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1300 light years away, hydrogen gas lights up the sword of Orion. Also visible are the flame and horsehead nebulae.
Snowing in Philly today. Found this laying around in my dropbox and thought it a festive way to mark today's weather.
I just reprocessed this data set as I was not very happy with the previous version.
Scope: Takahashi FSQ EDX III with F3 reducer
Mount: AP 900 GTOCP3.
Camera: ZWO ASI 6200 MM PRO
Filters: Astrodon 50mm unmounted LRGB
180x60s Lum
20eax60s RGB
Gain zero offset 40 sensor -10c
Data captured in Nov 2016 from SRO in California
Total exposure time: 30 hours.
(L:R:G:B) 7:7:8:8 hours
Scope: Ceravolo C300 @ f/4.9 = 1470mm FL
Mount: AstroPhysics 1100 AE
Camera: FLI PL16803
Focuser: Optec
Filters: Astrodon
Guiding: Lodestar II / Tak guide scope
Image scale: 1.26 arcsec/pixel
Processing: PixInsight 1.8
*Image processing credit: Daniele Malleo
*Data Acquisition Credit: John Kasianowicz, Daniele Malleo, Rick Stevenson, Jose Mtanous, Scott Johnson, Bret Charles
This dramatic new image of cosmic clouds in the constellation of Orion reveals what seems to be a fiery ribbon in the sky. The orange glow represents faint light coming from grains of cold interstellar dust, at wavelengths too long for human eyes to see. It was observed by the ESO-operated Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) in Chile. In this image, the submillimetre-wavelength glow of the dust clouds is overlaid on a view of the region in the more familiar visible light, from the Digitized Sky Survey 2. The large bright cloud in the upper right of the image is the well-known Orion Nebula, also called Messier 42.
More information: www.eso.org/public/images/eso1321a/
Credit:
ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2
Made on my poor-man's lightbox. As discussed in the Technique group here.
-Added to the Cream of the Crop pool as my personal favorite.
Parrots in the RSPB reserve at Swell Wood, but not the avian kind.
Many references list this as Hygrocybe psittacinus but as with countless other fungi, studies of molecular genetics have caused this to be moved into a different genus, in this case Gliophorus.
About 4,000 light years from Earth lies RCW 108, a region where stars are actively forming within the Milky Way galaxy. The region contains young star clusters, including one that is deeply embedded in a cloud of molecular hydrogen. By using data from different telescopes, astronomers determined that star birth in this region is being triggered by the effect of nearby, massive young stars.
This image is a composite of X-ray data from Chandra (blue) and infrared emission detected by Spitzer (red and orange). More than 400 X-ray sources were identified in Chandra's observations of RCW 108. About 90% of these X-ray sources are thought to be part of the cluster and not stars that lie in the field-of-view either behind or in front of it. Many of the stars in RCW 108 are experiencing the violent flaring seen in other young star-forming regions such as Orion. Gas and dust blocks much of the X-rays from the juvenile stars located in the center of the image, explaining the relative dearth of Chandra sources in this part of the image. The Spitzer data show the location of the embedded star cluster, which appears as the bright knot of red and orange just to the left of the center of the image. Some stars from a larger cluster, known as NGC 6193, are also visible on the left side of the image. Astronomers think that the dense clouds within RCW 108 are in the process of being destroyed by intense radiation emanating from hot and massive stars in NGC 6193.
Taken together, the Chandra and Spitzer data indicate that there are more massive star candidates than expected in this several areas of this image. This suggests that pockets within RCW 108 underwent localized episodes of star formation.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/CfA/S.Wolk et al; IR: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Molecular cloud in the constellation Taurus.
Sometimes it seems that the sky is black and there is nothing there. The opposite is true. In addition to beautiful photogenic nebulae and constellations, there are also so-called dark nebulae.
Near the Pleiades and Hyades star clusters there is a highly concentrated interstellar dust that blocks the passage of light from distant stars.
The molecular cloud in the Taurus constellation serves as a stellar nursery where hundreds of new stars are formed.
