Starship Asterisk*

Constelaciones Osa Mayor y Menor por Emidai (Emilio&Idaira), en Flickr

Night Landscape Teide National Park, with full moon.
We appreciate the constellation Ursa Minor and Ursa Major prate. Seen on left, El Roque Cinchado is one of the most unique rock formations and emblematic of the island of Tenerife and bottom Teide is a volcano located on the island of Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain). With a height of 3,718 meters above sea level and 7,500 feet above the ocean floor, is the highest peak in Spain......

M17 Nebulosa Omega 2º Procesado por Emidai (Emilio&Idaira), en Flickr

sart trail pola flick por Emidai (Emilio&Idaira), en Flickr

Luna Llena por Emidai (Emilio&Idaira), en Flickr

Sin título por Emidai (Emilio&Idaira), en Flickr

As seen yesterday ...

Bright meteor and Milky Way at the Sea of Stones, Szentbékkálla, Hungary

In big size: http://users.atw.hu/egbolt/meteor_milkyway_0818_big.jpg

As the Milky Way appeared after the lights of sunset faded I began to shot some pics for a panorama image of the Milky Way over the rocks, just positioned my lamp to illuminate the foreground and released the shutter when a slow and bright green meteor fell beside the Milky Way. It was a perfect beginning for a perfect night under the sky at a gentle landscape!
The Sea of Stones is an eroded surface consisting of many small and some big rocks made of conglomerate and sandstone. The rocks were formed about 12-5 million years ago after the Parathetys sea has left the region and some post volcanic thermal waters with high silica content has cemented parts of the former sea sediment into sandstone with pebbles (called conglomerate). Later the weather and rivers has finished the work: they cleared the remnants of the loose sediment and only the silica-cemented hard rocks were left. That's what we can see now and they are really majestic under the stars. The big rocks are perfect places to lie on and watch the sky for hours. Later some more meteors fell but this was the most beautiful.

Photo details: Nikon D5100 with 10mm Sigma lens, F2.8, ISO 6400, 13 sec. exposure, the image is a panorama of 4 photoes

Red Sprites
After several years of hunting Sprites from my location in Denmark, it finally happened this week, the first danish Red Sprites ever photographed. Distance 350 km. (Thunder over The North Sea) Altitude about 50-90 km. There were 2 flashes, each produces 5-6 individual Red Sprites. Astro-modified Canon 5D II, 85mm f/1,2 lens in video-mode. To produce this picture, I used 2 video frames (Sprites) and 1 still-photo (fore-background).

©Jesper Grønne
http://www.astrophoto.dk

http://astrophoto.dk/gallery/albums/use ... s_2012.jpg

Jupiter is rising earlier now for this apparition. Jupiter on August 17th, 09:26ut. The moon on lower right is Jupiters largest moon Ganymede.

Equipment: LX200ACF 12 in. OTA, CGE mount, Flea3 Ccd, TeleVue 3x barlows, Astronomik LRGB filter set.

In the last few days I was able to finish my mosaic of the Cygnus region in H-alpha. I used 4 nights for this, partly because of shifting manually the field between exposures (using thesky6 to help me).

The images are made with a Canon 100mm lens @ F2.8, a geoptik adapter and my SXV-H9 camera.

I used the following strategy:

- Thesky6 was used to create a large mosaic with 20% overlap.
- Polar alignment was performed using my EQ6 procedure and aiming at the center of the view with nebulosity.
- Next NGC7000 was centered everytime in the same way and synced to create the same FOV every time.
- Than finefocus came in. This was tough as I only had 25 microns of critical focus zone. I used CCDinspector to check the flatness of the view, as this is the best indicator for good focus.
- Than I made 3x300s exposures for every tile, in total 42 tiles...

Here are the results. I will post the small versions with links to the large ones.
Full resolution panorama (35 megapixels!) (large file!)

Here is an annotated version with the most famous objects:

Full resolution (large file!)

Finally I made an image removing all stars just showing the nebulosity. It gives a 3D feel. I especially like the crescent which is hanging in space ...

Image link

Update: the most recent updated versions can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/avdhoeven/ ... 157713340/

Sunny Postcard from Paris...

Keel:
Liftoff: Copyright: Jean-Paul GODARD & Martine TLOUZEAU

Respective websites http://uranoscope.free.fr & http://mseclipse.free.fr

Hi Everyone,

I just got back from the Stellafane Star Party this Saturday (August 18th 2012) in Springfield, Vermont.

We had amazing conditions. I took this photo shortly after the Sun set, as everyone was readying their telescopes for observing.

