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M 101 is a spiral Galaxy in the constellation Ursa Major. Within the frame there are also the dwarf galaxy NGC 5477, the OIII and Ha ionized Nebula NGC 5471 and lots of small background galaxies. The goal was to get a decent mixture of broadband data and emisioon line data.
The data were imaged with a TS Photoline 130/910 mm apo triplet and an ASI2600mm-pro.
200 x 90 s L (2022-02-25)
107 x 60 s R (2022-02-26)
97 x 60 s G (2022-02-26)
96 x 60 s B (2022-02-26)
50 x 240 s OIII (2022-02-27)
70 x 240 s Ha (2022-02-28)
During my visit to Joshua Tree NP, I had to find a target for the two hours of darkness, before the moonrise.
I chose the border region between the constellations Perseus, Taurus and Auriga. This area of the Winter Milky Way is often overlooked in landscape astrophotography, because of its proximity to eye-catching Orion. Time to change that! Join me on a little stroll through the area:
As I was lingering in one of Califonia's National Parks, I couldn't resist to put the Cailfornia Nebula center stage. This energized Hydrogen cloud is named so, because its resembles the outline of the US State of California. The nebula is the birth place of many young stars, including Menkib, the 4th magnitude star that makes the cloud glow. It can be seen at the right boundary of the nebula.
The most famous denizens of the area however are the Pleiades (Seven Sisters), probably the best known star cluster in the sky. The Pleiades are dominated by hot blue stars that have formed within the last 100 million years. The reflection nebulae around the brightest stars are an unrelated dust cloud in the interstellar medium through which the stars are currently passing.
The Hyades, another open star cluster, are rising on the right edge of the frame. It consists of several hundred stars, sharing the same age, origin and characteristics. The most famous star in that area of the sky, bright yellow Aldebaran, is however not part of the Hyades and located much closer to us.
On the lower left is another red emission nebula, called the Flaming Star Nebula. This interstellar Hydrogen cloud is ionized by the unralated star AE Aurigae passing through it. Proper motion of AE Aurigae shows that is was expelled from the center of the famous Orion Nebula (not in this image), after a close encounter with another star there.
The image also contains a network of diffuse dark clouds. This is the Taurus Dark Nebula Complex, a sooty network of tendrils that span more than 30° of sky. It is not very well known, as it is only possible to photograph it from a dark sky location. The Taurus Molecular Cloud is the nearest star-forming region to Earth.
EXIF
Canon EOS Ra
Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8 L ll @ 50mm
iOptron SkyTracker Pro
Sky
Stack of 20 x 90s @ ISO1600
Foreground:
Focus stack of 6 x 25s @ ISO800 during twilight.
The Heart Nebula
The Heart Nebula (IC 1805), lies some 7500 light years away from Earth and is located in the Perseus Arm of the Galaxy in the constellation Cassiopeia. It was discovered by William Herschel on 3 November 1787. It is an emission nebula showing glowing ionized hydrogen gas and darker dust lanes.
The brightest part of the nebula (a knot at its western edge) is separately classified as NGC 896, because it was the first part of the nebula to be discovered. The nebula's intense red output and its morphology are driven by the radiation emanating from a small group of stars near the nebula's center. This open cluster of stars, known as Collinder 26 or Melotte 15, contains a few bright stars nearly 50 times the mass of our Sun, and many more dim stars that are only a fraction of our Sun's mass.
ZWO ASI2600MC Pro camera, William Optics GT81 scope with WO Flat 6AIII flattener, ZWO ASIAir Pro guided, Skywatcher HEQ5 Pro mount, L-eXtreme filter.
132 lights of 180sec at gain 100 and -10degC, 40 darks, 50 flats and 50 dark flats.
Bortle 4 skies
Stacked in DSS and processed in Photoshop with final touches in Lightroom
Explore 31 August 2021
A 10 Field stitched panorama of the Milky Way above the Tetons taken along the Teton River. The green glowing fan-like color in the sky within the Milky Way is Green Airglow. Airglow turns up in our time exposure photographs of the night sky as ghostly ripples of aurora-like light. Its similarity to the aurora is no coincidence. Both form at around the same altitude of 60-65 miles (100 km) and involve excitation of atoms and molecules, in particular oxygen. But different mechanisms tease them to glow.
Auroras get their spark from high-speed electrons and protons in the solar wind that bombard oxygen and nitrogen atoms and molecules. As excited electrons within those atoms return to their rest states, they emit photons of green and red light that create shimmering, colorful curtains of northern lights.
Airglow’s subtle radiance arises from excitation of a different kind. Ultraviolet light from the daytime sun ionizes or knocks electrons off of oxygen and nitrogen atoms and molecules; at night the electrons recombine with their host atoms, releasing energy as light of different colors including green, red, yellow and blue. The brightest emission, the one responsible for creating the green streaks and bands visible from the ground and orbit, stems from excited oxygen atoms beaming light at 557.7 nanometers, smack in the middle of the yellow-green parcel of spectrum. I was unaware of this phenomena until someone recently pointed it out to me.
Nikon D850
Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8
An upward unconnected leader (or upward streamer as it is more commonly termed) is a positively charged channel of ionized air that rises from ground objects (like buildings, towers, trees or even the ground itself) towards a negatively charged downward-moving "stepped leader" from a storm cloud. When an upward leader "connects" with a downward leader, the lightning bolt we see occurs. It is possible to catch (in a photo) one or some of the upward leaders who "didn't make it" to connect with the downward one.
Photography and Licensing: doudoulakis.blogspot.com/
My books concerning natural phenomena / Τα βιβλία μου σχετικά με τα φυσικά φαινόμενα: www.facebook.com/TaFisikaFainomena/
The Helix Nebula is a planetary nebula formed by an intermediate to low-mass star. When a star of this size ages, it gradually sheds its outer layer, making an outward-drifting shell of gas and dust. Its core collapses to form a compact white dwarf that slowly radiates its energy away. The radiation then catches up with the gases, ionizing them and creating this astonishing scene. You can find the white dwarf star in the centre of this image; it's now about the size of the Earth.