My portfolio:
ondrejkralik.wixsite.com/astro/portfolio
October 19, 2022, Chlipavica saddle, Slovakia
Canon 6Dmod+Samyang 135mm, f2.0@f2.0, ISO 1600, 180x60sec
The colorful molecular cloud complex around Rho Ophiuchus and Antares.
The globular cluster M4 can be seen to the left of Antares.
This area is a star-forming region where huge molecular clouds eventually collapse to give birth to new stars.
Taken from my Bortle 7 skies in Sydney Australia. Taken with Espirit 150 refractor, ASI2600MC camera and Optolong filter. Image consists of 72 X 3 minutes livestacked and calibrated on the fly in SharpCap Pro.
This 4deg X 4deg field of very faint dusty molecular material is a challenge to image and forms part of the much larger Chamaeleon Molecular Complex. This dusty material fills the constellation of Chameleon and beyond, in the far southern sky, not far from the South Celestial Pole.
Large file here: www.pbase.com/strongmanmike2002/image/166916286/original
Takahashi FSQ106EDX4
FLI Proline 16803, CFW-5-7, Robofocus
LRGB = 660 120 120 120min = 17hrs total exposure (bin 1X1)
New Deep-Sky RGB Astronomik filters
-30C chip temp, dark frames and flats (using Aurora Flat Field Panel) applied
Focal length 530mm, FOV = 4deg X 4deg
Image scale 3.5"/pix
Guide Camera: Starlightxpress Lodestar
Comments
Data collected over 4 nights, 16 & 18 Jan and 7 & 14 Feb 2018, good seeing, good transparency
Equipment setup:
I wanted to include the Perseus molecular cloud in the same extent as the California Nebula, but it didn't quite fit in the 1.5x-crop-factor field of view of my Fuji + Samyang 135mm lens, so I shot a mosaic of 4 panels. I thought snct astro did a great job framing the extent here (flic.kr/p/2kcoAZu), so I imitated their framing.
Panels were 26, 30, 22, and 37 x 1 min integrations and overlapped substantially, so most areas were covered by more than one panel. I also added 50 x 1 min of imagery of the Perseus Molecular Cloud from Nov. 20, 2019 (flic.kr/p/2hNZ6iA). So in total this is 165 minutes worth of data.
Fujifilm X-T10, Samyang 135mm f/2.0 ED UMC @ f2.0, ISO 1600, tracking with iOptron SkyTracker Pro, stacking of individual panels done with DeepSkyStacker, flattening of individual panels and mosaicking done with Astro Pixel Processor, editing in GIMP.
Skies were Bortle 3/4 for the 4 panels shot on Dec. 5, 2020, and Bortle 2/3 for the 50 exposures from Nov. 20, 2019.
It was fun discovering the planetary nebula NGC 1514 below the California Nebula as I processed this. Even though it's tiny at 135mm, it was very apparent that it was a planetary nebula rather than a star.
A section of the Orion molecular cloud containing M42 and IC434.
Taken at the DSVA Erinsville ON
September 27 2017
Canon t5
Canon 200mm f2.8
60@30sec ISO 1600
Sky Watcher Star Adventurer
Stacked in DSS
Post Photoshop cc
The intricate jumble depicted in this image from ESA’s Herschel space observatory shows the distribution of gas and dust in the Taurus Molecular Cloud, a giant stellar nursery about 450 light-years away in the constellation Taurus, the Bull.
Launched in 2009, Herschel studied the sky at far-infrared wavelengths for almost four years, detecting the glow of cosmic dust in the interstellar medium that pervades our Galaxy, the Milky Way. Dust is a minor but crucial ingredient in this diffuse mixture that provides the raw material for stars to form.
One of the observatory’s most striking discoveries was the detection of ubiquitous filaments – elongated and thin structures of gas and dust weaving their way across the Galaxy. Interstellar filaments were already known before Herschel, but the new data revealed them almost everywhere in the Milky Way and highlighted their role as preferred hubs for stellar birth.
Astronomers now believe that filaments precede the onset of most star formation, funnelling interstellar gas and dust into increasingly denser concentrations. Gravity later causes the densest filaments to contract and fragment, eventually leading to the formation of stars.
This image shows a tangle of filaments emerging from the cloud material, which are dotted with a few compact, bright cores: the seeds of future stars. The view also reveals a network of smaller threads, perpendicular to the most prominent filament.
