Starship Asterisk*

Heart Nebula IC 1805

https://www.flickr.com/photos/194543639@N07/
https://www.instagram.com/mark_hoffman_photography/

Copyright: Mark Hoffman

by mark h, on Flickr

"The Heart Nebula (also known as the Running dog nebula, IC 1805, Sharpless 2-190) is an emission nebula, 7500 light years away from Earth and located in the Perseus Arm of the Galaxy in the constellation Cassiopeia. It was discovered by William Herschel on 3 November 1787. It displays glowing ionized hydrogen gas and darker dust lanes.

The brightest part of the nebula (a knot at its western edge) is separately classified as NGC 896, because it was the first part of the nebula to be discovered. The nebula's intense red output and its morphology are driven by the radiation emanating from a small group of stars near the nebula's center. This open cluster of stars, known as Collinder 26 or Melotte 15, contains a few bright stars nearly 50 times the mass of the Sun, and many more dim stars that are only a fraction of the Sun's mass.

The Heart Nebula is also made up of ionised oxygen and sulfur gasses, responsible for the rich blue and orange colours seen in narrowband images. The shape of the nebula is driven by stellar winds from the hot stars in its core. The nebula also spans almost 2 degrees in the sky, covering an area four times that of the diameter of the full moon."

Equipment/Capture Details:
Williams Optics Z73
EQ35-Pro
ZWO ASI EAF
ZWO ASI 120MM
ZWO ASI 1600MM Pro
ZWO ASI 7 position EFW
Kendrick Dew Heater
Pegasus Pocket Powerbox Mini
36mm Astronomik 6nm Ha, O3, S2 filters
Total Integration Time = 26 hours
Ha Integration Time = 85 * 480sec
O3 Integration Time = 96 * 240sec
S2 Integration Time = 54 * 540sec
Virginia, USA
Bortle 7

NoiseXterminator and deconvolution SHO linear images. LRGB combination in Pixinsight. STF and Histogram stretch. Imagesolver script followed by SPCC. StarXterminator, color masks and range masks with curves, saturation. Photoshop Hue/Saturation/Luminance.

Orion Rising In the Dead Sea - The Lowest Place
on Earth on

Location : Dead Sea, israel\Jordan
Date : 29 NOV 022
Camera - Canon R Astro mode
Roi Levi
https://www.instagram.com/astroi_levi/
Story - Orion Rising above Salt hoodoos that created naturally in the dead sea its very special rocks across the dead sea you can find salt rocks up to 2 meters tall.

Location : Dead Sea, israel\Jordan
Date : Dec 14 2022 geminid meteor shower
Camera - Canon R Astro mode
Roi Levi
https://www.instagram.com/astroi_levi/
Story - geminid meteor shower in the lowest place on earth fireball strike near Seagull Nebula above Salt hoodoos that created naturally in the dead sea its very special rocks across the dead sea you can find salt rocks up to 2 meters tall.

Trajectories of the Sun, Moon, Venus and Mercury on the ecliptic plane on December 24, 2022.
On December 24, 2022, Venus, Mercury and the very thin crescent moon that is about to set form a triangle. The moon is only 1.1 days old and 1.4% illuminated. It took me ages to find this super-slim crescent moon in the orange twilight!
The trajectories presented through continuous shooting hope to show their movement on the ecliptic plane. The very thin crescent Moon is only 4 minutes to shoot. They are in the lower center of the photo, and you have to look very hard to find the trail of this crescent Moon.
Sun trajectory: 04:19 ~05:04 pm, altitude angle: 9.2° down to 0.8°
Moon trajectory: 05:46 to 05:50 pm, altitude angle: 2.0° down to 1.3°
Venus trajectory: 17:46 ~18:09, altitude angle: 5.5° down to 1.1°
Mercury trajectory: 17:46 ~18:26, altitude angle: 9.5° down to 1.8°

Well, the Sky Gods looked upon me with favor and gave me a few clear nights...enough to fully capture NGC-1333, The Embryo Nebula. I collected 22.5 hours of data and was able to create the below picture. It is a mixture of 5min and 10min subs stacked together. I am particularly pleased that I was able to get the dark dust to show.