Another interesting thing about this nebula is that the star that formed it is similar to our sun. This led to the belief that in 5 billion years, when our solar system begins to age and fade away, it might turn into a beautiful nebula just like this one.
(The data was acquired from iTelescope, which I processed using pixinsight and photoshop).
Full write-up here: theastroenthusiast.com/ngc-4490-from-hubble/
Another galaxy from the Hubble Legacy ExtraGalactic UV Survey (LEGUS). This rather messy assortment of star formation is said to be a barred spiral galaxy, but I confess I have a hard time seeing it even in widefield view. It kinda looks like all bar and no spiral to me. I wonder what it looked like before its interaction with NGC 4485? From our vantage point in spacetime, we’ll never know, but right now we can see the interaction has caused such a ruckus of star formation that the whole thing appears quite blue and full of young stars and pinkish clouds of ionized hydrogen. These hot-burning stars also explode relatively quickly, making this galaxy host to many supernovas.
Website: theastroenthusiast.com/
Instagram: www.instagram.com/the_astronomy_enthusiast/
Cosmic Dust Ritual
My Interplanetary Memories
Interplanetary Travel
I was watching the sunset under a red cosmic dust cloud when I took this photo. I was sitting in silence enjoying this unique view in the sky. It was a moment when I felt very, very lucky. I had not yet given a name to this nebula I had just discovered. Instead of naming this nebula, I decided to savor the moment. A nebula or nebula is a nebula structure in space made up of cosmic dust, hydrogen, helium, and other ionized gases spread over vast areas. They were the remains of a dying star. Even billions of years old stars can have an end. When I think about it, a shudder takes over my body. While the concept of the end sometimes causes peace and excitement in me, the concept of the end sometimes causes fear in me. A concept that can put you in volatile moods is the ending. Maybe I should stop thinking about the end. But I still can't stop myself from thinking about my end. There is a result that I have experienced with nebulas and which surprised me quite a bit. I always felt a tremendous sense of peace in the face of all the cosmic dust landscapes I encountered. I was able to sleep better at night. And when I woke up, I felt that my whole body was completely relaxed. The dreams I had when I slept under the cosmic dust were also different. At night, I had dreams that made me happy and did not tire my mind. I discovered that cosmic dust causes positive results in the human body and soul. However, I have never measured it scientifically. It was just an observational discovery. Even thinking about those moments gives me peace right now. Again, I can't wait to encounter a cosmic dust landscape, the nebula.
Camera: Canon EOS Kiss X7i
Photograph by Yusuf Alioglu
Location: Outer space (space)
This is one of the best known regions of ionized hydrogen in our skies. Located in Sagittarius near the point of the winter solstice, the Lagoon Nebula is a sprawling region of active star formation about 4,000 light years away. Where are the stars forming? You have to look for the dark knots of material in this image. Those dusty regions are where the density is high enough to block the background light from nebula. That is where gravitational collapse is causing enough material to come together to make new stars.
I used Atk Hα and OIII narrowband filters with an Atik 414-EX monochrome camera on a Celestron Edge HD 925 with HyperStar to take sets of 2 minute guided exposures. The HyperStar filter slider system made it easy to switch from one filter to the other. This was shot entirely from light polluted skies in Long Beach, CA. Hydrogen data was mapped to R, and oxygen data to G and B. This is two panels combined as a mosaic. Preprocessing in Nebulosity; stacking, channel and mosaic combination, and processing in PixInsight; some final touches in Photoshop.
The image spans an area of 68' by 54' at a scale of 2.5"/pixel.
Image center is near RA 18h 3m 43s, DEC -24° 19'.
The famous Horsehead Nebula is a deep sky gem that needs little introduction. It's a dark nebula made of of cloud of dark dust wich obscures a part of the ionized emission nebula IC 434 behind it. It obviously gets its name from looking strikingly similar to a horse's head
The Flame Nebula to the bottom left is also aptly named for what it resembles. It's a large star formation region filled with custers of young stars that are hidden away in visible light, but illuminate the surrounding clouds of gas and backlight the contrasting dark nebulae running through it.
I had last imaged this nebula 2 years back and thought "This is it. I got my shot. I don't need to revisit this again". But last night, I was looking at Orion rising, and thought since it's getting quite cold and winter is almost upon us, this may be the last change I get out with my telescope this year, so I may as well give this one another shot now that I'm more experienced with my current equipment, and have new processing tools and techniques in my arsenal. And the results were indeed as stellar as the field of view I captured.
-=Tech Data=-
-Equipment-
Imaging Scope: Sky-Watcher Esprit 100
Mount: Celestron CGX
Imaging Camera: ZWO ASI 1600MC-Pro
Filter: Baader UV/IR cut
Guide Camera: ZWO ASI120 Mini
Guide Scope: Starfield 60mm guide scope
Dew Control: Kendrick
Power: Pegasus Astro Pocket Power Box
- Acquisition -
7H 20M of 5 min exposures
- Software -
Acquisition / Rig Control: Sequence Generator Pro
Stacking: Astro Pixel Processor
Processing: PixInsight
Post Processing: Photoshop CC
Shot at the Camden Lake Provincial Wildlife Area near Moscow, Ontario.
