the star cluster NGC 3324, has long intrigued astronomers as a hotbed for star formation. While well-studied by the Hubble Space Telescope, many details of star formation in NGC 3324 remain hidden at visible-light wavelengths. Webb is perfectly primed to tease out these long-sought-after details since it is built to detect jets and outflows seen only in the infrared at high resolution. Webb’s capabilities also allow researchers to track the movement of other features previously captured by Hubble.
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI. Image processing: J. DePasquale (STScI)
#NASA #STScI #jwst #jameswebbspacetelescope #NASAGoddard #NASAMarshall #CosmicCliffs #starcluster
The Double Cluster in Perseus is a set of two open star clusters, h Persei and chi Persei. They lie close to Cassiopeia, which is easily recognizable by its distinctive M or W shape. Once you find Cassiopeia, scan between it and Perseus with your naked eyes or binoculars and you'll notice a glowing blob of light which is these groups of stars.
These clusters are approximately 7,500 light-years away. Each cluster contains several hundred stars, including young, hot supergiants that are thousands of times more bright than our Sun.
The Double Cluster is resides within the Perseus arm of the Milky Way galaxy, while our solar system is located in the Orion arm. Observing the Double Cluster means looking through our local spiral arm and into the next arm outward from the galactic center, which is just super cool!
Equipment:
SkyWatcher EQ6-R
Nikkor 500mm f/4 P AI-S at f/5.6
Sony a7rIII (unmodified)
ZWO 30mm Guide Scope
GPCAM2 Mono Camera
Acquisition:
Taos, NM: my front yard - Bortle 3
85 x 75-second exposures for 1 hour, 46 min, and 14 sec exposure time.
5 dark frames
15 flats frames
15 bias frames
Guided
Software:
SharpCap
PHD2
DeepSkyStacker
PixInsight
Photoshop
Lightroom
My a7rIII and adapted Canon FD 300mm f/4 L lens were mounted to my SkyWatcher EQ6-R mount using a vixen rail. The guidescope/camera were fixed to the front of the rail. I used SharpCap to achieve "excellent" polar alignment. I shot ISO 800 at f/5.6. I took 151" exposures using PHD2 with my guidescope to keep tracking accurately. I brought the lights/darks/flats/bias frames into PixInsight for stacking and aligning and then used: STF, Cropping, Dynamic Background Extraction, BlurXTerminator, plate solving, color correction, NoiseXTerminator, and then the galaxy was separated from the stars using StarXterminator, and both files processed and stretched separately and then recombined using PixelMath. That file was brought into Lightroom for Metadata and EXIF tags, light post-processing, and cropping. I used Photoshop to sharpen the final image.
Taken under dark skies at the Golden State Star Party near Adin, CA.
Telescope: William Optics ZenithStar 110mm Refractor @ f/7
Mount: Astro-Physics Mach 1
Camera: Canon 450D (modified)
Integration: 30 mins (6 x 5 mins)
This is the field in Vulpecula the Fox that contains the famous planetary nebula, the Dumbbell Nebula aka Messier 27, at left, but also the faint emission nebulas NGC 6820 at right and Sharpless 2-88 above it. The small star cluster below centre is NGC 6830. A small star cluster, NGC 6823, lies embedded in NGC 6820. The field is yellowed by the interstellar dust reddening distant objects.
This is a blend of filtered and unfiltered stacks: 18 x 6-minutes at ISO 2500 through the IDAS NB1 dual narrowband filter, and 16 x 3-minutes at ISO 1000 with no filter, all through the SharpStar 61 EDPHII apo refractor at f/4.6 with its reducer/flattener, and with the red-sensitive Canon Ra, all on the Star Adventurer GTi mount/tracker, autoguided with the Lacerta MGENIII autoguider, taken as part of testing the mount. No darks or LENR applied here, but the autoguider applied some dithering offset between each frame, to cancel out thermal noise hot pixels when the sub-frames were aligned and stacked. Taken Sept. 24/25, 2022 from home in Alberta on a very clear cool night.