Target: NGC-1333
Imaging Telescope: Explore Scientific ED127 CF
Imaging Camera: ZWO ASI2600MM-Pro
Guide Scope: Explore Scientific ED127 CF
Guide Camera: ZWO 290mm-Mini
Mount: Sky Watcher EQ8-R Pro
Polar Alignment: ASIAir Plus
Bortle Class: 6
Filters: Chroma LRGB
Integration: PixInsight
15-26 Dec 2022

Astrobin: Full Resolution: https://astrob.in/enlyna/0/

Sol on Christmas Day (2022)
http://www.perseus.gr
Copyright: Anthony Ayiomamitis

Really good solar activity on Sol at the moment and which includes the growing sunspot group AR 3169.

Further details in relation to this image available at http://www.perseus.gr/Astro-Solar-Sunspots-20221225.htm .

NGC 1365: The Great Barred Spiral Galaxy



BEST DETAILS
Https://www.astrobin.com/full/ydnias/C/

EQUIPMENT:
Esprit 150mm triplet
ASI 6200mc
Mount CEM120
197X300" (taken advantage of a total of 253x300")


LOCATION: Munhoz - MG - Brazil
DATES: 08/01/2022 to 10/24/2022

Author: Fernando Oliveira de Menezes(Organizing author of the book Amateur Astrophotography in Brazil)
https://clubedeautores.com.br/livro/ast ... -no-brasil

Riviera dell'Infinito by Andrea Amici - Andrystix

Here is my second attemp of the Winter Milkyway and the Orion Molecolar Complex.
I took it just the 23rd December between 8 - 10 PM in Ancona, Italy.
On the background, all the Conero Rivera by night.

Nikon D750 modded with Nikkor 20mm f/1.8G ED, iOptron Sky Guider Pro, #nisiitalia (Natural Night + GND ND32 1.5 SOFT)
Sky: 2 row 62 x 30sec, ISO 1600 f/4
Background: 1 x 30sec, ISO 1600 f/4

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/CmluUBVIJ2T/
@andrystix on Fb, Instagram & Flickr

Mighty Alnitak, Horsehead and the Flame. Newtonian Astrograph Version. OSC camera.

Alnitak is a Big star. Not just one, it actually is a 3-stars system. The biggest is estimated to be up to 33 times as massive as the Sun and with a diameter 20 times greater. It is some 21,000 times brighter than the Sun. All this brightness dominates this framing. It's hard to process the image because of all of the blue cast it throws at the rest.
In second plane, at least from my perspective, comes all the beautiful colors and shapes of this group of very well known nebulas in Astrophotography comunity.
The Horsehead (IC434), The flame nebula (NGC2024) and NGC2023 complete this picture (they are about 1300 ly from earth)

🗓 December, 23th. 2022
Giruá, RS, Brazil. Bortle 4.
FotonAstro Astropipe 200MM F4 Newtonian Astrograph / AM5 Eq Mount
asi2600mc camera
🕶 Optolong UV/IR filter
- 107 x 120s frames (aprox 3,5h)
pixinsight, photoshop

Ω Sun and Windmill
Photo description:
On the evening of December 25th, I came to Hsinchu - we call it the Windy City. Because of the strong wind in winter, there are many wind power plants on the coast. Fortunately, the sunset next to the windmill and the formation of Ω Sun (Sun Inferior Mirage) happened to be recorded. It is very interesting that the windmills on both sides are running normally, but the windmill next to the sun turns very slowly for some reason, forming a very interesting video. Combining photos is to organize several important processes together, hoping to show the process of Inferior mirage formation. At the same time, with the windmill as a reference, it is easy to observe the shift to the right (north) at sunset. The video link of Ω Sun and the windmill is as follows: https://youtu.be/CXCXa1SRm4k.
The video was shot from 5:10:27 PM to 5:14:15 PM, for a total of 3 minutes and 48 seconds. Plays at 3x speed of normal sunset.
Equipment Details:Canon R7 + 600mm Lens
Location : Hsinchu, Taiwan
Time: December 25, 2022 ,5:10:27 PM to 5:14:15 PM
Photographer : Meiying Lee (李美英)

