View allAll Photos Tagged Subframing
Canon EOS450d, modded
24mm lens @ f/5.6
43 subframes, each 180s
125 bias frames
100 darkframes
unguided EQ5 mount
Location: Gran Canaria, near San Bartolome de Tirajanas
pic shows the fine dust streams in this region of the milky way.
Swiss 125cc championships in Niederwil / CH
1989 VRP Mugen Honda
Custom VRP aluminium chassis,airbox/subframe,gas tank
Wheels: Race Silver EC-7
Front: 18x8.5 ET45
Rrear: 18x8.5 ET35
Additional notes:
E9X M3 subframe conversion including rear hubs (effective offset change)
Captured 28 April 2022, ~21:30 hrs ET, Springfield, VA, USA. Bortle 8 skies, Celestron 8 inch SCT at f/6.3 (eff. fl 1290mm), Orion Atlas AZ/EQ-G Pro mount. QHY 294M Pro camera @ -10C, bin 2, exposure 7.5 seconds, gain 3100, stack of 41 subframes, no calibration frames used. Baader Luminance filter.
Clouds: partly cloudy
Seeing: avg
Transparency: avg
Moon phase: ~5%
FOV: 15 x 13 arcmin.
Resolution: 0.45 arcsec/pixel.
Orientation: Up is North.
Appearance: Supernova outshines its host galaxy NGC 4647. Magnitude is approximately +11-12.
From Wikipedia:
A supernova is a powerful and luminous stellar explosion. This transient astronomical event occurs during the last evolutionary stages of a massive star or when a white dwarf is triggered into runaway nuclear fusion. The original object, called the progenitor, either collapses to a neutron star or black hole, or is completely destroyed. The peak optical luminosity of a supernova can be comparable to that of an entire galaxy before fading over several weeks or months.
Supernovae are more energetic than novae. In Latin, nova means "new", referring astronomically to what appears to be a temporary new bright star. Adding the prefix "super-" distinguishes supernovae from ordinary novae, which are far less luminous. The word supernova was coined by Walter Baade and Fritz Zwicky in 1929.
The most recent directly observed supernova in the Milky Way was Kepler's Supernova in 1604, but the remnants of more recent supernovae have been found. Observations of supernovae in other galaxies suggest they occur in the Milky Way on average about three times every century. These supernovae would almost certainly be observable with modern astronomical telescopes. The most recent naked-eye supernova was SN 1987A, the explosion of a blue supergiant star in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite of the Milky Way.
Theoretical studies indicate that most supernovae are triggered by one of two basic mechanisms: the sudden re-ignition of nuclear fusion in a degenerate star such as a white dwarf, or the sudden gravitational collapse of a massive star's core. In the first class of events, the object's temperature is raised enough to trigger runaway nuclear fusion, completely disrupting the star. Possible causes are an accumulation of material from a binary companion through accretion, or a stellar merger. In the massive star case, the core of a massive star may undergo sudden collapse due to reduced energy from fusion rendering the star incapable of counteracting its own gravity, usually occurring after the fusion of iron in a star’s core, releasing gravitational potential energy as a supernova. While some observed supernovae are more complex than these two simplified theories, the astrophysical mechanics are established and accepted by the astronomical community.
Supernovae can expel several solar masses of material at speeds up to several percent of the speed of light. This drives an expanding shock wave into the surrounding interstellar medium, sweeping up an expanding shell of gas and dust observed as a supernova remnant. Supernovae are a major source of elements in the interstellar medium from oxygen to rubidium. The expanding shock waves of supernovae can trigger the formation of new stars. Supernova remnants might be a major source of cosmic rays. Supernovae might produce gravitational waves, though thus far, gravitational waves have been detected only from the mergers of black holes and neutron stars.
The Crab Nebula is a pulsar wind nebula associated with the 1054 supernova. A 1414 text cites a 1055 report: since "the baleful star appeared, a full year has passed and until now its brilliance has not faded."
Compared to a star's entire history, the visual appearance of a supernova is very brief, sometimes spanning several months, so that the chances of observing one with the naked eye is roughly once in a lifetime. Only a tiny fraction of the 100 billion stars in a typical galaxy have the capacity to become a supernova, restricted to either those having large mass or rare kinds of binary stars containing white dwarfs.
