IC 348 (also known as IC 1985) is a rarely imaged open star cluster surrounded by a reflection nebula. The reason this object is not imaged is due to the very bright star glare washing most of the detail away. I spent countless hours slowly expanding this image to fight of the glare and reveal the wonderful image you see here. The light from the roughly 400 stars in the cluster is scattered by clouds of dust in the star-forming region, producing the reflection nebula.
Location/Date: Taken at Stellar Winds Observatory, a/k/a Stan Watson Observatory in Animas, NM from Oct 4th through Oct 29th, 2018
Equipment used: PlaneWave 17" f6.7 on a PlaneWave HD200 mount and SBIG 16803 imaging camera.
Exposure times: Luminance 320 minutes, red - 220 minutes, green - 220minutes, blue - 220 minutes, HA - 300 minutes. All second sub- exposures at bin 1x1
NGC 225 is an open cluster in the constellation Cassiopeia. One of it's stars, the variable star V594 Cas, illuminates the blue reflection nebula van den Bergh (vdB) 4, which also cataloged as LBN 604. It seems, that vdB 4 is a remnant from the cloud that formed the cluster. Ha also shows an outflow associated with V594 Cassiopeiae.
Taken with a Planewave 17" f6.7 on a Planewave HD Mount and a SBIG 16803 camera. Imaged from "Dark Sky New Mexico" in Animas.
Snaking across the starfields of the constellation Ophiuchus, LDN 43 is an obscure dark nebula and star forming region that contains the embedded reflection nebulae RNO 90 and RNO 91, which are illuminated by young stellar objects (YSO).
LDN 43 has received lots of attention from professional astronomers seeking to understand the mysteries of star formation. It is one of the closest star forming regions with a distance of slightly more than 500 light years.
The area around it suffers from a high degree of dust extinction. This is best illustrated by the interstellar reddening of the majority of the stars in this image as well a few distant background galaxies. Any light traveling from these sources passes through this veil of dust, which absorbs the blue light making everything appear more red than it actually is. Interstellar dust extinction is prevalent in many parts of the Milky Way and many galaxies would shine more brightly if not for this intervening dust.
Observations with radio telescopes have uncovered multiple molecular outflows in the vicinity of RNO 91, which are an indicator of the energetic activity of nascent YSO's. The outflows have carved out a cavity in the surrounding dark cloud, which is illuminated by the source of RNO 91, a type of YSO known as a T Tauri star. This is known to be encircled by a protoplanetary disk, which is a solar system in the making.
Towards the direction of Ursa Major in the sky, NGC 3077 is the unappreciated and forgotten third member of the M81 trio of galaxies along with M82. Consisting of chaotic and disordered structure, its appearance immediately hints at its turbulent history. A characteristic it has in common with M82 are multiple spidery tendrils of ionized hydrogen gas emanating outwards from its core. These were first discovered in 1974.
Classed as a starburst dwarf galaxy, NGC 3077 is relatively nearby at 12 million light years. A series of tidally disrupted structures with striking blue stars is debris scattered from previous gravitational encounters with the other trio members, most notably M81. This structure has been nicknamed the "Garland" by professional astronomers and was first detected in photographic plates in the 1980's. Signatures of star formation triggered by tidal interactions are present as the many HII regions interspersed within its structure and at least 36 separate HII regions have been catalogued.
Another unusual aspect of this perturbed galaxy is the subtle blue core, which is surrounded by a disk consisting of an older stellar population. Normally it is the other way round, spiral galaxies consist of a golden core with blue spiral arms. The strange distribution of stellar matter is an indicator of a massive starburst of new stars being formed near the core due to the raw material of star formation being centrally concentrated at the nucleus.
Optical images such as this one don't always show the full picture of the morphology and kinematics of galaxies and other instruments are utilised to detect different parts that belong to other areas of the electromagnetic spectrum. Observations with radio telescopes are able to map the distribution of neutral hydrogen gas (HI), which is invisible optically. Witin the past few decades, the HI gas content of the M81 trio has been studied in superb detail and consists of many streamers and bridges connecting M81 and NGC 3077 together. A huge HI tail is also associated with NGC 3077 and contains more neutral gas than the core.
Ha: 12 Light de 900 segundos, 12 Darks, 26 Flats y 40 Bias
OIII: 16 Light de 900 segundos, 16 Darks, 26 Flats y 40 Bias
SII: 30 Light de 900 segundos, 30 Darks, 26 Flats y 40 Bias
que hacen un total de 14 horas y media.
PALETA:
HUBBLE
R= SII
G= H-alfa
B= OIII
L= H-alfa
TEMPERATURA: -10 GRADOS
TUBO: FSQ 106 ED
CCD: SBIG ST-8300M
MONTURA: CGEM
CCD guiar: QHY5 II
LUGAR: LAS INVIERNAS (GUADALAJARA) Y TOREREJON DE ARDOZ (MADRID)
Un saludo.
jose
NGC 225 is an open cluster in the constellation Cassiopeia. One of it's stars, the variable star V594 Cas, illuminates the blue reflection nebula van den Bergh (vdB) 4, which also cataloged as LBN 604. It seems, that vdB 4 is a remnant from the cloud that formed the cluster. Ha also shows an outflow associated with V594 Cassiopeiae.