The Lagoon Nebula (catalogued as Messier 8 or M8, NGC 6523, Sharpless 25, RCW 146, and Gum 72) is a giant interstellar cloud in the constellation Sagittarius. It is classified as an emission nebula and as an H II region. The Lagoon Nebula is estimated to be between 4,000–6,000 light-years away from the Earth. In the sky of Earth, it spans 90' by 40', which translates to an actual dimension of 110 by 50 light years. Like many nebulae, it appears pink in time-exposure color photos but is gray to the eye peering through binoculars or a telescope, human vision having poor color sensitivity at low light levels. The nebula contains a number of Bok globules (dark, collapsing clouds of protostellar material), the most prominent of which have been catalogued by E. E. Barnard as B88, B89 and B296. It also includes a funnel-like or tornado-like structure caused by a hot O-type star that emanates ultraviolet light, heating and ionizing gases on the surface of the nebula. The Lagoon Nebula also contains at its centre a structure known as the Hourglass Nebula (so named by John Herschel), which should not be confused with the better known Engraved Hourglass Nebula in the constellation of Musca. In 2006, four Herbig–Haro objects were detected within the Hourglass, providing direct evidence of active star formation by accretion within it. (Explore Scientific ED127, Antlia SHO 3nm, ZWO AM%, ASI2600MM-Pro, ASIAIR, Pixinsight, Photoshop).
The red glow originates from hydrogen gas predominantly behind the nebula, ionized by the nearby bright star Sigma Orionis. The darkness of the Horsehead is caused mostly by thick dust, although the lower part of the Horsehead's neck casts a shadow to the left. Streams of gas leaving the nebula are funnelled by a strong magnetic field
Imaged from London using the following equipment
Tak 106
QHY 128C
iOptron GEM 45
The Lagoon Nebula (catalogued as Messier 8 or M8, NGC 6523, Sharpless 25, RCW 146, and Gum 72) is a giant interstellar cloud in the constellation Sagittarius. It is classified as an emission nebula and as an H II region. The Lagoon Nebula is estimated to be between 4,000–6,000 light-years away from the Earth. In the sky of Earth, it spans 90' by 40', which translates to an actual dimension of 110 by 50 light years. Like many nebulae, it appears pink in time-exposure color photos but is gray to the eye peering through binoculars or a telescope, human vision having poor color sensitivity at low light levels. The nebula contains a number of Bok globules (dark, collapsing clouds of protostellar material), the most prominent of which have been catalogued by E. E. Barnard as B88, B89 and B296. It also includes a funnel-like or tornado-like structure caused by a hot O-type star that emanates ultraviolet light, heating and ionizing gases on the surface of the nebula. The Lagoon Nebula also contains at its centre a structure known as the Hourglass Nebula (so named by John Herschel), which should not be confused with the better known Engraved Hourglass Nebula in the constellation of Musca. In 2006, four Herbig–Haro objects were detected within the Hourglass, providing direct evidence of active star formation by accretion within it. (Celestron EdgeHD800, ZWO ASI2600MM, AM5, ASIAIR, EAF, EFW, Antlia SHO 3nm, Pixinsight, Photoshop).
Part of an HII (ionized Hydrogen) region in Cassiopeia the Pacman Nebula is a bright emission nebula.
Named for its resemblance to the video game character the nebula lies at a distance of around 9500 light years from earth.
This image captured in narrowband Ha light was acquired over 2 nights - 17 & 18th September in strong moonlight. After a prolonged period (seemingly never-ending!) of poor skies was glad to be out imaging again!
Hopefully will have some OIII and SII to add later.
My first narrowband effort with my new Skywatcher Esprit 120ED scope.
40x300s Guided Ha subs. using ZWO 1600MM cooled to -15 and Gain 200.
Darks
The Lagoon Nebula (catalogued as Messier 8 or M8, NGC 6523, Sharpless 25, RCW 146, and Gum 72) is a giant interstellar cloud in the constellation Sagittarius. It is classified as an emission nebula and as an H II region. The Lagoon Nebula is estimated to be between 4,000–6,000 light-years away from the Earth. In the sky of Earth, it spans 90' by 40', which translates to an actual dimension of 110 by 50 light years. Like many nebulae, it appears pink in time-exposure color photos but is gray to the eye peering through binoculars or a telescope, human vision having poor color sensitivity at low light levels. The nebula contains a number of Bok globules (dark, collapsing clouds of protostellar material), the most prominent of which have been catalogued by E. E. Barnard as B88, B89 and B296. It also includes a funnel-like or tornado-like structure caused by a hot O-type star that emanates ultraviolet light, heating and ionizing gases on the surface of the nebula. The Lagoon Nebula also contains at its centre a structure known as the Hourglass Nebula (so named by John Herschel), which should not be confused with the better known Engraved Hourglass Nebula in the constellation of Musca. In 2006, four Herbig–Haro objects were detected within the Hourglass, providing direct evidence of active star formation by accretion within it. (Explore Scientific ED80, Skywatcher HEQ5, ZWO ASI2600MC-Pro, Radian Triad Ultra Narrowband Filter, N.I.N.A., 100m integration).
🌌 IC5070 – The Pelican Nebula in Narrowband 🌌 Captured over 17 hours using QHY286m, EQ8-R mount, and the Askar APO185 refractor, this reel showcases the stunning transitions between SII, H-alpha, and OIII filters—culminating in the full composite image.
IC5070, also known as the Pelican Nebula, lies about 1,800 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. Its shape resembles a pelican in profile, but what makes it truly fascinating is the intense star formation happening behind its dark dust clouds. The nebula is part of a larger star-forming region near the North America Nebula and is rich in ionized gases—perfect for narrowband imaging.
🔴 SII reveals sulfur-rich regions ❤️ H-alpha highlights hydrogen emissions 🔵 OIII brings out oxygen structures
This palette not only brings out the hidden beauty of IC5070 but also tells a story of cosmic chemistry and stellar birth.
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Sh2-104: A distant (~14,000 ly) bubble of ionized and molecular gas in Cygnus. The inner ring of ionized hydrogen and outer molecular shell show how a massive star blew a cavity and triggered star formation around it. One of the clearest ‘collect & collapse’ H II regions visible to astro-imagers.
Sky-Watcher Esprit 120mm, QHY268M, Optolong RGB, SHO.