The earliest possible recorded supernova, known as HB9, could have been viewed and recorded by unknown prehistoric people of Indian subcontinent, on a rock carving found in Burzahama region in Kashmir, dated to 4500 ± 1000 BC. Later, SN 185 was viewed by Chinese astronomers in 185 AD. The brightest recorded supernova was SN 1006, which occurred in 1006 AD in the constellation of Lupus, and was described by observers across China, Japan, Iraq, Egypt, and Europe. The widely observed supernova SN 1054 produced the Crab Nebula. Supernovae SN 1572 and SN 1604, the latest to be observed with the naked eye in the Milky Way galaxy, had notable effects on the development of astronomy in Europe because they were used to argue against the Aristotelian idea that the universe beyond the Moon and planets was static and unchanging. Johannes Kepler began observing SN 1604 at its peak on October 17, 1604, and continued to make estimates of its brightness until it faded from naked eye view a year later. It was the second supernova to be observed in a generation (after SN 1572 seen by Tycho Brahe in Cassiopeia).
There is some evidence that the youngest galactic supernova, G1.9+0.3, occurred in the late 19th century, considerably more recently than Cassiopeia A from around 1680. Neither supernova was noted at the time. In the case of G1.9+0.3, high extinction along the plane of our galaxy could have dimmed the event sufficiently to go unnoticed. The situation for Cassiopeia A is less clear. Infrared light echos have been detected showing that it was a type IIb supernova and was not in a region of especially high extinction.
Observation and discovery of extragalactic supernovae are now far more common. The first such observation was of SN 1885A in the Andromeda Galaxy. Today, amateur and professional astronomers are finding several hundred every year, some when near maximum brightness, others on old astronomical photographs or plates. American astronomers Rudolph Minkowski and Fritz Zwicky developed the modern supernova classification scheme beginning in 1941. During the 1960s, astronomers found that the maximum intensities of supernovae could be used as standard candles, hence indicators of astronomical distances. Some of the most distant supernovae observed in 2003 appeared dimmer than expected. This supports the view that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. Techniques were developed for reconstructing supernovae events that have no written records of being observed. The date of the Cassiopeia A supernova event was determined from light echoes off nebulae, while the age of supernova remnant RX J0852.0-4622 was estimated from temperature measurements and the gamma ray emissions from the radioactive decay of titanium-44.
The most luminous supernova ever recorded is ASASSN-15lh, at a distance of 3.82 gigalight-years. It was first detected in June 2015 and peaked at 570 billion L☉, which is twice the bolometric luminosity of any other known supernova. However, the nature of this supernova continues to be debated and several alternative explanations have been suggested, e.g. tidal disruption of a star by a black hole.
Among the earliest detected since time of detonation, and for which the earliest spectra have been obtained (beginning at 6 hours after the actual explosion), is the type II SN 2013fs (iPTF13dqy) which was recorded 3 hours after the supernova event on 6 October 2013 by the Intermediate Palomar Transient Factory (iPTF). The star is located in a spiral galaxy named NGC 7610, 160 million light-years away in the constellation of Pegasus.
On 20 September 2016, amateur astronomer Victor Buso from Rosario, Argentina was testing his telescope. When taking several photographs of galaxy NGC 613, Buso chanced upon a supernova that had just become visible on Earth, as it began to erupt. After examining the images, he contacted the Instituto de AstrofÃsica de La Plata. "It was the first time anyone had ever captured the initial moments of the 'shock breakout' from an optical supernova, one not associated with a gamma-ray or X-ray burst." The odds of capturing such an event were put between one in ten million to one in a hundred million, according to astronomer Melina Bersten from the Instituto de AstrofÃsica. The supernova Buso observed was designated SN 2016gkg, a type IIb supernova likely to have formed from the collapse of a yellow supergiant star twenty times the mass of the sun. It showed the double peak that is common to many type IIb supernovae, rising to around magnitude 15.5 shortly after discovery and then again about 20 days later. The progenitor star has been identified in Hubble Space Telescope images from before its collapse. Astronomer Alex Filippenko, from the University of California, remarked that professional astronomers had been searching for such an event for a long time. He stated: "Observations of stars in the first moments they begin exploding provide information that cannot be directly obtained in any other way."