This pattern is suggestive of accretion flows, indicating that the material along filaments is not at all static and that the most massive among them might be drawing matter from their surroundings. Some numerical simulations of star formation in molecular clouds also predict a similar arrangement of interstellar material, with gas and dust streaming towards the densest filaments along routes that are shaped by the local magnetic field.
This three-colour image combines Herschel bands at 160 microns (blue), 250 microns (green) and 500 microns (red), and spans about 5º on the long side. The data were acquired with Herschel as part of the Gould Belt survey Key Programme in 2010 and 2012, and a study of the filamentary structure is presented in a paper by P. Palmeirim et al. 2013. The image was first published on ESA’s Science and Technology website in May 2015.
Credit: ESA/Herschel/PACS, SPIRE/Gould Belt survey Key Programme/Palmeirim et al. 2013
This is a work in progress and only an initial processing attempt after one night of imaging. This was a total of six (6) hours integration with a FLT91 refractor and ASI2600MC color camera. I hope to get at least one more night of color and maybe a night of hydrogen alpha using my mono camera.
The constellation of Orion and the molecular clouds that surround it, known in full as the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex, as seen over a cove along the coast of Maine with the tide coming in.
The very bright spot in the middle of the sky is the Orion Nebula, and Orion’s belt is to the left and up from there.
I used the LRGB processing technique to bring out the detail and color in the nebulosity in the sky. This technique involves separating the luminance (detail) and color (RGB) processing into separate steps and combining them to really bring out the faint details. This technique is normally used on deep space images, but I tried it here to see how much I could get out of this sky, even with the thin clouds catching some light pollution. The result was that the thin clouds were brought out a lot themselves, but it added an interesting look to the photo.
Nikon Z 6 and NIKKOR Z 35mm f/1.8 S lens. The image is a star stacked blend of 20 images at ISO f/2.2, ISO 3200, 6 seconds each. Stopping the lens down to f/2.2 sharpened up the stars a bit. Those images were stacked with Starry Landscape Stacker for pinpoint stars and low noise. I didn’t use a separate foreground shot for this, I wanted to keep the foreground mostly in silhouette. But since I was using Starry Landscape Stacker it made it easy to stack the sky part of the exposures separate from the foreground, but end up with a low noise result for both. SLS is available only for macOS but you can use Sequator on Windows. You can do it in Photoshop but it’s a much more manual process that doesn’t always work well.
Visit my website to learn more about my photos and video tutorials: www.adamwoodworth.com
Noctilux 50mm f0.95, Sony A9, Tech Art Pro LM-EA7. Probably the only combination to get a picture like that. You have to set f stop to 25 to shoot with this combination but the actual f stop on Nocti was of course 0.95. Rather difficult to shoot with this set up, but the dreamy, creamy pictures that come out make it all worth it.
Olive oil, vegetable oil, water, detergent and some candle wax colouring.
In a glass bowl on top of a light box. Bubbles injected/squirted onto surface with medicinal dropper. (glass/plastic thingy with rubber squeezy bit on the end)
A Dark Beauty from the Southern Sky
This deep image captures the stunning dark nebulae and reflection clouds of the Corona Australis molecular complex, one of the nearest and most visually striking star-forming regions in the sky. Located roughly 420 light-years away, this region is a dramatic mix of dark dust filaments, blue reflection nebulae, and scattered young stars.
Prominently featured is NGC 6729, a blue reflection/emission nebula surrounding young variable stars R CrA and T CrA, which are still in the early stages of stellar evolution. The intricate brownish dust lanes weaving across the frame obscure background starlight and trace the structure of cold molecular gas, a raw material for future star formation. Nearby lies the globular cluster NGC 6723, providing a striking contrast to the dusty clouds.
The Corona Australis molecular cloud complex lies only ~420 light-years away, making it one of the nearest regions of low-mass star formation. NGC 6729, near R CrA, is home to several Herbig-Haro objects (HH 96, HH 97, HH 100, etc.), an energetic jets and outflows from newborn stars colliding with surrounding gas and dust. These shocks are key indicators of ongoing accretion and stellar birth.