Shooting and then blending filtered with unfiltered shots provides the best of both worlds: the reddish nebulosity set in a sky preserving natural coloured stars and background tints. Nebulosity was brought out with DM1 and DM2 luminosity masks created with the Lumenzia plug-in panel for Photoshop. Finishing touches with a Paint Contrast layer added with TK Actions panel, and a mild application of the Nebula Filter from the PhotoKemi action set both boosted the nebulosity a bit more.
All stacking, aligning and blending done in Adobe Photoshop.
Two splendors of the sky in Canis Major, M46 with the puff of smoke of planetary nebula NGC 2438. There is tiny "clone" of this planetary a bit further north. Can you spot it? It is PK231+ 4.1.
Other open starclusters in this image are NGC2425 and NGC 2414.
Takahashi Epsilon 180ED, 6 hours exposure under average to bad seeing.
Taken w/ Skywatcher Evostar Pro 80 ED (w/.85x reducer/corrector & QHYCCD Polemaster), Skywatcher EQM-35, Nikon D7500.
105 lights x 60 s @ ISO 800, ~45 dark, ~45 flat, ~100 bias, stacked in DSS and post-processed in Photoshop
1,500 light-years away, the famous North America & Pelican nebulae in a star forming region in Cygnus. An integration of 3 1/2 hours of Hydrogen-α, Oxygen III and Sulfur II data that I collected during the short nights of July 2019.
Camera: ZWO ASI 1600MM-PRO USB 3.0 Mono (Type CMOS)
Sensor Cooling Temperature: -15C
Filters: 1.25" 5nm Astrodon Ha, 1.25" 3nm Astrodon OIII, 1.25" 3nm Astrodon SII
Imaging Telescope: Takahashi FS-60CB
Correcting Lens: Takahashi Reducer 0.72x (composite focal length at 264mm and focal ratio at f/4.9)
Mount: iOptron CEM25EC
26 x 180" Ha subs (Unity Gain, Gain: 139, Offset: 21, Binning 1x1)
23 x 180" OIII subs (Unity Gain, Gain: 139, Offset: 21, Binning 1x1)
21 x 180" SII subs (Unity Gain, Gain: 139, Offset: 21, Binning 1x1)
20 Darks, 20 Flats
Total Intregration Time: 3hrs 30mins
Software: PixInsight Core 1.8 Ripley, Photoshop, SharpCap
A glittering multitude of stars in the globular cluster Terzan 4 fill this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Globular clusters are collections of stars bound together by their mutual gravitational attraction, and can contain millions of individual stars. As this image shows, the heart of a globular cluster such as Terzan 4 is a densely packed, crowded field of stars — which makes for spectacular images!
The launch of Hubble in 1990 revolutionised the study of globular clusters. The individual stars in these dense crowds are almost impossible to distinguish from one another with ground-based telescopes, but can be picked apart using space telescopes. Astronomers have taken advantage of Hubble’s crystal-clear vision to study the stars making up globular clusters, as well as how these systems change over time.
This particular observation comes from astronomers using Hubble to explore Terzan 4 and other globular clusters to understand the shape, density, age, and structure of globular clusters close to the centre of the Milky Way. Unlike globular clusters elsewhere in the sky, these globular clusters have evaded detailed observation because of the clouds of gas and dust swirling around the galactic core. These clouds blot out starlight in a process that astronomers refer to as ‘extinction’, and complicate astronomical observations.
Astronomers took advantage of the sensitivity of two of Hubble’s instruments — the Advanced Camera for Surveys and Wide Field Camera 3 — to overcome the impact of extinction on Terzan 4. By combining Hubble imagery with sophisticated data processing, astronomers were able to determine the ages of galactic globular clusters to within a billion years — a relatively accurate measurement in astronomical terms!
Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, R. Cohen; CC BY 4.0
This area in Cygnus that contains the circular Cocoon Nebula, aka IC 5146, located at the end of the long dark nebula called the Dark Cigar but officially is Barnard 168. The nebulas are flanked by two open star clusters: NGC 7209 at far left just over the border in Lacerta, and Messier 39 at far right.