41hr integration, from Starfront Observatory.
NGC2992 The Veil Nebula - a cloud of heated and ionized gas and dust in the constellation Cygnus.
Bortle 6 night skys
46 lights ha 12nm 300 sec 0 gain offset 50 -20*c
53 lights oii 8.5nm 300 sec 0 gain offset 50 -20*c
ap1100 / tak106 zwo174mm cool
Unguided (too many clouds passing over)
50 darks, 50 bias, 50 flats 51%
stacked in APP false green added in Photoshop
24*c ambient
8-1/4 hours integration
I started taking pictures of this beautiful nebula in May with only limited filters at the time. The amount of available detail is amazing. After finally purchasing some other filters and collecting some more images in different color bands I have been struggling to balance them into a pleasing image. One of the most popular ways of combining narrowband images is the "Hubble palette": Sulphur to red, Hydrogen to green, Oxygen to blue, also referred to as SHO. As in most nebula the hydrogen emission, which is near infra red, is the strongest and has the most detail. On the first pass what you often end up with applying the SHO palette is a very green image.
A little top left of center in this image is a dark column. This is Herbig-Haro object 555.
From constellation-guide: "The young stars in the nebula are heating up the cold gas in their vicinity and, as a result, an ionization front gradually moves outward. A number of unusually dense filaments of cold gas are still visible, among them two jets emanating from the Herbig-Haro object 555 (HH 555).
The jets evolve and are eventually blown away by the wind produced by the young star. They disperse after a few hundreds of thousands of years at most. HH 555 is the most prominent example of this kind of object found in the Pelican Nebula."
Askar 120APO: 840mm f/7
ZWO ASI533MM Mono Camera at -20C
Guided on ZWO AM5
36x180s with Ha filter
30x300s with SII filter
56x180 with O III filter
Processed with PixInsight, Ps
For those not familiar with this natural phenomena it resembles a faint aurora borealis. #Airglow is caused by an assortment of chemical reactions in the upper #atmosphere. During the day, ultraviolet radiation from the sun ionizes atoms and breaks apart molecules. At #night, the atoms and molecules recombine, emitting photons as they return to normal. This process produces a greenish aurora-like glow visible on very #dark nights.
The Heart Nebula, IC 1805, Sharpless 2-190, lies some 7500 light years away from Earth and is located in the Perseus Arm of the Galaxy in the constellation Cassiopeia. It was discovered by William Herschel on 3 November 1787. It is an emission nebula showing glowing ionized hydrogen gas and darker dust lanes.
ASI183mm Pro and Lacerta 72/432 F6 apo w/ 0.85x reducer.
Ha: 96x300s Gain 200 -15°C
Oxygen: 36x300s Gain 200 -15°C
Clouds and Rain....another reprocess from this summer
The Lagoon Nebula is 8 in Charles Messier's "not a comet" list, 25 in the Sharpless catalog and 6523 in the New General Calalog.(NGC) It is a cloud of ionized hydrogen estimated to be 4000-6000 light years from earth. It can be seen with the naked eye as a gray/green patch in the constellation of Sagittarius..Almost in the center of the photo can be seen NGC 6530, an open cluster of young stars formed from material within the nebula. The entire nebula is roughly 110 x 50 light-years wide.
This is a LRGB filtered image taken with a QHY23M mono CCD camera and an 11" Celestron EdgeHD w/Hyperstar on May 31 & June 9, 2016
L-20x120s
R-10x120s
G-10x120s
B-10x120s
These are images of M101 (NGC 5457), The Pinwheel Galaxy, in colour and monochrome.
I have annotated the colour version to identify some of the many pink/red HII (hydrogen) ionized regions found throughout this system. They are identified with their NGC catalogue number. These areas of high density molecular Hydrogen gas are active areas of star formation.
Also labelled are a number of fainter galaxies present within the image.
Found in Ursa Major The Pinwheel Galaxy is has a galactic diameter over twice that of our Milky Way and is host to some 1 trillion stars!
Imaged with my Esprit 120ED and ZWO 2600MC camera. Imaged over 2 nights for a total of 9.5 hours exposure.
Many thanks for looking!
When you have narrowband data, there are almost endless possibilities of how to display it. A lot of them are probably aesthetic nightmares. However, it is possible to try for "true color" (whatever that is). This is a little twist on that. Hydrogen has two characteristic bright lines to our eyes - a red one at 656 nm and a blue/teal one at 486 nm. This filter only picks up the red line, but if it's there, the blue should be too. Ionized sulfur has a line in the red at 672 nm, and ionized oxygen has a green/blue line at 500 nm.
For this version, I used the following mix:
red channel - 50% Hα and 50% {S II]
green channel - 80% [O III] and 20% Hα
blue channel - 70% [O III] and 30% Hα
That's where it started in PixInsight, but there was a photometric color calibration and a few other tweaks after that. I didn't notice any big shifts in the overal hue, though.
This is the same data as I used for my SHO Hubble palette image of the same nebula. (See flic.kr/p/2kA3xLV ) Do you have a preference? Not that anyone has eyes sensitive enough to see these shades, but this "feels" more right to me. I am subjugate to my own biology.
The Rosette Nebula is located in the constellation of Monoceros, the unicorn. It lies 5200 light years away and is 170 light years in diameter. This enormous
ionized gas "bubble" is mainly fueled by the type-O stars HD 46223 and HD 46150.
NGC 6992 is the filamentary eastern part of th Cirrus Nebula complex in the constellation Cygnus. The Veil Nebula is a cloud of heated ionized gas that emits its light mainly in the wavelengths of Oxgen III and Hydrogen alpha.
The image was taken with an ASI1600mmp and a TS Photoline 130/910 mm refractor.
