Starship Asterisk*

Milky way in the Observatories of the Montsec in Àger-Lleida-Spain

http://www.astrosirius.org/

Mount: Tripod
Camera: Sony a7r
Exposure: 1x13 sec ISO 3200

Copyright: Luis Romero Ventura Flickr:https://www.flickr.com/photos/llromero/14034373354/

Clear skies.
Luis

A simple cross your eyes (cruzar los ojos) image set, Stand back from your monitor and enjoy!. ( April 29th,May 1st) Equipment: LX200ACF 12 in. OTA, CGE mount, Flea3 Ccd, TeleVue 3x barlows, Astronomik RGB filter set.

Saturn on May 4th and just days from its closest distance approach from opposition. The disc shadow is behind now and the seeliger effect is starting to take effect. Two moons are visible and they are Enceladus (top) and Mimas (right-ring). (Equipment: LX200ACF 12 in. OTA, CGE mount, Flea3 Ccd, TeleVue 3x barlows, Astronomik LRGB filter set.)

False Kiva, the Milky Way, and meteor
Copyright: Brad Goldpaint
http://goldpaintphotography.com/ The magnificent beauty of the night sky as captured from the giant cliff-top window of False Kiva in Canyonlands National Park, Utah.

green flash, also. scale 150% photogram of http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php? ... 78#p225178

26 West, the Moon and Jupiter

Taken at the Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute in Rosman, NC. A 10 second exposure on a tripod shows 26 West, a radio telescope that was once instrumental during the Apollo program for ground to space communications. A young man in the corner is composing his own shot of the dish and has lit up the area around himself and to some extent the underside of the dish.

Richard S. Wright Jr.

Puerto Willams (Chile) and Puerto Almanza (Argentina), separated by the Beagle Channel, but united under one sky. A tree flag bearing the strong Patagonian winds full image.


Victor Gabriel Bibé
Ushuaia - Tierra del Fuego - Argentina
http://www.elcielodetdf.com.ar

Tree Flag in Tierra del Fuego.

In this part of Patagonia winds are so intense and constant inclined trees grow. This lenga fight against wind and cold in Argentina Beagle Channel coast in Tierra del Fuego.

Victor Gabriel Bibé
Ushuaia - Tierra del Fuego - Argentina

http://www.elcielodetdf.com.ar

Cassiopeia in reflection
Canon 6d with 24mm Canon f2.8 at f3.5, 25 seconds at ISO 1600

Lynn Hilborn, Grafton, Ontario

NGC3372, The Carina Nebula
https://www.flickr.com/photos/astro_gvanhau/
Copyright: Geert Vanhauwaert Color mapped version Red is SII, Green is Ha and Blue is OIII, Stars blended fom RGB image
here higher res: https://www.flickr.com/photos/astro_gva ... 1/sizes/k/

Copyright: J.J. Losada

http://elcieloaldesnudo.blogspot.com.es ... ilky%20Way

Hi folks,

The aim was a natural looking colour balance, a little 'sparkle' from those young blue stars, clarity of the dust lanes and the addition of enhanced hydrogen emission nebulosity. The thumbnail below links to an image is 5651 pixels wide (50% scale and about 6.4MB).

• M51, a.k.a. The Whirlpool Galaxy

The following HST unstretched files were used: Red, Green, Blue, Ha. With the RGB channels mapped to Hubble's 814w, 555w and 435w filters saturation out of the tin was a little high and the initial colour balance was rather too cyan/blue. Adding the Ha data, processed with PixInsight's HDRMST tool to reduce the background brightness in the cores and spiral arms, helped correct the colour balance. Processed entirely in PixInsight and Photoshop CS6.

The underlying HST data has previously been used in an APOD but I hope that this rendition is sufficiently different to merit consideration.

Bob.

Heaven Lader von Stavros Hios auf Flickr

The Dolphin Nebula (Barnard 252)
http://www.rolfolsenastrophotography.com
Copyright: Rolf Wahl Olsen Here is my latest image - a quick 2 1/4 hour intermezzo in between the regular multi-night data gathering sessions.
There are just so many of these lovely and quite unknown dark nebulae around the Milky Way plane!

Link to large image
Link to full resolution image (6MB)

About the image:
Located among the incredibly dense star fields of Scorpius lies a beautiful little dark nebula; Barnard 252.
There appears to exist very little, if any, information about this striking absorbing cloud, and it has no popular name.
I think it bears a strong resemblance to a jumping dolphin so I call it The Dolphin Nebula.

This interstellar cloud is sufficiently dense to completely block the light from thousands of background stars in the direction towards our galactic centre.
There exist many dark patches such as this one and the most famous is without doubt the Horsehead Nebula in Orion. Another and much larger example, visible to the naked eye when away from city lights, is the large dark patch near the Southern Cross known as the Coalsack Nebula.
These clouds are full of tiny dust particles, each less than a micrometre in size. Optical wavelengths are easily absorbed by this dust and therefore the nebulae appear dark against any background light. However, radio and infrared wavelengths can penetrate the clouds and allow a peek inside where star formation often occurs.