NGC 7209 barely stands out amid the rich starfield here, just below an orange star, while M39 is bright but sparse at right. The clusters and dark nebula stand out well in binoculars but the Cocoon Nebula is a challenge to see in telescopes.
This is a stack of 6 x 6-minute exposures with the William Optics RedCat 51mm astrographic refractor at f/5 and the Canon EOS Ra at ISO 800 with LENR on as it was the warmest night of the summer, August 18, 2020. Aligned, stacked and median combined in Photoshop to eliminate some satellite trails. Autoguided with the ZWO ASIAir and ASI120MM guide camera with the RedCat on the Astro-Physics Mach1 mount. No filters employed here.
A close passage of Venus by the Pleiades star cluster (M45) on April 9, 2023. Venus was closer to the Pleiades the next night, but clouds prevented a shot on April 10. But the night before closest approach was clear enough for long enough to get this shot of the bright planet and stars set in the deep blue twilight.
This is a single 1-minute exposure with the RF70-200mm f/4 lens stopped down to f/5, yielding the diffraction spikes on Venus. On the Canon R5 at ISO 400, and on the Star Adventurer tracker. I reduced but did not eliminate the twilight sky gradient.
IC 1396 is a star-forming region of gas and dust in the constellation Cepheus. Spanning ~2.5 degrees in the sky, it appears to us almost 5x the diameter of the Moon. Its nebulosity can be faintly seen visually through a telescope under dark skies, but photographically, it is dramatic.
Due to the nebula's large size, this image is a 6-panel mosaic captured through both narrowband (SII, Ha, OIII) and color (R, G, B) filters over multiple nights in September and November of 2023. Most data was collected under dark skies near Goldendale, WA, with SII and some RGB data captured from Seattle, WA.
Telescope: Tele Vue 76mm refractor with 0.8x reducer
Camera: QSI 683wsg
Mount: iOption iEQ45 Pro
Narrowband Filters: 5nm Ha (Astrodon), 3nm OIII (Astrodon), 8nm SII (Baader)
Integration (Per-Panel): 10x5min Ha, 5x5min OIII, 9x5min SII, 5x30sec RGB
Processing: PixInsight 1.8, with minor final adjustments in PaintShop Pro
The full arc!
36 photo mosaic of the Milkyway.
Every time I look at the Milkyway arc it is a thrilling feeling. It is mesmerizing when you fathom that the arc that you see in front of you is your own galaxy and you are a part of it on the outer arm, though billions of light years away from the center.
The Moon in mid-total eclipse, on January 20, 2019, with it shining beside the Beehive star cluster, Messier 44, in Cancer. This was the unique sight at this eclipse as it can happen only during total lunar eclipses that occur in late January. There was one on January 31, 2018 but the next will not be until 2037.
This view tries to emulate the visual scene through binoculars, though the camera picks up more stars and makes the Moon more vivid than it appears to the eye.
However, creating a view that looks even close to what the eye can see in this case takes a blend of exposures: a 1-minute exposure at ISO 800 and f/2.8 for the stars, which inevitably overexposes the Moon. So I’ve blended in three shorter exposures for the Moon, taken immediately after the long “star” exposure. These were 8, 4 and 2 seconds at ISO 400 and f/4, and all with the Canon 200mm telephoto on a Fornax Lightrack II tracking mount to follow the stars.
At this eclipse the Moon passed across the northern half of the umbra, leaving the top of the Moon bright, even at mid-totality as it was here.
These were taken from a site near Lloydminster, in Saskatchewan, where skies proved clear all night, better than the prospects back at home 500 km farther south in Alberta. It was worth the drive north the day before the eclipse.
Northfield, OH
Equipment--
Telescope: Explore Scientific ED 80, field flattener (no reducer), 480mm focal length
Mount: Sky-Watcher EQ6R-Pro
Camera: ZWO ASI204MC-Pro
Guide scope: Williams Optics 50mm guide scope
Guide camera: ZWO ASI120MM-S
Software: NINA, PHD2
Imaging--
Lights: 33x300s
Darks, Flats, DarkFlats, Bias: assorted
Sensor temp: -10.0
Filter: Optolong L-Pro
Sky: Bortle 5 (nominal)
Post processing--
Software: PixInsight, Photoshop
After getting more experience processing, I decided to take another stab at processing M31 with data from last fall.