50 x 200s OIII
49 x 200 s Ha
Cosmic dust clouds dim the light of background stars. But they also reflect the light of stars nearby. Since bright stars tend to radiate strongly in the blue portion of the visible spectrum, and the interstellar dust scatters blue light more strongly than red, the dusty reflection nebulae tend to be blue. Lovely examples are the wispy blue reflection nebulae near bright, hot stars Pi and Delta Scorpii in this telescopic skyscape from the head of the constellation Scorpius. Of course, the contrasting red emission nebulae are also caused by the hot stars' energetic radiation. Ultraviolet photons ionize hydrogen atoms in the interstellar clouds producing the characteristic red hydrogen alpha emission line as the electrons recombine. About 600 light-years away, the nebulae are found in the second version of the Sharpless Catalog as Sh2-1 (left, with reflection nebulae VdB 99) and Sh2-7. At that distance, this field of view is about 40 light-years across. [Text adapted from APOD]
Optics: Takahashi E-130D F/3.3 430mm. - Newton Hyp
Mount: AP Mach1 GTO
Camera: Moravian G3-16200
Filters: Astrodon E Series Gen II LRGBHA 50mm unmounted
Guiding Systems: SX Lodestar
Dates/Times: May/June 2019
Location: Colle Fauniera - Cuneo Alps - Italy
Exposure Details: R:G:B => 90:70:60 = > (18x5):(14x5):(12x5) [num x minutes]
Cooling Details: -25 °C
Acquisition: Voyager Astrophotography Automation
Processing: CCDStack2+, PS CC
Mean FWHM: 1.21 / 2.05
SQM-L: 21.34 / 21.44
سديم اللولب، هو من اكبر و اقرب السدم الكوكبيه الينا حيث يبعد حوالي ٤٥٠ سنه ضوئيه. هذا السديم الجميل يشبه العين في السماء. يمثل هذا السديم المراحل النهائيه في حياه النجم، حيث يتقلص النجم بدرجه كبيره و يطلق غلافه الخارجي ليكون نجم ابيض قزم. ينتج عن هذا النجم طاقه و اشعاعات قويه تؤدي الى تأين الاوكسجين باللون الازرق و الهايدروجين باللون الاحمر. Helix nebula NGC 7293 is the largest and closest planetary nebula to us. It’s about 450 ly distance. This beautiful nebula resembles an eye in the space. This form of nebula represents the final stages in the star life where the star repelled its outer shell into the space and shrink to form white dwarf star. This star emits very powerful stellar winds & radiations, that ionize Oxygen & Hydrogen gases to emit Blue & Red colors respectively. Gear setup: Celestron HD11 f/7, iOptron CEM70G, ZWO 2600MM, Antlia Ha, Oiii 3nm filters. Lights Ha 70 x 300sec, Oiii 80 x 300, total exposure 10 hours. Captured by NINA, PHD2. Stacked in APP. Processed in PI & PS. Imaged from sky Bortle 4.
Sharpless 119, is a large patch of emission in the constellation Cygnus and lies some 2200 light years away. It’s only 2-3 degrees away from the North American and Pelican Nebulae, so is often overlooked. The bright star is 68 Cygni, and is around magnitude 5 and is one of the stars responsible for ionizing the surrounding gas. Riddled throughout this complex are several brighter emission patches and dark nebulae.
The image is a stack of 31x300s. Shots and 5x300 dark frames, taken with a Nikon D800 (unmodified) camera body and a Williams Optics Zenithstar 61 refractor scope, using a WO FLAT61 field flattener.
The mount is a Skywatcher Star Adventurer GTI, controlled by a ZWO AsiAir mini dedicated hardware. The same device also controls a ZWO ASI 715MC guiding camera connected to a SVBONY SV65 30mm. guide scope.
Although very close to the light pollution of a great town (Turin), the result has been possible also thanks to a SVBONY SV220 7nm dual narrowband (Hα and OIII) filter, which enabled to capture the very faint emissions of these charming deep sky objects.
Final post processing throug GraXpert, Siril and Photoshop.
The Soul Nebula (IC1871) in Cassiopeia is a small but dramatic region of star formation in the rich ionized cloud complex. Shot using narrowband filters to see the hydrogen, Sulphur, and oxygen.
This is the Owl Nebula imaged in Bicolour (OIII & Ha) HOO narrowband from the garden during the night of 19-20th March.
The Owl Nebula is a Starburst or Planetary Nebula. A type of emission nebula which consists of an expanding shell of ionized gas ejected form a central star late in its life.
The term Planetary Nebula was coined because of their planet-like round shape.
Discovered by Pierre Méchain in 1781 the nebula was independently observed by Charles Messier a few weeks later and he included it in his catalogue as M97. The nebula has also been catalogued as NGC 3587.
When observed some years later by William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse, his hand-drawn illustration resembled an Owl's head and the name has remained ever since!
Found in the constellation of Ursa Major (Great Bear or Plough) it lies over 2000 lightyears away.
The owl-like appearance is the result of an inner shell of gas that is not circularly symmetric. Instead it is barrel-like and is aligned at 45° from our perspective.
Imaged with my Esprit 120ED with flattener and my ZWO 1600MMPro camera. Baader OIII and Ha narrowband filters.
30 x 250s Ha
60 x 250s OIII
Total Exposure 6.2hrs.
Gain 139 and camera cooled to -20°
Temp. matched darks, flats and dark flats.
AstroPixel Processor and Photoshop 2022.
Thanks for looking!
moonrocksastro.com/index.php/2016/08/20/the-pelican-nebul...
The Pelican Nebula (also known as IC 5070 and IC 5067[1]) is an H II region associated with the North America Nebula in the constellation Cygnus. The gaseous contortions of this emission nebula bear a resemblance to a pelican, giving rise to its name.[1] The Pelican Nebula is located nearby first magnitude star Deneb, and is divided from its more prominent neighbour, the North America Nebula, by a molecular cloud filled with dark dust.