Here's a video as well showing a timelapse of the activity: https://vimeo.com/47829481

Nikon D700
16-35mm f/4.0
ISO6400
30 second exposures

[attachment=0]starparty.jpg[/attachment]
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7128/7819 ... a617_k.jpg

I also made a starless version of my Cygnus mosaic. This clearly shows the beauty of the nebulas in this region:
Full resolution:

link

The Colors of the Conjunction
http://www.flickr.com/photos/radicalret ... 829433626/
Copyright: Marion J Haligowski


The Colors of the Conjunction by Radical Retinoscopy, on Flickr


A series of 8 second exposures were taken with a Canon t2i of the Mars, Saturn and Spica conjunction on August 19, 2012 in Phoenix, Arizona. Following each exposure, the lens (a Canon 17-40L lens at 38mm) was gradually defocused for each subsequent exposure. This defocus technique really enables the color of each planet and star to stand out. Each of the five images were stacked using the Startrails.exe program.

Mars, Saturn and Spica Conjunction on August 19, 2012


Mars, Saturn and Spica Conjunction on August 19, 2012 by Radical Retinoscopy, on Flickr

A series of 13 second exposures were taken with a Canon t2i of the Mars, Saturn and Spica conjunction on August 19, 2012. After each exposure the lens (a Canon 17-40L lens at 40mm) was gradually defocused for each subsequent exposure. A Tiffen Double Fog 2 filter was used to add diffusion to the scene. This defocus technique really enables the color of each planet and star to stand out.

Copyright: Maria Rosa Vila
In the Pyrenees, Spain

Copyright: Maria Rosa Vila
In the Pyrenees, Spain

Copyright: Maria Rosa Vila
In the Pyrenees, Spain

The Moon in Juazeiro do Norte, Ceará, in Brazil


Copyright: Valmir M. de Morais / Núcleo de Astronomia IFCE / FUNCAP

Image obtained on Aug. 20, 2012 at 21h07m UT in Juazeiro do Norte, Ceará, in Brazil.

Composition of 18 images. Telescope 203mm, F/10. Barlow 2.5X + Camera Canon T1i (negative projection).

NGC7635 - The bubble Nebula
Copyright: Stephen Mounioloux
Website: cooledpix.com
Date: Taken on 08/11/2012

Celestial Y


Big image: http://users.atw.hu/egbolt/y04.jpg

Today after sunset the crescent Moon aligned with Mars, Saturn and Spica forming a shape that resembled the letter Y. It reminded me to the many questions beginning with "why" regarding astronomy and space sciences.

Photo details: Nikopn D5100 with 55-300 Nikkor lens at 55mm, F4.5, ISO800, 1,3sec. exposure

Celestial triangle and crescent Moon over Isola d'Elba
http://stefanoderosa.com/
Copyright: Stefano De Rosa Please find attached an image I took after sunset on August 21, 2012, showing the celestial triangle formed by Mars (top left), Saturn (top right) and Spica, just above a lovely crescent Moon over the Bay of Punta Calamita, located few kilometers from the town of Capoliveri, in the South-East of Elba Island (Isola d'Elba), Italy. In the bottom right of the picture is visible the silhouette of the old mining industry that once characterized the area, whereas in the background, appearing as a dark line over the sea, is the island of Pianosa.

Best regards

Stefano

Some recent processing of the Hubble Legacy Archive data... no copyright. Processing by Judy Schmidt, who thinks the people running Hubble deserve all the credit.
With this, I also submit any of the HLA processing on my website for consideration. I see no need to post them all.

NGC 7023 - Iris Nebula Among Dust

Copyright : Sylvain Girard
Website : http://www.zesly.net
50% of full-res

Full-res Adobe RGB 1998

30 exposures of 10 minutes.
Camera : Canon EOS 1000D unfiltered
Telescope : Takahashi FSQ-106ED refractor with x0.73 reducer.
Mount : Takahashi EM-200 USD3.
Guiding : Orion Starshoot Autoguider on a William Optic Zenithstar 66SD refractor.
Outside temperature : 7°C
Sensor temperature : 15°C
Software : auto-guiding with PHD Guiding and PHDMax, acquisition with MaximDL, pre-processing with Iris, processing with photoshop
Date : August, 16 2012
Location : Prairies de Restefond, France

Hope you enjoy, thank you !

Moon, Mars, Saturn, Spica, plane trail...
http://www.emilivanov.com/Other_Images/ ... Saturn.htm
Copyright: Emil Ivanov

The Milky Way, light pollution dome and Jean Nicolini Observatory dome - Campinas, Brazil
http://500px.com/rafaeldefavari
Copyright: Rafael Defavari

[attachment=0]defavari.jpg[/attachment]
http://pcdn.500px.net/11691969/bbf5555d ... 4634/4.jpg
Click to view full size image