Early work on what was originally believed to be simply a new category of novae was performed during the 1920s. These were variously called "upper-class Novae", "Hauptnovae", or "giant novae". The name "supernovae" is thought to have been coined by Walter Baade and Fritz Zwicky in lectures at Caltech during 1931. It was used, as "super-Novae", in a journal paper published by Knut Lundmark in 1933, and in a 1934 paper by Baade and Zwicky. By 1938, the hyphen had been lost and the modern name was in use. Because supernovae are relatively rare events within a galaxy, occurring about three times a century in the Milky Way, obtaining a good sample of supernovae to study requires regular monitoring of many galaxies.
Supernovae in other galaxies cannot be predicted with any meaningful accuracy. Normally, when they are discovered, they are already in progress. To use supernovae as standard candles for measuring distance, observation of their peak luminosity is required. It is therefore important to discover them well before they reach their maximum. Amateur astronomers, who greatly outnumber professional astronomers, have played an important role in finding supernovae, typically by looking at some of the closer galaxies through an optical telescope and comparing them to earlier photographs.
Toward the end of the 20th century, astronomers increasingly turned to computer-controlled telescopes and CCDs for hunting supernovae. While such systems are popular with amateurs, there are also professional installations such as the Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope. The Supernova Early Warning System (SNEWS) project uses a network of neutrino detectors to give early warning of a supernova in the Milky Way galaxy. Neutrinos are particles that are produced in great quantities by a supernova, and they are not significantly absorbed by the interstellar gas and dust of the galactic disk.
Supernova searches fall into two classes: those focused on relatively nearby events and those looking farther away. Because of the expansion of the universe, the distance to a remote object with a known emission spectrum can be estimated by measuring its Doppler shift (or redshift); on average, more-distant objects recede with greater velocity than those nearby, and so have a higher redshift. Thus the search is split between high redshift and low redshift, with the boundary falling around a redshift range of z=0.1–0.3—where z is a dimensionless measure of the spectrum's frequency shift.
High redshift searches for supernovae usually involve the observation of supernova light curves. These are useful for standard or calibrated candles to generate Hubble diagrams and make cosmological predictions. Supernova spectroscopy, used to study the physics and environments of supernovae, is more practical at low than at high redshift. Low redshift observations also anchor the low-distance end of the Hubble curve, which is a plot of distance versus redshift for visible galaxies.
Supernova discoveries are reported to the International Astronomical Union's Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams, which sends out a circular with the name it assigns to that supernova. The name is formed from the prefix SN, followed by the year of discovery, suffixed with a one or two-letter designation. The first 26 supernovae of the year are designated with a capital letter from A to Z. Afterward pairs of lower-case letters are used: aa, ab, and so on. Hence, for example, SN 2003C designates the third supernova reported in the year 2003. The last supernova of 2005, SN 2005nc, was the 367th (14 × 26 + 3 = 367). Since 2000, professional and amateur astronomers have been finding several hundred supernovae each year (572 in 2007, 261 in 2008, 390 in 2009; 231 in 2013).
Historical supernovae are known simply by the year they occurred: SN 185, SN 1006, SN 1054, SN 1572 (called Tycho's Nova) and SN 1604 (Kepler's Star). Since 1885 the additional letter notation has been used, even if there was only one supernova discovered that year (e.g. SN 1885A, SN 1907A, etc.)—this last happened with SN 1947A. SN, for SuperNova, is a standard prefix. Until 1987, two-letter designations were rarely needed; since 1988, however, they have been needed every year. Since 2016, the increasing number of discoveries has regularly led to the additional use of three-digit designations.
Astronomers classify supernovae according to their light curves and the absorption lines of different chemical elements that appear in their spectra. If a supernova's spectrum contains lines of hydrogen (known as the Balmer series in the visual portion of the spectrum) it is classified Type II; otherwise it is Type I. In each of these two types there are subdivisions according to the presence of lines from other elements or the shape of the light curve (a graph of the supernova's apparent magnitude as a function of time).
DILENGKAPI REM CAKRAM GANDA, FLEXY COUPLING,TWIN SHOCK ABSORBER,SEAL BEARING,HARDENED STEEL SHAFT AND AXLE,REMOVABLE SUBFRAME.
