Starship Asterisk*

Here is my last submission for APOD.

You can see a full version here :
https://www.astrobin.com/full/mbm83r/0/
https://flic.kr/p/2nehrUz

The Crescent Nebula (NGC 6888, Caldwell 27, Sh2-1105) is an emission nebula in the Cygnus, about 5000 light-years away from Earth.

This Nebula composed with Alpha-Hydrogen and Oxygen (the blue bubble around the Nebula) is born from a central Wolf-Rayet star that pushes the hydrogen and oxygen atoms outward.
The WR star is shedding its outer envelope in a strong stellar wind, ejecting the equivalent of the Sun's mass every 10,000 years.

In the bottom left there is a Planetary Nebula called The Soap Bubble Nebula.
This star is destined to become a slowly cooling white dwarf like the Sun.

I wanted to get the natural colors by mixing Ha/Oiii and RVB datas and give the best "real render" of this sky area.

Technical datas :
TS Optics Ts-photon 8'' F4
ZWO ASI2600MC-Pro with IDAS NBZ 2"
GPU Optics Coma Corrector 4 lens 2"
Skywatcher EQ6R Pro
Guiding Altair Astro 60/225 with ASI290MM mini

74x600''

Taken in France / 06/01/2021 and reprocessed now.
Copyright Yann SAINTY

NGC6357
Copyright: Wolfgang Promper http://www.astro-pics.com/6357rcm.htm

M17
Copyright: Wolfgang Promper http://www.astro-pics.com/17rcm.htm

NGC5128
Copyright: Wolfgang Promper http://www.astro-pics.com/5128rcm.htm

M83
Copyright: Wolfgang Promper http://www.astro-pics.com/83rcm.htm

The Whirlpool Galaxy (M51 or NGC5194)
https://www.facebook.com/tommaso.m.stella
Copyright: Tommaso Stella
From: Taranto (Italy)

Luminance: GSO 880 Deluxe Newton 250/1250, 818x12s Gain 270/600
Chroma: Skywatcher 200/800 Wide Photo, 279x30s Gain 350/600
Camera: ZWO ASI 224mc
Mount: Skywatcher AZ-EQ6 GT, No Autoguide.
GPU Aplanatic coma corrector, UV/IR Cut filter.
Processing: DeepSkyStacker, Photoshop CC, PixInsight

It was so beautiful to watch that I nearly missed the swan that was slowly passing by at the right time. The Moon's pink colour, suitable for the occasion (as this is the Pink Moon) was unintentional.
Taken at The Nature Discovery Centre, Thatcham, UK
Canon EOS 600D, 16/04/2022 20:22, Shutter Speed 1/4 sec, Aperture Value 8, ISO 400, Lens Carl Zeiss Jena DDR 135mm f/3.5, Focal Length 135mm

This is a 4 panel mosaic in the vicinity of the galactic center with a modified Canon T2i and a Canon 50mm STM lens at f/4. There is a ~40% overlap between panels and the exposure time for each panel is variable between ~ 1 hr and ~ 1 hr 20 mins. The data were taken under Bortle 3 and 2 skies.

Astrobin: https://www.astrobin.com/pc4jnl/B/

Coma Star Cluster (Melotte 111 / Collinder 256)

Coma Star Cluster (Melotte 111 / Collinder 256) by Vladislav Khryakov, on Flickr

Full version:
https://flic.kr/p/2neVysx
https://astrob.in/7po69g/0/

A french church haloed by the Milky Way
https://www.flickr.com/photos/julienlooten/
Copyright: Julien Looten The bulb (or « center ») of the Milky Way is now visible in the northern hemisphere, around 4am in France. To make this photograph, I had to be brave and patient: wake up at 3:00 am, more than an hour of driving in the dark, and 3 hours of session.... I had to be motivated, and be sure of the weather...

But the objective is fulfilled, the conditions were perfect (little artificial light, and a very pure sky). The Sainte-Presentine church in Frontenac (Gironde) is a place full of history (one hour from Bordeaux). The site was occupied by the Romans in ancient times, and a church was built in the 12th century. A Templar tomb is located here. Lost in the middle of the French vineyards, this place is a perfect spot for the astrophotography and history enthusiast.

In this photograph, the church is surrounded by a frosted meadow (-4.5°C), and appears to be haloed by the arch of the Milky Way. On the left, we can see, the constellation Cassiopeia - In the centre the constellation Cygnus and many red nebulae - And on the right, the bulge of our galaxy and Rho Ophiuchi.