All in all about 90 minutes of data from my old WO Z61 scope, and modded Canon T5i camera.
A framing of a field in southwestern Gemini rich in star clusters and nebulas. At top right is the rich star cluster Messier 35 and its small more distant companion cluster NGC 2158. At bottom right is the emission nebula NGC 2174 that is over the border in northern Orion. Above centre is the supernova remnant IC 443 arcing to the east of the orange star Propus or Eta Geminorum. The large diffuse nebula at left is IC 444 above the orange star Tejat Posterior or Mu Geminorum. The large, loose cluster Colliner 89 is embedded in IC 444. That region also has some blue reflection nebulosity, as does NGC 2174.
This is a combination of exposures taken without a nebula filter blended with exposures taken through an IDAS NB1 dual narrowband filter: 17 x 4 minutes unfiltered at ISO 800 blended with 10 x 6 minutes at ISO 3200 with the filter, all with filter-modified Canon EOS R, on the SharpStar 61mm EDPH at f/4.5, on the Sky-Watcher EQM35 mount autoguided with the ASIAir Mini computer. The Mini performed dithering moves between each exposure to reduce thermal noise hot pixels. The Images were shot over two nights: filtered on March 19 and unfiltered on March 21, as this area of sky was in the southwest and not high enough for more than 1 to 2 hours of shooting. Plus some ice fog and frost intervened.
Taken as part of testing this combination of gear as an entry-level setup. Stacking, aligning and processing in Photoshop, using luminosity masks, a starless layer and the nebula filter action in Photokemi actions to bring out the faint nebulosity.
The rather obscure emission nebula catalogued as Sharpless 2-261, at top, but commonly known as Lower’s Nebula after the father and son team of amateur astronomers, Harold and Charles Lower, who in 1939 built an 8-inch Schmidt camera astrograph, one of the first, and used red sensitive plates and red filters to record these kinds of red nebulas. They noted this object on their plates, in northern Orion. They were certainly pioneers of this type of filtered astrophotography.
At bottom is the small star cluster NGC 2169, also known as the X-Y Cluster or Number 37 Cluster as its two clumps of stars, just resolved here, resemble those letters or numbers with a little imagination at the eyepiece.
At bottom left is the small emission nebula Sh2-269. The larger fainter patch above it is Sh2-267. The small nebula at the left edge might be Sh2-266 but charts are unclear and contradictory.
This is a stack of 5 x 8-minute exposures unfiltered at ISO 800 with a stack of 6 x 10-minute exposures at ISO 1600 shot through an Optolong L-Enhance filter to bring out the nebulas, all with the old Hutech filter-modified Canon 5D MkII DSLR and the SharpStar HNT150 Hyperbolic Newtonian astrograph at f/2.8. What the Lowers would have given to have such technology in their day!
Taken with some haze in the sky toward the end of the shoot for the unfiltered shots, adding the star glows. Taken from home February 22, 2020.
Acquisition details: Fujifilm X-T10, Samyang 135mm f/2.0 ED UMC @ f2.0, ISO 1600, 25 x 60 sec, tracking with iOptron SkyTracker Pro, stacking with DeepSkyStacker, editing with Astro Pixel Processor and GIMP, taken just before astronomic dawn on Mar. 22, 2020 from Bortle 2 skies.
At my latitude, this region of the sky only gets about 17 degrees above the horizon - every time I've shot it I've had thin clouds and haze to deal with. This time was no different - I wasn't able to use most subs because of thin cloud cover.
This is a two-panel mosaic of nebulas and clusters in southern Gemini and northern Orion.
The Messier 35 star cluster is at top accompanied by the smaller cluster NGC 2158. At left near the orange star Eta Geminorum is the crescent-shaped Jellyfish Nebula, IC 443, a supernova remnant. The fainter, diffuse nebula at far left is IC 444. At bottom and over the border in Orion is the Monkeyhead Nebula, NGC 2174. The little round nebula above NGC 2174 is Sharpless 2-247.