Viario untuk difabel, dilengkapi rem cakram ganda,flexi coupling, hardened steel shaft,sealed bearing,removable subframe.
Day 11, 30 hours build time.
The neck subframe has now been attached to the cargo bay, and both side walls of the cargo bay have now been completed. The temporary cargo bay frame has been removed because I can use the walls of the cargo bay as size and distance references.
This is a total of 40 subframes on the ZWO ASI6200MM Pro processed with AutoStakkert!3, Registax 6 and GIMP.
All custom VRP (Verona Racing Parts) aluminium chassis, swingarm, gas tank, subframe/airbox.
Mugen equipped engine (shown here with a 1990 HPP engine)
30x120 second subframes, total integration 1 hour.
Imaging:
Skywatcher Evostar 150,
QHY163C with Astronomik CLS filter.
Guiding:
190mm focal length finder-guider,
Orion SSAG.
All on
Skywatcher HEQ5 Pro
Captured using SharpCap. Guided with PHD2.
Stacked and processed in DSS, Fitswork and Gimp
20th July 2017
Cambridge, UK
This photo was inspired by and I owe thanks to kahmed79:
www.flickr.com/photos/kahmed79/3665934296/
DSC_0136
All custom VRP (Verona Racing Parts) aluminium chassis, swingarm, gas tank, subframe/airbox.
Aluminium chassis in '89 !!!
Seestar S50, PixInsight, GraxPert, RCAstro, GHS
EQ mode, Bortel 7
2687 subframes
17 hrs 17 min exposure
'ImageIntegration' with top 1500 subframes
All custom VRP (Verona Racing Parts) aluminium chassis, swingarm, gas tank, subframe/airbox.
Custom bar-pad
Vented numberplate to allow air pass through the gas tank into the airbox
Commer Autosleeper
Sold for £ 800
The Jaguar Land-Rover Collection
Brightwells Auctions
Bicester Heritage
Buckingham Road
Bicester
Oxfordshire
England
March 2018
Launched in 1960, the quirky Commer FC was instantly recognisable by its narrow track which made the body look too wide for the wheels (a legacy of the Humber car-derived running gear) but nonetheless became a big favourite with public utility firms, being commonly nicknamed ‘The Telecom Van’.
As much a part of the British streetscape as the red telephone box and the black cab, the Commer seemed to be everywhere, be it parked up near railway sidings as a BR crewbus or lurking down your street on TV detector duties with a pair of bored men in overalls sipping lukewarm coffee from a flask and filling in Vernons pool coupons while pretending to have supernatural abilities to tell if you had a licence or not.
In order to maximise load space, the engine was under the floor between the two front seats, routine servicing being done via a hatch in the floor but major attention requiring the removal of the front suspension and subframe, although BT/GPO found that engine changes could be done much quicker by removing the windscreen and the front seats and craning the engine out via the passenger door.
When the Rootes Group was absorbed into Chrysler in the 70s, the Americans then sold the van division to the French PSA group and the vehicles became badged as Dodge SpaceVans, some also being converted into Autosleeper campers. The Hillman-derived engine grew from 1,500cc to 1,725cc with four-speed manual transmission as standard, production soldiering on until 1983, largely thanks to bulk orders from Post Office Telephones.
This Dodge Autosleeper has had just two owners from new according to Experian, last changing hands in 1999. Documentation includes three old MOTs, the last having expired in February 2013 at 45,333 miles with just a few minor advisories, plus an invoice for a new alternator in 2009.
Now looking fairly sorry for itself, it will doubtless benefit from a degree of restoration before sallying forth once more. There is no V5 with this lot but it is still recognised on the DVLA computer so getting a replacement should be straightforward using the requisite DVLA form.
Bidders are advised however that Experian lists it as a Renault 50 Series, information that has come from the DVLA database. A note on file from Mike Worthington Williams confirms that it was made in 1973, so the new owner may have some sleuthing to do to set the record straight.
All custom VRP (Verona Racing Parts) aluminium chassis, swingarm, gas tank, subframe/airbox.