In the early 1900's the american astronomer Edward Emerson Barnard complied a catalogue of dark nebulae by studying his many photographs of the Milky Way. Barnard was also an avid visual observer and discovered 15 comets, Jupiter's small moon Amalthea and Barnards Star the second closest star to our solar system. He also made fleeting observations of so-called 'spokes' in Saturn's rings; a mysterious phenomenon only confirmed much later when the Voyager 1 space probe passed Saturn in 1980.

Image details:
Date: 24th April 2014
Exposure: LRGB: 70:25:20:20 mins, total 2 hours 15 mins @ -25C
Telescope: Homebuilt 12.5" f/4 Serrurier Truss Newtonian
Camera: QSI 683wsg with Lodestar guider
Filters: Astrodon LRGB E-Series Gen 2
Taken from my observatory in Auckland, New Zealand

Regards
Rolf

Watching Orion


Mirando Orion recorte por David astrofotografia, en Flickr

A night at the observatory...

1,0 m cassegrain Hoher List by Andre vd Hoeven, on Flickr

Image taken in the Hoher List observatory in Schalkenmehren, Daun - Germany

Otra mas.

Esta vez le toca a ARP 273

ARP 273 por astrocentejo, en Flickr

NGC7000 The North American and IC 5070 The Pelican Nebulae
http://www.astrosirius.org/

Located in the summer constellation of Cygnus, the North American Nebula (NGC 7000 at the middle left of this image) and the Pelican Nebula (IC 5070 on the right) form a complex of hydrogen emission nebulae located just a few degrees east of the first magnitude star Deneb.

The North America Nebula and the nearby Pelican Nebula, (IC 5070) are in fact parts of the same interstellar cloud of ionized hydrogen (H II region). Between the Earth and the nebula complex lies a band of interstellar dust that absorbs the light of stars and nebulae behind it, and thereby determines the shape as we see it. The distance of the nebula complex is not precisely known, nor is the star responsible for ionizing the hydrogen so that it emits light. If the star inducing the ionization is Deneb, as some sources say, the nebula complex would be about 1800 light years distance, and its absolute size (6° apparent diameter on the sky) would be 100 light years.

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. 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.

image detail
Placer: Àger-Lleida
Date: 27-Abril-2014
Start time: 2:30 am

Mount: Losmandy G11 & Gemini II
Telescope: Takahashi Epsilon 180 ED f/2.8
Camera: Canon 5D Mark II
Telescope Guia: Minitelescopio Orion 50 df:165 mm.
CCD guide: QHY5M
Exposures: 23 x 300 segundos a ISO 800.
Software: APT 1.5 & Pixinsight.

Copyright: Luis Romero Ventura

Miky Way Arch Over Beijing
Image Credit & Copyright: Zhan Xiang
City lights hidden the stars, but on top of the light pollution, the starry sky is out there, waiting for someone to watch. If we can stay away from city lights, we can be more close to the stars. In the early morning of May 3, 2014, Zhan Xiang from Beijing Planetarium climbed a mountain and took this picture. Downtown Beijing is on the east of the mountain, so the Milky Way is just over the city. In order to reduce the overly bright city lights, Zhan Xiang shook the black card. This panoramic picture was taken by Canon 6D + 24 mm lens, ISO 3200, f/2.0, 10 seconds exposure, 9 photos combined.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/96910352@N03/14148207423/

The Eye in The Sky
http://www.astrofotografen.se/
Copyright: Göran Strand

A strong solar halo from 24th of April 2014. It looks like a big eye that looking down from the sky on a child that are looking back at it.

Object/Date:
Comet C/2014 E2 (Jacques) @ 2014-04-26

Description:
Image of the comet C/2014 E2 Jacques on April 26, 2014 showing a great increase of brightness with respect to I took only eight days before, increasing in this short time from 9 to 8 magnitude. About its morphology is similar but its coma diameter has doubled from 4' to 8'. The comet keeps a begin of tail toward southeast but has only a few minutes length.

Post link:
http://cometografia.es/2014/04/2014e2-j ... 26abr2014/

09:00 pm, y IV. sun 150% photogram of http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php? ... 25#p225396 .

The Football Cluster
NGC 3532

Potografiado from the rural area of ​​San Antonio de Areco, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
With a telescope aperture of 200 millimeters.

http://www.astrofotografiadelcielosur.blogspot.com.ar

Copyright: Sebastián Colombo Gracias.

Eternal Procession
http://www.ancientskys.com/
Copyright: Marc Toso An Anasazi petroglyph taken against the backdrop of the spectacular universe. This is high on Comb Ridge outside of Blanding Utah.