This image is a panorama of 16 photographs taken with a Samyang 14mm and a Canon 6d Astrodon (modified for astrophotography). It was taken on 3 April 2022. Thank you in advance.

Full : https://www.flickr.com/photos/julienloo ... en-public/
Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/p/CcGaCZOsbHG/
Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/Julien.Looten.Photographie

Cosmic Fireworks | Coma Galaxy Cluster

Composite image created by Garrick Walles (c)

Annotated | Coma Galaxy Cluster Composite by MessierX, on Flickr

Cosmic Fireworks | Coma Galaxy Cluster Composite by MessierX, on Flickr


Also known as Abell 1656, the Coma cluster of galaxies lies more than 330 million light-years away and is dominated by the two major giant elliptic galaxies NGC4874 and NGC4889. Galaxy clusters such as these are the largest structures in the Universe held together by gravity.

The Coma cluster is large and spans more than 2 degrees in the sky. This corresponds to an angular size of four full moons. The motivation for this project was to create a wide-field view of the Coma cluster that incorporated X-ray data from the Chandra Observatory to give a better perspective of its true size and the interactions that take place within the central region. This image spans 1.71 deg by 1.24 deg and is centred on the two main elliptical galaxies. The X-ray emission region (calculated from the plate-solved image) spans about 21arcmin (2 million light-years).

This composite wide-field of view image was created using my data (wide field, 71mm William Optics GT APO, 400mm focal length, London, UK) together with image data from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, the XMM-Newton (ESA) the Sloan Digital Survey and the Hubble Space Telescope (HST)^1,2. The three main components of this image consist of hot gas (responsible for the X-Ray emission), individual galaxies and dark matter.

The Chandra X-Ray data shown in pink represent the newly discovered long arms of hot gas discovered within the Coma cluster^3,4. The extended long arm features shown span at least 0.5 million light-years and has provided some insight into how the Coma cluster has grown through a series of accretions and mergers. It is estimated that these arms are about 300 million years old.

The entire structure is permeated by hot gas and these regions are shown in the blue and red hues in the image. These regions of hot gas were captured by XMM Newton's European Photo Imaging Camera (EPIC)^5,6,7.

D100
Incorporated into this image is the long gas tail of the spiral galaxy D100⁹. The image is very faint due to the large field of view, The image insert shows where D100 has been inserted into the main image. The current model indicates that this Hα tail is a result of Ram Pressure stripping as D100 moves through the medium of hot gas within the galaxy cluster. The narrowness of the tail has been attributed to the influence of magnetic fields. It is an interesting exercise to imagine this tail being extended further to the right in the image insert.

References:

1. Chandra X-Ray Observatory, X-ray: NASA/CXC/MPE/J.Sanders et al, Optical: SDSS https://www.chandra.si.edu/photo/2013/coma/

2. European Space Agency, XMM-Newton, https://sci.esa.int/s/8dBdz5w

3. J. S. Sanders, A. C. Fabian, E. Churazov, A. A. Schekochihin, A. Simionescu, S. A. Walker, N. Werner, Linear Structures in the Core of the Coma Cluster of Galaxies. Science, Volume 341, Issue 6152, pp. 1365-1368 (2013). https://arxiv.org/abs/1309.4866 [astro-ph.CO]

4. Zhuravleva, I., Churazov, E., Schekochihin, A.A. et al. Suppressed effective viscosity in the bulk intergalactic plasma. Nat Astron 3, 832–837 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-019-0794-z. https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.06346

5. https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Imag ... scNqA.link


6, European Space Agency, Planck Survey https://sci.esa.int/s/wb203qw

7. European Space Agency, Planck Surveyhttps://sci.esa.int/s/wx59jyW

8. NASA, APOD. "The Long Gas Tail of Spiral Galaxy D100". Image Credit & Copyright: NASA, ESA, Hubble, Subaru Telescope, W. Cramer (Yale) et al., M. Yagi, J. DePasquale. January 28, 2018. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap190128.html

9.Cramer, W. J. search by orcid ; Kenney, J. D. P. ; Sun, M. search by orcid ; Crowl, H. ; Yagi, M. search by orcid ; Jáchym, P. search by orcid ; Roediger, E. ; Waldron, W. Spectacular Hubble Space Telescope Observations of the Coma Galaxy D100 and Star Formation in Its Ram Pressure-stripped Tail. The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 870, Issue 2, article id. 63, 20 pp. (2019). https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/link_gate ... 357/aaefff

Triptych : full moonrise behind the ruins of the abbey of Mont-Saint-Eloi (North of France).
https://www.flickr.com/photos/julienlooten/
Copyright: Julien Looten
This photograph is guaranteed without special effects/editing. I prefer to mention it, unfortunately, we see more and more of it, and it tends to discredit those who never do it. This photo, or rather these 3 photos, required a lot of preparation and precision. I spent several hours looking for a place (next to Arras, in Pas-de-Calais) that I could see from afar, and oriented East/South-East. I ended up choosing the emblematic ruins of Mont-Saint-Eloi.