This is a mosaic of two segments for the northern and southern halves of the scene, with each half being a stack of 6 x 8-minute exposures at ISO 800 with no filter, plus a stack layered in of 6 x 8-minute exposures at ISO 3200 with an Optolong L-Enhance filter to bring out the faint red nebulosity. So this is a stack and blend of a total of 24 exposures. Alll were with the Canon EOS Ra camera on the SharpStar HNT150 Hyperbolic Newtonian astrograph at f/2.8.
With more experience and new techniques learned with my processing software, I find I can process some of my older data with superior results. Here, my new processing results in smaller stars, better colours overall, and more of the nebula revealed.
The older version is here.
Taken 2015.04.09
100mm f/5.5,
5D2, ISO 1600,
Exposure: 11x6min exposures (1.1hr)
Thoughts?
This is an impressive area of sky rich in bright and dark nebulas and open star clusters in Sagittarius and Serpens.
This is closeup of the Small Sagittarius Starcloud, aka Messier 24, at bottom right, with the field extending north to include the nebulas M17, the Swan Nebula, and M16 at top right, the Eagle Nebula. Between M17 and M24 is the small star cluster M18. Patches of red and blue nebulosity at bottom right below M24 are IC 1283 and the blue reflection nebulas NGC 6589 and 6590. The prominent dark nebula at the right (west) edge of the Starcloud is Barnard 92 with its lone star embedded in it, with smaller B93 above it. At the left are the star clusters M25 (bottom) and NGC 6645, with the large dark nebula B312 above.
This is a stack of 3 x 6-minute exposures with the William Optics RedCat 51mm astrograph at f/5 and the Canon EOS Ra at ISO 800 with LENR on as it was the warmest night of the summer, August 17, 2020. Aligned, stacked and mean combined in Photoshop. Autoguided with the ZWO ASIAir and ASI120MM guide camera with the RedCat on the Astro-Physics Mach1 mount. No filters employed here. Clouds thwarted more exposures.
Omega Centauri, NGC5139.
The biggest & brightest of all the Globular Clusters, a real treat in the eyepiece when visual observing and imaged here using the Seestar S50.
OC doesn't disappoint if you like stars, and plenty of them!
Seestar S50, 30min 10" subs.
What are the chances of catching a meteor and a comet in the exact same part of the sky at the same time? Not very high, I'm sure. But that's exactly what's happening here. In the very early morning hours of July 11, I managed to get a meteor with Comet Neowise in the same shot. I had no idea there was even a meteor, much less getting it in the shot a few days later when I sat down to sort these images. I had been shooting for over 30 minutes by this point, and had two cameras going, so the last thing I was paying any attention to were meteors. While it would have been cool to get the meteor crossing the comet's path, I'll take what I can get. Especially dealing with the notorious Northern Illinois humidity, made all the worse by the "breathing" of the corn. About this time, a ground fog began to form over the bean field directly to the right of this image (out of frame). Meteors can be very fickle things to photograph, and for this one to produce such a streak, it must have been a bright one.
This was one of the last mornings that Neowise would be visible, and it happened to be the brightest. At 3am, it was visible with the naked eye, albeit barely, if you knew where to look. The other bright object in the morning sky is Venus, with the Pleiades star cluster above it.
The colourful region in and around the Coathanger asterism in Vulpecula the Fox. The grouping is not a star cluster per se, though it is catalogued as one, Collinder 399. It is also known as Brocchi's Cluster. A true star cluster, NGC 6802, is located at the east (left) end of the Coathanger, as the small clump of stars. The area is also rich in faint nebulosity, notably: the Sharpless 2-83 reflection nebula complex above the Coathanger, and the small, round Sharpless 2-82 emission and reflection nebula below the Coathanger. The large area of red emission nebula at bottom right is not catalogued or labelled in any of the star atlases I have, including the Millenium Star Atlas and Uranometria. However, the small round red "nebula" on the bottom edge of the large nebula is actually a highly reddened globular cluster, Palomar 10. This area of the Milky Way is rich in dark nebulas and absorbing dust, yellowing the fields.