The Pelican is much studied because it has a particularly active mix of star formation and evolving gas clouds. The light from young energetic stars is slowly transforming cold gas to hot and causing an ionization front gradually to advance outward. Particularly dense filaments of cold gas are seen to still remain, and among these are found two jets emitted from the Herbig–Haro object 555.[1] Millions of years from now this nebula might no longer be known as the Pelican, as the balance and placement of stars and gas will leave something that appears completely different.
Technical card
Imaging telescopes or lenses: Vixen VSD100 f/3.8 Astrograph
Imaging cameras: Starlight Express SXVR-H18
Mounts: Sky-Watcher NEQ6 Pro
Guiding telescopes or lenses: Vixen VSD
Guiding cameras: sx loadstar
Software: PixInsight 1.8, Photoshop CS5
Filters: Baader O III 8.5nm, Baader Ha 8.5nm
Accessories: Starlight Xpress USB filter wheel, Starlight Xpress Lodestar Guider
Resolution: 3307x2486
Frames:
Baader Ha 8.5nm: 11x1800" bin 1x1
Baader O III 8.5nm: 12x1800" bin 1x1
Baader SII 8.5nm: 10x1800" bin 1x1
Integration: 16.5 hours
Avg. Moon age: 21.77 days
Avg. Moon phase: 54.01%
Locations: Home observatory, Valencia, Spain
Not a lot of data on this, (about 12 hours) but here is the Shrimp Nebula, or Sh-188.
Sharpless-188 is a planetary nebula 850 light-years away. Planetary nebulae are formed when a star dies of “old age” and expels ionized shells of gas. The object itself is pretty young compared to most similar objects and is only 22,500 years old.
Planetary nebulae are usually symmetrical in shape, but that isn’t the case of Sh2-188. The Shrimp Nebula is believed to travel through space at an incredible rate (about 300,000 miles per hour) and to be going through layers of the interstellar medium. This impacts the shape of the nebula and makes it asymmetrical.
As the summer heat builds up and the heart of the Milky Way takes the C-position in the night sky, it's a great time to go "salvaging" all kinds of summer-exclusive deep-sky treasures from the sky.
In the constellation of Sagittarius, where the heart of the Milky Way is located, there is this pair of nebulae that are very impressive. The large one on the left, ranked eighth in Messier's catalog, is called the Lagoon Nebula; the small one on the lower right ranked twentieth in Messier's catalog, is called the Trifid Nebula.
The Lagoon Nebula, one of the two star-forming nebulae visible to the naked eye in the northern hemisphere, is between 4000 and 6000 light-years from Earth. It is a region of ionized hydrogen and is pink in color. On closer inspection, the nebula is also studded with dark spherical grains called Bok globulars. These are dense, dark clouds that are impervious to light, and you can imagine them as insect "cocoons" where new stars are being born. The nebula also interacts with the brightest stars in it, forming a spectacular tornado-like structure.
The Trifid Nebula, also a star-forming region, is not visible to the naked eye at a distance of about 4,100 light-years from Earth. It is less grand than the Lagoon Nebula but more detailed. It has both the pink color of the excited ionized hydrogen region, the blue color of the reflected starlight, and the opaque dark nebula that cuts the main body into three pieces, which is also the origin of the name of the Trifid Nebula.
M82 is also known as the Cigar Galaxy due to its shape. It's located in Ursa Major (The Big Dipper) about 12 million light away and about 37,000 light years across. It is also called a starburst galaxy because at its core, the rate of star formation is 10 times that of the entire Milky Way, so it's literally bursting with stars. This is mainly due to the gravitational interaction with its familiar close neighbor, M81. The ionized hydrogen gas glowing red is blown into intergalactic space due to intense galactic "winds" and strong magnetic flux lines that flow across the axis of the core. It is said to be the brightest galaxy in the infrared spectrum.
La nébuleuse de la Trompe d'éléphant est une concentration de gaz interstellaire et de poussière dans une région de gaz ionisé beaucoup plus grande IC 1396, située dans la constellation de Céphée à environ 2 400 années-lumière de la Terre.
The Elephant's Trunk Nebula is a concentration of interstellar gas and dust within the much larger ionized gas region. IC1396 is located in the constellation Cepheus about 2,400 light years away from Earth. Within this nebula, IC 1396A, commonly called the Elephant's Trunk nebula because of its appearance at visible light wavelengths, where there is a dark patch with a bright, sinuous rim. The bright rim is the surface of the dense cloud that is being illuminated and ionized by a very bright, massive star (HD 206267) that is just to the East of IC 1396A.
(source: Wikipedia)
= Acquisition info =
William Optics Zenithstar 73ii (FL 430mm)
Risingcam IMX571 color
iOptron CEM26
WO Uniguide 32/120 + Touptek GPM462M
NINA & PHD2
= Séances photo =
Mosaïque 2 panneaux
Mosaic 2 panels
- Panneau 1 : 20, 22, 25 et 29 juin : NBZ 180s x 65 + 300s x 50 (7h20)
- Panneau 2 : 20, 22 et 29 juin 2025 : NBZ 180s x 45 + 300s x 57 (7h)
Allsky : nuit du 29 juin 2025
youtu.be/v-1OEtNEwv8?si=k4E3hoBsug8_WEvX
= Traitement/processing =
Siril, GraXpert, Starnet++ & Affinity Photo 2
Temps d'exposition post-traitement : 10h51
@Astrobox 2.0 / Bortle 9
St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Québec
AstroM1
This striking celestial sphere can be found in the Southern Virgo Constellation. It has a bright central star that is getting hotter as it evolves towards its white dwarf phase. It is very bright in the invisible ultraviolet spectrum. The central star has an extremely hot surface that is responsible for ionizing the hydrogen and oxygen atoms in the nebula. For us, we get to enjoy a beautiful glowing nebula.