The challenge was for the Moon to rise right behind the monument... Not easy, even with the calculation software we have today. I arrived on site 2 hours before moonrise, the challenge being to specify the position of the camera according to the orientation, inclination and altitude of the site.

To take these photos, I used a 1000 mm focal length telescope, and a 6d canon. I was about 3.5 km away from the monument. I had no right to be a few degrees wrong otherwise I would have had to put away all the equipment, redo 300-400m by car, and reinstall everything…. In the end, I had a margin of error of about 30-50 meters, so I carried the telescope by hand to move it….. It was sporty…

As the Moon rose (it rises very quickly), I moved the telescope a few meters to stay in line, and to ensure that the Moon remained directly behind the monument. This is why the photos are not strictly the same. The moon was very bright, and I had to do HDR, that is to say, I took 3 photos with different exposures to avoid overexposures and underexposures.
Thank you in advance!

- Skywatcher 200/1000 telescope on Neq6 Pro goto
- Canon 6d Mark II - 17 April 2022 - 22h-22h30
- Mont-Saint-Eloi (Pas-de-Calais / France).

Full : https://www.flickr.com/photos/julienlooten/52012997950

Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/Julien.Looten. ... &ref=notif
Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/p/CcfRTOSMO_e/

Panoramic photograph showing the show of colors in the skies of Iceland at dawn on 03/31/22.
The aurora borealis forecast websites and apps indicated KP 7 index since the beginning of the night of 03/30/22, which in fact did not occur. In the beginning of the night the aurora borealis was very weak and only on the horizon line, which ended up discouraging some people in my group, who returned to the hotel. I and 3 other students were firm and confident that the predicted show would happen sometime in the morning. At around 3 am, suddenly, the sky exploded in shades of green, red, violet, blue... The long-awaited spectacle of the northern lights finally took place. Unfortunately, at this point we were in a generic area, with no interesting subjects to compose the images. That's why I made this image composed of two panoramics taken at different times, with a few days of difference between them.
The foreground was taken at night in Skógafoss, Iceland.

Icelandic Sky by Victor Lima, no Flickr

Paris, April 17 2022: the full Moon rises in line with the Arc de Triomphe and the Avenue des Champs-Elysées

It's a single exposure: no stacking, no assembling, no tampering...as close as possible to the real scene

IC2944 Slow cooked chicken Aka The Running Chicken Nebula



Astrobin: https://www.astrobin.com/u65jwb/

Slow cooked chicken made with love in SHO with RGB stars. I have captured a completely new set of data on this target and a lot more of it this time, about 24h all up and complete reprocess with a new colour palette

April 6, 2022
Frames:
Antlia Pro 3nm Ha: 94x300" (7h 50') (gain: 139.00) f/5.9 -10°C bin 1x1
Antlia Pro 3nm Sii: 94x300" (7h 50') (gain: 139.00) f/5.9 -10°C bin 1x1
Antlia Pro Blue: 45x15" (11' 15") (gain: 76.00) f/5.9 -10°C bin 1x1
Antlia Pro Green: 45x15" (11' 15") (gain: 76.00) f/5.9 -10°C bin 1x1
Antlia Pro Oiii 3nm: 94x300" (7h 50') (gain: 139.00) f/5.9 -10°C bin 1x1
Antlia Pro Red: 45x15" (11' 15") (gain: 76.00) f/5.9 -10°C bin 1x1

William Optics Zenithstar 73
Imaging Cameras
ZWO ASI 1600MM-Pro
Mounts
Skywatcher EQ-6r Pro
Filters
Antlia Pro 3nm Sii · Antlia Pro 3nm Ha · Antlia Pro Oiii 3nm · Antlia Pro Green · Antlia Pro Red · Antlia Pro Blue
Accessories
ZWO EAF Focuser · Pegasus Falcon Rotator · Pegasus Mini Powerbox · Intel NUC 8 I5BEK · William optics flat/reducer 73
Software
Topaz denoise AI · Pixinsight 1.8.8.5 · NINA,PhD2 · Adobe Photoshop CC 2019 · Astro Pixel Processor
Guiding Telescopes Or Lenses
William Optics UniGuide 50/200MM
Guiding Cameras
ZWO ASI 120MM Mini Guide Camera