Taken with a Planewave 17" f6.7 on a Planewave HD Mount and a SBIG 16803 camera. Imaged from "Dark Sky New Mexico" in Animas.
You posted several images here and all are great, but to me, this one of NGC 225 is the very best one. The combination intricate and wind-blown evaporating blue reflection nebulas mixed with dark tendrils of unilluminated dust, and a sense of overall but variable reddening, and the fact that the cluster is superimposed on a tremendously rich starry background, as well as the fact that NGC 225 is a rarely photographed cluster, makes this image a true gem.
I am particularly fond of your image of IC 348, too. I don't think I had ever before really seen the cluster! Thank you!
Also I had never before seen "The Garland" next to NGC 3077. Again, thank you!
This false color image of Sharpless 171 was taken with a 4 inch refractor through H-alpha, SII and OIII filters. 5 hour of data was collected through each filter for a total imaging time of 15 hours. Combined using the Hubble palette.
NGC 225 is an open cluster in the constellation Cassiopeia. One of it's stars, the variable star V594 Cas, illuminates the blue reflection nebula van den Bergh (vdB) 4, which also cataloged as LBN 604. It seems, that vdB 4 is a remnant from the cloud that formed the cluster. Ha also shows an outflow associated with V594 Cassiopeiae.
Taken with a Planewave 17" f6.7 on a Planewave HD Mount and a SBIG 16803 camera. Imaged from "Dark Sky New Mexico" in Animas.
You posted several images here and all are great, but to me, this one of NGC 225 is the very best one. The combination intricate and wind-blown evaporating blue reflection nebulas mixed with dark tendrils of unilluminated dust, and a sense of overall but variable reddening, and the fact that the cluster is superimposed on a tremendously rich starry background, as well as the fact that NGC 225 is a rarely photographed cluster, makes this image a true gem.
I am particularly fond of your image of IC 348, too. I don't think I had ever before really seen the cluster! Thank you!
Also I had never before seen "The Garland" next to NGC 3077. Again, thank you!
Ann
Ann, Thank you so much for the nice comments. I'm glad you like them. Mark
A quick session of the Sun - Mercury Transit on November 11th, 12:51ut ( 08:51a.m.). Unfortuntely forest canopy prevented first contact at by 15 minutes.
Re: Submissions: 2019 November
Posted: Mon Nov 11, 2019 4:51 pm
by tommasostella
Sh2-173 Phantom of the Opera nebula
The number 173 of the Sharpless catalog consists of an emission nebula (HII) located in the constellation of Cassiopeia about 3° from the bright star Caph.
Taken: 2019 September 28
Details: 99 x 300s exposure(s)
Mercury transit in front of the sun on Nov 11th 2019 as seen from Jena, Germany through some cirrus clouds 30 min before sunset.
Full resolution: https://adobe.ly/2O4MEBJ
Photographed freehand with manual focus on a Canon EOS 5DS + 100-400 + 2x Converter -> 800mm
Stacking of two images (blended brighter and darker exposure)
Copyright: Marco Rank, www.marcorank.com
Kind regards,
Marco Rank
Re: Submissions: 2019 November
Posted: Mon Nov 11, 2019 7:18 pm
by carlos uriarte
My transit of Mercury, with takahashi Mewlon 210 and ASI1600. 3000 frames from backyard of my friend.
Here's video: https://youtu.be/njKoqxN1qhA
Click to play embedded YouTube video.
And some photos process with AS2! and Photoshop CC2020:
In 2016, I photographed the International Space Station (ISS) flying in front of the Sun at the same time as Mercury from the Philadelphia area.
For Mercury's November 11 passage, I decided to do something harder, something that was never done. I placed near Machuca (north of San Pedro de Atacama), 4000 m above sea level near a lagoon where flamingos colonies frolic. Calsky predicted a transit of the Hubble Space Telescope visible from there, lasting 0.9s at precisely 11h04m23.8s local. Hubble, at the time of transit, was flying at 26500 km/h, at a distance of 624 km.
Since a week that I am here, the weather has been fine over Atacama. But the clouds took over the sky last night, and it was through a thick layer of high clouds causing a huge diffusion of sunlight and a sharp drop in contrast that I had to adjust the instruments and photograph the double transit, without really believing it. It is only by increasing the exposure time by a factor of 10 (1/3200s against 1/32000s normally) and by pushing the levels and the contrast on the images that I could make appear Mercury and especially Hubble on the dozen images where it is visible.
On the Olympus E-M1, the burst was triggered automatically by a specially made device which synchronizes to an extremely accurate GPS signal called 1PPS (1 pulse per second) and triggers shooting at the scheduled time.