The description or name “Planetary Nebula” has nothing to do with planets. Astronomers in the 18th century noted fuzzy round objects that resembled the familiar gas giants found in our solar system. What they had seen through their telescopes were stars in the final stages of its life. They have blown off much of their outer layers revealing the hotter core. The matter blasted into space glows like a neon sign, creating some of the most beautiful objects we can capture in our instruments.
I love imaging planetary nebula. They have an interesting mix of colours combined with incredible structures of glowing gases. In my mind, they conjure up visions of translucent crystal structures floating against a backdrop of stars and many far off galaxies.
Exposure Details:
Red 14X600 Binned 1X1
Green 21X600 Binned 1X1
Blue 14X600 Binned 1X1
Ha 40X1800 Binned 2X2
OIII 40X1800 Binned 2X2
Total Exposure: 48.1 Hours
Instruments:
Telescope: 10" Ritchey-Chrétien RCOS
Camera: SBIG STL-11000 Mono
Mount: Astro-Physics AP-900
Focal Length: 2310.00 mm
Pixel size: 9.00 um
Resolution: 0.82 arcsec/pix
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The region around the sword of Orion is a stellar nursery - the closest one to Earth. It's not far south of the Horsehead and Flame nebula in Orion's belt, and the entire thing is part of a much larger Giant Molecular Cloud complex. The reds are from hydrogen alpha - gas ionized by the young massive stars in the center - a formation called the Trapezium. The blues are from oxygen and hydrogen beta.
10x30,120,300 second exposures in HSO.
Check it out! This is the final version of the Messier 8 - The Lagoon Nebula / Messier 20 - The Trifid Nebula field imaging project. After several nights of capture, totaling 15 hours of exposure, I decided to start processing the datasets. There is so much going on in this image! All the reds in this image are recombined ionized hydrogen, a process triggered by intense ultraviolet radiation from nearby stars. Blues are reflected starlight from high-mass stars inside the nebula. Blacks are cold hydrogen regions, where starlight is obscured by the hydrogen cloud. Whites are the Integrated Flux Nebula (IFN) which are hydrogen, oxygen, and other metals that are being illuminated by the combined starlight of the overall galaxy. I captured this at Frosty Drew Observatory in Charlestown, Rhode Island. Mara Decesare assisted with data collection, alignment, and set up as part of the Frosty Drew summer internship project preparation.
Camera: Canon Ra + L-Pro
Telescope: Astronomics AT72ED + Field Flattener
Mount: Celestron CGEM DX + Single board computer
Exposure: 120 seconds + darks, flats, offset calibration frames
ISO 3200
Total Integration Time: 15 hours.
First attempt at doing a mosaic. Used NINA to capture 2 panels roughly covering nebula, processed and merged in PixInsight.
ZWO ASI2600MC Pro
Skywatcher Esprit 100ED
Each of 2 panels 20x240s
The Veil Nebula is a cloud of heated and ionized gas and dust in the constellation Cygnus. It constitutes the visible portions of the Cygnus Loop, a supernova remnant, many portions of which have acquired their own individual names and catalogue identifiers. The source supernova was a star 20 times more massive than the Sun which exploded between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago.
Resolution ............... 0.697 arcsec/px
Rotation ................. -3.190 deg
Reference system ......... ICRS
Observation start time ... 2025-08-16 22:27:50 UTC
Observation end time ..... 2025-08-16 23:54:54 UTC
Focal distance ........... 556.19 mm
Pixel size ............... 1.88 um
Field of view ............ 3d 7' 4.2" x 2d 21' 25.6"
Image center ............. RA: 20 51 11.311 Dec: +31 00 00.45
The Lagoon Nebula (catalogued as Messier 8 or M8, NGC 6523, Sharpless 25, RCW 146, and Gum 72) is a giant interstellar cloud in the constellation Sagittarius. It is classified as an emission nebula and as an H II region. The Lagoon Nebula is estimated to be between 4,000–6,000 light-years away from the Earth. In the sky of Earth, it spans 90' by 40', which translates to an actual dimension of 110 by 50 light years. Like many nebulae, it appears pink in time-exposure color photos but is gray to the eye peering through binoculars or a telescope, human vision having poor color sensitivity at low light levels. The nebula contains a number of Bok globules (dark, collapsing clouds of protostellar material), the most prominent of which have been catalogued by E. E. Barnard as B88, B89 and B296. It also includes a funnel-like or tornado-like structure caused by a hot O-type star that emanates ultraviolet light, heating and ionizing gases on the surface of the nebula. The Lagoon Nebula also contains at its centre a structure known as the Hourglass Nebula (so named by John Herschel), which should not be confused with the better known Engraved Hourglass Nebula in the constellation of Musca. In 2006, four Herbig–Haro objects were detected within the Hourglass, providing direct evidence of active star formation by accretion within it. (Explore Scientific ED80, Skywatcher HEQ5, ZWO ASI2600MC-Pro, Radian Triad Ultra Narrowband Filter, N.I.N.A., 100m integration).
This striking image features a relatively rare celestial phenomenon known as a Herbig-Haro object. This particular object, named HH111, was imaged by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3).
These spectacular objects develop under very specific circumstances. Newly formed stars are often very active, and in some cases they expel very narrow jets of rapidly moving ionized gas – gas that is so hot that its molecules and atoms have lost their electrons, making the gas highly charged. The streams of ionized gas then collide with the clouds of gas and dust surrounding newly formed stars at speeds of hundreds of miles per second. It is these energetic collisions that create Herbig-Haro objects such as HH111.
WFC3 takes images at optical, ultraviolet, and infrared wavelengths, which means that it observes objects at a wavelength range similar to the range that human eyes are sensitive to (optical, or visible) and a range of wavelengths that are slightly too short (ultraviolet) or too long (infrared) to be detected by human eyes. Herbig-Haro objects actually release a lot of light at optical wavelengths, but they are difficult to observe because their surrounding dust and gas absorb much of the visible light. Therefore, the WFC3’s ability to observe at infrared wavelengths – where observations are not as affected by gas and dust – is crucial to observing Herbo-Haro objects successfully.