This is a stack of 10 x 5-minute exposures through the SharpStar 61EDPH II refractor with its flattener/reducer at f/4.5 and the red-sensitive Canon Ra, though with no filter employed here. The mount was the little Star Adventurer GTi portable GoTo mount undergoing testing, and autoguided with the ZWO ASIAir and its little 30mm guidescope, with the Air also controlling the Ra and performing dithering moves between each exposure. The guiding worked very well. No darks or LENR were applied here, but the stacking averaged out the thermal noise hot pixels on this fairly warm autumn night, September 27, 2022.
All stacking and alignment with Photoshop. A mild Orton Glow effect added with Luminar AI, plus an application of PK Actions Dark Detail Hard action (a form of high-pass sharpening), two somewhat opposing effects -- i.e. fine sharpening plus overall softening. But the result does punch up the nebulosity, as does some luminosity masked curves adjustment layers from TK Actions and Lumenzia. Noise reduction was with RC Astro's Noise XTerminator.
Mars amid the Beehive star cluster, Messier 44, in Cancer, on June 2, 2023. The stars Asellus Borealis and Asesllus Australis are above and below Mars. The sky was still blue with summer twilight at my northern latitude, while light cloud covered much of the sky, adding the gradients and banding.
This is a single 20-second exposure with the RF70-200mm lens at 200mm and f/4 on the Canon R5 at ISO 400, with the image cropped slightly from the original. On the Star Adventurer tracker. Diffraction spikes added for artistic effect with AstronomyTools actions.
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope was used to conduct a three-year study of the crowded, massive and young star cluster Westerlund 2. The research found that the material encircling stars near the cluster’s centre is mysteriously devoid of the large, dense clouds of dust that would be expected to become planets in a few million years. Their absence is caused by the cluster’s most massive and brightest stars that erode and disperse the discs of gas and dust of neighbouring stars. This is the first time that astronomers have analysed an extremely dense star cluster to study which environments are favourable to planet formation.
Credits: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), A. Nota (ESA/STScI), and the Westerlund 2 Science Team; CC BY 4.0
Not a new target, but always a pretty one and challenging one with so many subtle wisps of cosmic dust.
The Pleiades (Messier 45) is an open star cluster containing young (around 100 million years old) B-type stars in the northwest area of the constellation Taurus. At a distance of about 444 light years, it is among the nearest star clusters to Earth and the nearest Messier object to Earth.
The Pleiades contains multiple reflection nebulae — dust that is illuminated by the hot blue stars. This dust cloud was once thought to be leftover material from the cluster's formation but is now believed to be an unrelated dust cloud through which the stars are currently passing.
Charles Messier was an avid comet hunter and compiled a catalog of deep-sky objects to help prevent other comet enthusiasts from wasting their time studying objects that were not comets. Messier published his catalog of comet-like objects in 1771, and the inclusion of the Pleiades has been noted as curious, as most of Messier's objects were much fainter and more easily confused with comets. One possible explanation is that Messier simply wanted to have a larger catalog than his scientific rival Lacaille, whose 1755 catalog contained 42 objects. Messier's original catalog contained 41 objects, so he added some bright, well-known objects to boost the number on his list to 45. In later years, with the help of his friend and colleague Pierre Méchain, the list of entries was increased to 103. The current Messier list stands at 110 entries.
Data for the attached image was shot through red, green and blue filters using a monochrome camera. Total exposure times were blue - 14 hr, green - 9 hr, and red - 9 hr.
This time my camera was ready to go before it showed up, so I got a pretty nice long exposure. I've seen it circling the same area a few times now so I knew where to aim too. The only post processing here is some level adjustments. YOU CAN'T PROVE IT WASN'T ALIENS! >.>
Also, for a shot from within a city, the stars came out great here. I love how clear the Pleiades cluster showed up (the tight group centered on the right side) and Taurus right below (it looks like a sideways V). Perseus is roughly filling up the top center too but I've never been able to really point that one out on the fly anyways, same with Auriga but that's half hiding behind the tree at the bottom. Camelopardalis is sort of in the top left area, but it's not too well defined here.