NGC 6723 is a globular cluster consisting of tens of thousands of ancient stars gravitationally bound in a spherical halo. It likely formed during the earliest stages of the Milky Way’s assembly, making it more than 30 times older than the young stars in the Corona Australis cloud just a few degrees away on the sky.
Although the cluster visually appears embedded in the same dusty field, NGC 6723 lies much farther in the background, behind the Corona Australis dark cloud, it lies ~28,400 light-years aways.
Captured remotely from the southern skies using Martin Pugh’s observatory in Australia. Fully remote operation via N.I.N.A., managed as part of our SkyFlux Team rental.
This project reflects the power of remote astrophotography, planned, executed, and processed from thousands of kilometers away. The depth and detail of this image were made possible by combining meticulous planning with access to a dark southern site and using advanced PixInsight workflow.
4-panel mosaic
Each panel: 120x300s (10 Hours)
Equipment: SharpStar AP140PH, 10Micro HPS1000, ASI 6200 OSC
Control & Acquisition: Remote operation via N.I.N.A. (SkyFlux Team)
Entirely processed in PixInsight.
Processing & copyright: Leo Shatz
In the context of space, the term ‘cloud’ can mean something rather different from the fluffy white collections of water in the sky or a way to store data or process information. Giant molecular clouds are vast cosmic objects, composed primarily of hydrogen molecules and helium atoms, where new stars and planets are born. These clouds can contain more mass than a million suns, and stretch across hundreds of light years.
The giant molecular cloud known as W51 is one of the closest to Earth at a distance of about 17,000 light years. Because of its relative proximity, W51 provides astronomers with an excellent opportunity to study how stars are forming in our Milky Way galaxy.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/PSU/L. Townsley et al; Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech
equipmnent: Sigma 40mmF1.4 DG HSM Art and Canon EOS 6D-sp4, modified by Seo-san on Takahashi EM-200-Temma 2 Jr, autoguided with Fujinon 1:2.8/75mm C-Mount Lens, Pentax x2 Extender, Starlight Xpress Lodestar Autoguider, and PHD2 Guiding
exposure: 5 times x30 minutes, 4 x 15 min, 4 x 4 min, 4 x 1 minutes at ISO 1,600 and f/3.2
site: 11,000 feet or 3,280m above sea level at lat. 19 32 31 North and long. 155 34 00 West near Mauna Loa Observatory in The Big Island Hawaii
SUB MOLECULAR FLASH IN MATRICAL IDENTIFICATION / THE FINAL / CHRISTELLE GEISER & AEON VON ZARK / NAKED EYE PROJECT BIENNE / ALTERED STATE SERIE / THE WEIRD DREAM / PORTRAIT.
The diffuse dark Horsehead Nebula (for the astronomers known as Barnard 33), and the 4 light-years wide bright blue reflection nebula NGC 2023 to its lower left, lie both 1500 light years away from Earth. They are part of the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex.
The Horsehead is one of the most identifiable nebulae because of the shape of its swirling cloud of dark dust and gas which is similar to that of a horse’s head when viewed from Earth. The dark molecular cloud is visible only because its obscuring dust is silhouetted against the bright emission nebula IC 434 which is illuminated by the nearby bright hot blue star Sigma Orionis.
The darkness of the Horsehead is caused mostly by thick dust and gas, but also by the complex blocking the light of stars behind it. The heavy concentrations of dust in the nebula results in alternating sections of nearly complete opacity and transparency.
Technical details:
Camera: Canon 350Da, Canon 1000Da with Hutech IDAS LPS,
Telescope: Takahashi FSQ-106
Mount: Takahashi EM200 Temma Jr
Autoguiding: Toucam 740K, PHD Guiding Software
Total exposure time: 4.33 hours (15588 sec)
Exposures in detail:
18 x 242 sec , ISO 800 , 2008-11-04
30 x 132 sec , ISO 1600, 2008-12-09
7 x 242 sec , ISO 800 , 2009-02-05
24 x 182 sec , ISO 1600, 2009-11-21
5 x 242 sec , ISO 1600, 2009-11-21
Alignment and stacking: DeepSkyStacker
Final post-processing: Photoshop CS3