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, B. Nisini
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.
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Una foto del campo de nebulosas de NGC 2035, 2032 y 2030, y el cúmulo NGC 2040, que se encuentran en la Gran Nube de Magallanes, en la constelación de Dorado. NGC 2040 tiene como fondo una nebulosa de emisión de hidrógeno ionizado que se asemeja a una rosa roja, y es un área de estrellas altamente masivas que parecen viajar juntas.
La imagen se tomó con un telescopio iDK óptico AG de 20 ", una distancia focal de 3420 mm y una montura Planewave L-500.
Cámara FLI Proline 16803 CCD con rotador.
Son ocho horas y media de tomas de 10 minutos de Hidrógeno Alfa y Oxígeno III.
Procesado con Pixinsight y Photoshop.
La imagen está tomada en dos lotes, unos realizados a principios de noviembre y otros a finales del mismo mes desde Namibia.
A photo of the nebula field of NGC 2035, 2032 and 2030, and the cluster NGC 2040, which are located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, in the constellation of Dorado. NGC 2040 has as its background an ionized hydrogen emission nebula that resembles a red rose, and is an area of highly massive stars that appear to travel together.
The image is taken with a 20 "AG Optical iDK telescope, focal length of 3420mm and a mount Planewave L-500 mount.
Camera FLI Proline 16803 CCD with rotator.
They are eight and a half hours of intake of Alpha Hydrogen and Oxygen III.
Processed with Pixinsight and Photoshop.
The image is taken in two batches, some made at the beginning of November and others at the end of the same month from Namibia.
Finally, a bit of time and some clear skies allowed me to do a bit of astrophotography over the last two evenings. Here is NGC6888, the Crescent Nebula. A very nice and contrasty bubble of gas ionized by the radiations from a very intense star.
Now if you look closely, somewhere in this image, you may also find what has been very aptly named the "Soap bubble nebula". Look around and you'll see it. This soap bubble is a planetary nebula, the remnant of a dying star shedding its outer layer during its demise. It was only discovered in 2007 by an amateur astronomer.
74x 240s exposures.
ASI 294MC Pro with l-extreme filter, TS Photoline 80mm, Celestron AVX mount, N.I.N.A, PHD2 and post-processed wit Pixinsight
As my previous image NGC 6979 Pickering's Triangle,
NGC 6992 is a part of The Veil Nebula (Cygnus Loop) a cloud of heated and ionized gas and dust in the constellation Cygnus and it's a large supernova remnant. The source supernova was a star 20 times more massive than the Sun, and it exploded between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago.The remnants have since expanded to cover an area of the sky roughly 3 degrees in diameter (about 6 times the diameter, and 36 times the area, of the full Moon). It's estimates distance is from 1200 to 5800 light-years from earth,
Camera: Moravian G2 8300
Filters: 31mm unmounted Optolong
Optic: Televue 102 f/7
Mount: Ioptron CEM60 HP
Autoguider: camera Magzero 5m on SW 70/500, Phd guiding
Frames Ha 7nm: 17X600sec - OIII 6.5nm: 18X600sec - RGB: 10X420sec each - Bin1 -20°
Processing: Pixinsight, Photoshop
Blown by the wind from a massive star, this interstellar apparition has a surprisingly familiar shape. Cataloged as NGC 7635, it is also known simply as The Bubble Nebula. Although it looks delicate, the 10 light-year diameter bubble offers evidence of violent processes at work.
Bubble's center is a hot, O star, several hundred thousand times more luminous and around 45 times more massive than the Sun. A fierce stellar wind and intense radiation from that star has blasted out the structure of glowing gas against denser material in a surrounding molecular cloud. The intriguing Bubble Nebula and associated cloud complex lie a mere 11,000 light-years away toward the boastful constellation Cassiopeia. This tantalizing view of the cosmic bubble is composed from narrowband image data, recording emission from the region's ionized hydrogen and oxygen atoms.
Orion Optics 14 Inch ODK
Mesu E200 Mrk 2
SX H35 CCD
3nm Ha Chroma - 15 x 600s
3nm S2 Chroma - 10 x 600s
3nm O3 Chroma - 7 x 600s
5000LY distant located in the constellation Cygnus the Crescent Nebula is about 26LY across, a shock wave of ionized material forming the beautiful emission nebula we see today.
250,000 years ago the star WR 136 expelled much of its material in to space as it became a red giant, now a very powerful emitter of radiation and a fast highly charged solar wind from the Wolf-Rayet star is colliding with the shell expelled during the red giant phase creating a bubble of gas which is heated to x-ray emitting temperatures.
Captured July 2018
TEC
TS130 APO f7
ZWO 1600mm mono Pro
ZWO 7p FW
SS 50mm auto guider
SW NEQ6 pro
35x300s Ha
35x300s Oiii
Sequence Generator Pro
Pixinsight Photoshop cc
Lennox and Addington Dark Sky Preserve
Melotte 15 in Cassiopeia.
At 7500 light-years from Earth, visible in the direction of the constellation Cassiopeia, at the center of the Heart Nebula IC1805, there is an open cluster consisting of a group of stars that illuminate a fantastic emission nebula consisting of incandescent ionized hydrogen gas!
Acquisition Data and Instrumentation
Filming on 13 October 2023
Pose: 120×120,"
Home Garden Observatory, Mogoro, Oristano, Italy
acquisition telescope; Celestron EdgeHD 11"
Capture Chambers: ZWO ASI178MC COOL
Frames: Sky-Watcher EQ6-R Pro ×
Filters:Antlia Triband RGB Ultra Filter - 2.00'' Mounted
Accessories: Starizona HyperStar 11 v4 (HS4-C11)Software: Adobe Lightroom · Pleiades Astrophoto PixInsight · Russell Croman Tools