Note the VRP aluminium/subframe combo with much bigger airbox
Coachwork by Zagato
Built in a limited edition of about 1000 between late 1989 and 1991, the Alfa Romeo SZ (Sprint Zagato) was conceived and designed by the eclectic coachbuilder Zagato and assembled virtually by hand at the Milan coachworks on the outskirts of the city. Mounted on a steel subframe, the external bodywork is in composite materials, while the chassis and mechanicals derive from the racing Alfa Romeo 75, with the three litre V6 engine boosted to 207 hp to give a top speed of 245 km/h. The model on sale is unique. It is an ex-works car from the Balocco test cicuit, where it was used for the trialling of various solutions. An authentic test car, it was used in the shoots for the presentation of the model and differs in various details from the other SZ units subsequently produced, giving it virtually prototype status.
The car has been completely dismantled and meticulously restored. The all-composite bodywork was stripped and coated. The interior was completely regenerated with conservation a priority. The fuel tank was cleaned and suitably coated.Thorough checks were also conducted on the engine, with oil, filter and plug changes completed with general tuning. The wheel rims were thoroughly cleaned, allowing the originals to be retained, and the four tyres were changed.
2.959 cc
V6
207 hp @ 6.200 rpm
Vmax : 245 km/h
Techno Classica 2018
Essen
Deutschland - Germany
March 2018
VRP = Verona Racing Parts ( made by Carlo Verona / Italy)
VRP aluminium chassis for Honda CR 125 1989
VRP swingarm
VRP rear subframe with integrated airbox
VRP aluminium subframe
VRP gas tank with air channels
My wife's daily driver of seven years was recently diagnosed with a rusted subframe. It was a repair that we could have afforded, but at almost fifteen years old--and also having spent almost all of that time (we presume) in the midwest--the entire car is slowly turning to rust and it is not worth our time to get it repaired.
We had decided that we would try and sell the car on Craigslist, so we spent some time cleaning the car and getting it ready. Today was going to be the final push, getting it washed and taking photos of it and making up a listing. We washed the car at home, then decided to take it to Marathon to vacuum it out before finding a parking lot to take photos in. Even from the house to the gas station, the car was acting incredibly janky, and by the time we got it to our chosen parking lot and started taking photos of it, it wasn't long before we gave up--and decided to junk the car.
We drove it home and called Victory Auto Wreckers, who will be coming to tow it away tomorrow. Here are some photos of the beloved Cavalier for posterity's sake.
Compare this view with the last but one to see the underlift subframe has been moved forward on the chassis. The underlift is now in its final position, and is awating the mounting plates to arrive so it can be bolted down.
All custom VRP (Verona Racing Parts) aluminium chassis, swingarm, gas tank, subframe/airbox.
Custom exhaust by MRP (Massaua Racing Pipe)
All custom VRP (Verona Racing Parts) aluminium chassis, swingarm, gas tank, subframe/airbox.
Custom barpad
Finally got round to replacing the rear springs, as I found this was quite challenging due to the design of the rear subframe on the S80.
Without a Youtube video and a certain spring compressor, it would be impossible to complete this task.
The ride has transformed, the rear is much tighter and also a bit lower (what I wanted). Happy days!
SKU / Type 956917
EAN 4251244608477
Captured 26 Nov 2021, 21:39 hrs ET, Springfield, VA, USA. Bortle 7 skies, Stellarvue SV80/9D doublet achromat refractor at f/5.68 (eff. fl 454mm), Orion Atlas AZ/EQ-G Pro mount. Mallincam DS10C camera, bin 1, exposure 120 seconds, gain 20, live stack of 20 subframes, dark and flat frames subtracted. Optolong LeNhance filter, UV/IR cut filter. Reprocessed in Siril and Photoshop on 14 June 2023.
Clouds: partly cloudy
Seeing: good
Transparency: good
Moon phase: 67%
FOV: 2.16 x 1.62 degrees before cropping.
Resolution: 2.1 arcsec/pixel.
Orientation: Up is Southwest.
Appearance: Dim nebulosity, adjacent bright star Gamma Cassiopeia. IC 59 is at 7 o'clock and IC 63 is at 10 o'clock.
From Stellarium:
IC 59 (a.k.a. Gamma Cas Nebula, LBN 620) is a reflection nebula. Magnitude +13.3, size 10 x 5 arcmin.