Gabriela Mistral Nebula
NGC 3324 and NGC 3293

Gear: Telescope GSO 200mm F4
Camera: ZWO 533 MC Pro + Coma Corrector f4
Mount: Skywatcher NEq6
Guide camera: ZWO 290MC + Telescope 60/700
CPU: ASIair Plus
60 Lights de 3' Gain 100 -10°C
100 Darks
Light Polution Lever: Bortle 7 + Moonlight (almost fullmoon)


NGC 3324 y NGC 3293
by Maximiliano Falieres, en Flickr
Location: Chivilcoy, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina.

The Firefall event in Yosemite Valley each February has become quite popular, often drawing large crowds to witness Horsetail Fall resembling a stream of lava at sunset. People will be heard cheering and shouting as they view such a beautiful spectacle. Less commonly, this event can also occur in October if there is water in the falls as the sun passes through the same azimuth. Much less known is that a similar phenomenon can occur when a full or near full moon passes through that same azimuth as the sun. This is a picture I took of the moonlit Firefall on 15 April 2022 at 4:43am. You can see the moon on the left of the frame in the trees. My friend and I did give a few cheers, it was such an emotional experience. It was beautiful, and clearly visible to the naked eye, despite the clouds. I think we were the only ones there. Canon 80D 16mm Rokinon f2.0 ISO 800 10s

The Firefall event in Yosemite Valley each February has become quite popular, often drawing large crowds to witness Horsetail Fall resembling a stream of lava at sunset. People will be heard cheering and shouting as they view such an incredible spectacle. Less commonly, this event can also occur in October if there is water in the falls as the sun passes through the same azimuth. Much less known is that a similar phenomenon can occur when a full or near full moon passes through that same azimuth as the sun. This is a timelapse compilation of pictures I took on 2 cameras (one at 16 mm and one at 85mm) between 4:00 and 5:30 am on 15 April 2022 of the moonlit Firefall off Horsetail fall. My friend and I did give a few cheers, it was such an emotional experience. It was beautiful, and clearly visible to the naked eye, despite the clouds. I think we were the only ones there.
https://youtu.be/vDlaUC4RMIg

Dendera Temple Stellar Alignment
Hathor Temple at Denderah (26.14 N, 32.68 E )
The Hathor temple or denderah temple is an amazing temple , it is considered to be a complete temple because it contains a whole ancient Egyptian knowledge until the Era of the building circa 54 BC by Greco-Roman empires, also it contains astronomical and astrological signs and included the famous Denderah zodiac, which is now in the Louvre museum in Paris.

The main axis of The temple is on an azimuth of 18º 7’ , the alignment was to the Ursa Major stars. the star Alkaid (eta UMa) the tail of Ursa major disappearing briefly at its lowest descent before re-appearing again, around 54 BC (the date of building ) this reappearance would have been very close to 18 degrees and therefore this is the most likely orientation for the temple.

Note that at the time of the building Polaris wasn’t the celestial pole Star.the celestial pole was a point in the middle distance between polaris and k Draconis stars .

I collected the data of the temple 4 years ago (2018) and reprocess it with old and updated data for the sky .

In this photo we try to catch the alignment of Ursa Major with the main axis of the temple along the Eastern wall of the temple which oriented to the Ursa Major constellation Rising at 18 Degrees at the time of the building but it shifted to be around 35 Degrees nowadays.


Big-dipper-Dendera-true- by osama Fathi, on Flickr
Settings : (Blend )
Temple : 1/4 Sec, f8, ISO 800, @18mm
Sky (Big dipper ):25 sec, Iso 1600, f2.8 @14 mm



To the rear of the Hathor temple is a small temple dedicated to Isis. This is aligned to the rising of Sirius at the time of the temple’s foundation.
So the second photo is for the front (facade) of the temple (Dendera) north wall with the southeast sky where the Sirius is rising and Orion is over the temple .