IC 63 (a.k.a. Ghost of Cassiopeia, LBN 622) is an HII region excited by Gamma Cas. Magnitude +13.3, size 10 x 3 arcmin.
From Wikipedia:
Gamma Cassiopeiae, Latinized from γ Cassiopeiae, is a star at the center of the distinctive "W" asterism in the northern circumpolar constellation of Cassiopeia. Although it is a fairly bright star with an apparent visual magnitude that varies from 1.6 to 3.0, it has no traditional Arabic or Latin name. It sometimes goes by the informal name Navi.
Gamma Cassiopeiae is a Be star, a variable star, and a binary star system. Based upon parallax measurements made by the Hipparcos satellite, it is located at a distance of roughly 550 light-years from Earth.
Gamma Cassiopeiae is an eruptive variable star, whose apparent magnitude changes irregularly between +1.6 and +3.0. It is the prototype of the class of Gamma Cassiopeiae variable stars. In the late 1930s it underwent what is described as a shell episode and the brightness increased to above magnitude +2.0, then dropped rapidly to +3.4. It has since been gradually brightening back to around +2.2. At maximum intensity, γ Cassiopeiae outshines both α Cassiopeiae (magnitude +2.25) and β Cassiopeiae (magnitude +2.3).
Gamma Cassiopeiae is a rapidly spinning star with a projected rotational velocity of 472 km s−1, giving it a pronounced equatorial bulge. When combined with the star's high luminosity, the result is the ejection of matter that forms a hot circumstellar disk of gas. The emissions and brightness variations are apparently caused by this "decretion disk".
The spectrum of this massive star matches a stellar classification of B0.5 IVe. A luminosity class of IV identifies it as a subgiant star that has reached a stage of its evolution where it is exhausting the supply of hydrogen in its core region and transforming into a giant star. The 'e' suffix is used for stars that show emission lines of hydrogen in the spectrum, caused in this case by the circumstellar disk. This places it among a category known as Be stars; in fact, the first such star ever to be so designated. It has 17 times the Sun's mass and is radiating as much energy as 34,000 Suns. At this rate of emission, the star has reached the end of its life as a late O-type main sequence star after a relatively brief 8 million years. The outer atmosphere has an intense effective temperature of 25,000 K, which is causing it to glow with a blue-white hue.
Gamma Cassiopeiae is the prototype of a small group of stellar sources of X-ray radiation that is about 10 times stronger than emitted from other B or Be stars. The character of the X-ray spectrum is Be thermal, possibly emitted from plasmas of temperatures up to least ten million kelvins, and shows very short term and long-term cycles. Historically, it has been held that these X-rays might be excited by matter originating from the star, from a hot wind or a disk around the star, accreting onto the surface of a degenerate companion, such as a white dwarf or neutron star. However, there are difficulties with either of these hypotheses. For example, it is not clear that enough matter can be accreted by a white dwarf, at the distance of the purported secondary star implied by the orbital period, sufficient to power an X-ray emission of nearly 1033 erg/s or 100 YW. A neutron star could easily power this X-ray flux, but X-ray emission from neutron stars is known to be non-thermal, and thus in apparent variance with the spectral properties.
Evidence suggests that the X-rays may be associated with the Be star itself or caused by some complex interaction between the star and surrounding decretion disk. One line of evidence is that the X-ray production is known to vary on both short and long time scales with respect to various UV line and continuum changes associated with a B star or with circumstellar matter close to the star. Moreover, the X-ray emissions exhibit long-term cycles that correlate with the light curves in the visible wavelengths.
Gamma Cassiopeiae exhibits characteristics consistent with a strong disordered magnetic field. No field can be measured directly from the Zeeman effect because of the star's rotation-broadened spectral lines. Instead, the presence of this field is inferred from a robust periodic signal of 1.21 days that suggests a magnetic field rooted on the rotating star's surface. The star's UV and optical spectral lines show ripples moving from blue to red over several hours, which indicates clouds of matter being held frozen over the star's surface by strong magnetic fields. This evidence suggests that a magnetic field from the star is interacting with the decretion disk, resulting in the X-ray emission. A disk dynamo has been advanced as a mechanism to explain this modulation of the X-rays. However, difficulties remain with this mechanism, among which is that there are no disk dynamos known to exist in other stars, rendering this behavior more difficult to analyze.
Gamma Cassiopeiae has two faint optical companions, listed in double star catalogues as components B and C. Star B is about 2 arc seconds distant and magnitude 11, and has a similar space velocity to the bright primary. Component C is magnitude 13, nearly an arc second distant.
Gamma Cassiopeiae A, the bright primary, is itself a spectroscopic binary with an orbital period of about 203.5 days and an eccentricity alternately reported as 0.26 and "near zero." The mass of the companion is believed to be about that of the Sun, but its nature is unclear. It has been proposed that it is a degenerate star or a hot helium star, but it seems unlikely that it is a normal star. Therefore, it is likely to be more evolved than the primary and to have transferred mass to it during an earlier stage of evolution.
The Chinese name Tsih, "the whip" (Chinese: ç–; pinyin: cè), is commonly associated with this star. The name however originally referred to Kappa Cassiopeiae, and Gamma Cassiopeiae was just one of four horses pulling the chariot of legendary charioteer Wangliang. This representation was later changed to make Gamma the whip.
The star was used as an easily identifiable navigational reference point during space missions and American astronaut Virgil Ivan "Gus" Grissom nicknamed the star Navi after his own middle name spelled backwards.
Kosmo Foto Mono pushed to ISO400 - Nikon F3 - 100mm Series E f2.8
Home developed w/ Rodinal, home scanned.
Found in a thrift shop nearby
Wikipedia:
It was the first car launched by Alpine under Renault ownership (though Alpine had been affiliated with Renault for many years, with its earlier models using many Renault parts). It effectively updated the design of its predecessor, the Alpine A310, updating that car's silhouette with modern design features like body-integrated bumpers and a triangular C pillar with large rear windshield. It used the PRV V6 engine in a rear-engined layout, with extensive use of Polyester plastics and fibreglass for the body panels making it considerably lighter and quicker than rivals such as the Porsche 944. It was one of the most aerodynamic cars of its time, the naturally aspirated version achieved a world record 0.28 drag coefficient in its class.[citation needed] The GTA name, used to denote the entire range of this generation, stands for "Grand Tourisme Alpine" but in most markets the car was marketed as the Renault Alpine V6 GT or as the Renault Alpine V6 Turbo.[2] In Great Britain it was sold simply as the Renault GTA,[3] as Sunbeam (and then Chrysler/Talbot) had been using the "Alpine" badge since the 1950s.
1988 Renault GTA Turbo (UK), rear view
Rather than being moulded in a single piece as for the preceding A310, the new Alpine's body was moulded in a large number of small separate panels.[2] This required a major overhaul of the Alpine plant, leaving only the sandblasting machinery intact. The car was also considerably more efficient to manufacture, with the time necessary to build a finished car dropping from 130 to 77 hours - which was still a long time, but acceptable for a small-scale specialty car.[4] The PRV engine in the naturally aspirated model was identical to the version used in the Renault 25, a 2849 cc unit producing 160 PS (158 hp). Also available was the smaller (2.5 litres) turbocharged model.
The central backbone chassis (with outriggers for side impact protection) was built by Heuliez and then transferred to Dieppe - aside from the body, most of the car was subcontracted to various suppliers.[4] The drivetrain was mounted on a separate subframe, meaning it can be removed in as little as two hours.[5] At the time of introduction, daily production number amounted to ten cars.[6] This soon dropped considerably, as the somewhat less than prestigious Renault had a hard time in the sports car marketplace. The average production for the six full years of production was just above 1000 per annum, or just above three per day.