Dendera-Front-orion2 by osama Fathi, on Flickr
Settings : (Blend )
Temple : 1/4 Sec, f5.6, ISO 400, @18mm
Sky (Orion and Sirius ):25 sec, Iso 1600, f2.8 @14 mm

To take this photo you need to enter the temple after working hours so needs permissions and special opening , it may costs around 1000 $ (but it was for free for the groups who attend a conference there )

Here is the combination of the two photos for the front with Orion and siruis and eastern wall oriented to Ursa Major :
Dendera-north-and-south by osama Fathi, on Flickr



Credit: Osama Fatehi

https://www.instagram.com/osama.fathi.nswatcher85/

Dendera Temple, Qina, Egypt

Referrence
Title: On the orientation of ancient Egyptian temples: (1) Upper Egypt and lower Nubia, Authors: Shaltout, M. & Belmonte, J. A., Journal: Journal for the History of Astronomy (ISSN 0021-8286), Vol. 36, Part 3, No. 124, p. 273 - 298 (2005)

Hyades

Hyades - one of the largest open clusters in our sky, creating a characteristic pattern with the guest star Aldebaran. The whole thing is slightly obscured by dust clouds in Taurus, which, by scattering the light of the surrounding stars, make up a fantastic composition, big enough to become the subject of the wide filed frame.
Effect of last year's autumn trip to the Bieszczady Mountains (eastern Carpathans / Poland). The whole thing was captured with a 135mm Samyang and a modified Nikon D610.

Credit: Ireneusz Nowak
Astrobin location of the full size picture: https://www.astrobin.com/3mmlzk/
Author Astrobin link: https://www.astrobin.com/users/iro/

Milky Way with the Moon and Venus from Chile
www.mattdieterich.com
Copyright: Matt Dieterich

Airplane flying past active sunspot complex AR2993-94

While doing lucky-imaging of the Sun in white light an airplane happened to be perfectly placed close to the active sunspot complex during a few milliseconds which was captured in one of my sequences of 3000 images. This is a selected frame of that exact moment, which also happened to have really good seeing.

Telescope: WO Zenithstar 61
Camera: ZWO ASI178
Solar filter: Lunt Solar Systems 1.25" Herschel wedge with ND3.0 filter
Exposure time: 0.16 ms

Time: 19 Apr 2022, 2:14 PM UT
Location: Stockholm, Sweden

Copyright: Magnus Gålfalk

Crossing Geminids

What an hard work. It's a 360° pano of Geminids meteor shower during night peak of 13-14 December. My D850 camera broken during the meteor shots, leaving me alone and freezing during the night, with this amazing work suspended. Here you can see the few meteors caught.
It's a composite, but stars, meteors and foreground were scientifically respected using dedicated software.
Sky's and foreground's panos was shoot with my new Nikon Z7II.
The shot has a huge resolution, like 2,50*1,10 meters ca.
Hope you like understanding sacrifice and time wasted.
Thanks to Federica for my selfie shot.

EXIF
Sky Pano Nikon Z7II
25x25 sec | f/2.8 | ISO 640 @28mm
Foreground Pano Nikon Z7II
38x20sec | f/5.6 | ISO 1250 @28mm
Meteors Nikon D850
1200x10sec | f2.8 | ISO 6400 @12mm

Copyright: Pierandrea Folle
Crossing Geminids by Pierandrea Folle, su Flickr

Abell 7
(Small with imaging information and description.)
http://www.waid-observatory.com/abell-7 ... 0-HOO.html
(Click on the displayed images to progress to higher resolution versions.)
Copyright: Donald Waid and Ron DiIulio

This photo of the planets' alignment (22 April 2022) over the most ancient limestone building (c. 2670–2650 BC) The Pyramid of Djoser or Step Pyramid, Saqqara, Egypt

PlANET-ALIGNMENT-SAQQARA-APOD by osama Fathi, on Flickr

Settings :
Nikon Z6 (Mod)
Nikkor 14-24 mm , and Samyang 85 mm

Subs:
Planets : 4*3 Sec, Iso 800 @85mm
Sky : 1 sec , ISO 800, f2.8 @24 mm
Foreground panorama : 8 photos 3 Sec, Iso 800 @85 mm

The Pyramid of Djoser , or Step Pyramid, is an archaeological site in the Saqqara necropolis, Egypt, northwest of the city of Memphis. The 6-tier, 4-sided structure is the earliest colossal stone building in Egypt.[4] It was built in the 27th century BC during the Third Dynasty for the burial of Pharaoh Djoser

and this photo without planets names :
PlANET-ALIGNMENT-SAQQARA-without-planets by osama Fathi, on Flickr

Credite: Osama Fatehi
https://www.instagram.com/osama.fathi.nswatcher85/
Egypt


Regards,
Osama