Models[edit]
Renault Alpine Le Mans (1990-1991)
The first model introduced was the naturally aspirated V6 GT (D 500), which entered production in November 1984, although press photos had been released in September 1984.[7] The car was first shown at the 1985 Amsterdam Rai, immediately after which it also went on sale.[8] In July 1985 the Europa Cup model appeared; this limited edition model was intended for a single-make racing championship and 69 cars were built (54 in 1985 and 15 more in 1987).[9] In September 1985 the turbo model (D 501) followed, which increased the power of the PRV unit to 200 PS (147 kW). Sales of the naturally aspirated model were always sluggish, but with the more powerful turbo, things picked up considerably.[5] At the 1986 Birmingham Show the right-hand-drive version was presented and UK sales, as the Renault GTA, commenced.[8]
In early 1987 a catalyzed version appeared, with fifteen less horsepower. This meant that the Turbo could finally be sold in Switzerland, and later in other European countries such as Germany and the Netherlands when they adopted stricter legislation. The catalyzed model had lower gearing in fourth and fifth gears, in order to somewhat mask its power deficit.[10] In 1988 anti-lock brakes became available.[11] For the 1989 model year the Mille Miles version appeared. With the non-catalyzed engine, this model heralded a re-focus on the Alpine name. The Renault logo was gone from the car, with an alpine logo up front and a large "Alpine" print appearing between the taillights. However, as the name 'Alpine' could not be used in the UK the name Alpine was removed from cars destined for the UK; there was no large print at the back of these cars and a UK specific logo was fitted to the front of the car. The Mille Miles, a limited edition of 100 cars, also featured a special dark red metallic paintjob, polished aluminium wheels, and a large slver gray triangular stripe with the Alpine "A" across the left side of the front.[11]
In February 1990 the limited edition Le Mans arrived, this car had a more aggressive body kit with polyester wheel arch extensions and a one piece front with smaller headlights. Wheels were 3 piece BBS style produced by ACT, 8x16" front & 10x17" rear. Many of these changes were adopted for the succeeeding A610. The regular V6 GT and V6 Turbo ended production during 1990, while the Le Mans version continued to be produced until February 1991. 325 of these were built in total. Also in 1990, Renault was forced to install the less powerful catalyzed engine in cars destined for the home market, leading to grumbling amongst Alpine enthusiasts about the loss of power (down to 185 PS or 136 kW) while the 25 Turbo saloon actually gained power when it became catalyzed. In response Danielson SA, a famous French tuner, created an upgraded version of the Le Mans with 210 PS (154 kW).
Renault had planned a federalized version of the Alpine V6 Turbo all along, but development proceeded slowly. The US model had an emissions cleaned engine with 180 PS (132 kW), bigger bumpers, and flip-up headlamps (photo). Various crash safety improvements were also carried out. In 1987, however, Renault withdrew from the US market. By then 21 pre-series cars had been finished. 12 of these were sold by Alpine directly to specially selected customers at home.
Now that I own an intervalometer, it's much easier to take lots of subframes over a long period of time (in fact, now I can do it while I'm on the couch watching TV). So I figured I would try "going deep" and see if I could image some galaxies - and why not, with Leo and Virgo high overhead this time of year?
I constructed this image over a period of several nights, as I'm a bit new to this type of astrophotography, and it took me some time to get proper flat and bias frames and get them all blended properly. I don't know who the first guy was to figure out the whys and hows of stacking, dark frames, flat frames, and bias frames, but he must've been a pretty smart guy. If you do this right, then camera-induced noise and artefacts are drastically reduced. One of the goals I had in making this image (besides making a nice image) was to see if it's actually possible to image dim objects like this with an Alt/Az mount (i.e., my Nexstar 8). It was very pleasing to know that it's possible - this really opens up the sky for me and my less-than-optimal equipment.
So here's the result... this image shows M65 & M66 in Leo. M65 (right) is a type Sa spiral galaxy, and as can be seen in this image, has a prominent dust lane and is close to being edge-on. M66 (left) is a type Sb spiral, and as can be seen here, has a prominent central bar, widely separated arms, and many clumps of dust. Both of these galaxies are about 36 million ly away.
I find it incredible that these "island universes", containing billions of stars, are so small and dim that it's a challenge to see and image them. No doubt there are guys up there trying to do the same thing with the Milky Way right now.
26x120 second subframes, total integration 52 minutes.
Imaging:
Skywatcher Evostar 150,
QHY163C with Astronomik CLS filter.
Guiding:
190mm focal length finder-guider,
Orion SSAG.
All on
Skywatcher HEQ5 Pro
Captured using SharpCap. Guided with PHD2.
Stacked and processed in DSS, Fitswork and Gimp. 2x drizzle applied.
20th July 2017
Cambridge, UK