Gegenschein
Captured in November 2022 at ESO, La Silla observatory, Chile.
Equipment: Nikon D810a, ZEISS Otus 1.4/55
Exposure: 27x60 sets at 3200 ASA

Zdenek Bardon
http://www.bardon.cz http://www.bardon.cz/upload/gallery/ori ... on22sm.jpg

12 hours – 15 minutes of shooting.
Euboea (Evia) island in Greece. Castle of Fylla.
More info:
https://spacetinkerer.com/tinkering-sto ... ar-trails/

Hello

This is the Pléiades Hyades, dust and Mars with a 85mm

Acquisition
Canon R6 Iso 1600
Sigma art 85mm F1.4
Star adventurer wifi
Bortle 3-4
154 x 60'' total 2h30

Collaboration Philippe Bernhard

Enjoy

Dec 26, 2022 Solar Mosaic in Hydrogen Alpha

https://www.flickr.com/photos/194543639@N07/
https://www.instagram.com/mark_hoffman_photography/

Copyright: Mark Hoffman
by mark h, on Flickr

AR 3176, 3173, 3171, & 3169 (left to right)

EQ6R-PRO
Explore Scientific ED102
Quark Chromosphere
ASI 174MM
ASI EAF
2" Baader H-Alpha 35nm filter
Pegasus Pocket Powerbox
2" GSO 0.5x reducer

6 panel mosaic captured using Sharpcap. 700 frames per in 16bit. Stacked in AutoStakkert 3, kept best 5%. Deconvolution and sharpening in IMPPG as well as inversion. Colored in Photoshop with curves and contrast.

Orion Widefield by William Ostling, on Flickr

Full write-up here: https://theastroenthusiast.com/orion-widefield/

Cradled in cosmic dust and glowing hydrogen, stellar nurseries in Orion the Hunter lie at the edge of a giant molecular cloud some 1,500 light-years away. Spanning nearly 25 degrees, this breath-taking vista stretches across the well-known constellation from head to toe (left to right). The Great Orion Nebula, the closest large star forming region, is right of center. To its left are the Horsehead Nebula, M78, and Orion’s belt stars.

Equipment:
Nikon D800
50mm f1.4 lens
GEM 28
NINA
Nikonhacker
Acquisition:
ISO 800, F2.8
Taken from a bortle 1 zone in Northwest CT
155 x 240s subframes (10 hours) – Taken on 12/26/2022, 12/27/2022
Processing:
Pre-processing and stacking
- All subframes were calibrated and normalized through WBPP
- The subframes were debayered and split into monochrome channels
- The subframes were registered with distortion correction
- the subframes were registered based on a PSF snr estimate
- The subframes were normalized using local normalization
- Each channel was integrated separately using the ESD clipping algorithm
Preparation of all frames:
- Stacking artifacts were cropped
- the RGB channels were combined to create an RGB image
- the RGB image was plate solved
- DBE was applied iteratively
- the RGB image was photometrically color calibrated
Linear noise reduction
- A low-contrast mask was applied
- Two iterations of TGV noise reduction were applied, one targeting high-frequency noise and one targeting low-frequency noise
- A medium-contrast mask was applied
- MMT targeting all 8 scales was applied to remove large-scale noise
Stretching
- The stars were seperated from the nebula using Starnet 2
- the RGB image was stretched using Arcsinh stretch
Non-linear adjustments:
- LRGB combination
- HDR, LHE, and curves to increase local contrast
- MLT was applied targeting 5 layers of luminance
- The background level was set to .09
- the stars were stretched using Arcinh stretch
- The image was relinearized and the stars were added back

Website: <a href="https://theastroenthusiast.com/" rel="noreferrer nofollow">theastroenthusiast.com/</a>
Instagram: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/the_astronomy_enthusiast/" rel="noreferrer nofollow">www.instagram.com/the_astronomy_enthusiast/</a>

HERMIT CRAB NEBULA

Composed of several nebulae (IC 1283, IC 1284, NGC 6589, NGC 6590 and others)

BEST DETAILS
https://www.astrobin.com/full/7jgqc0/B/

EQUIPMENT:
Espirit 150mm triplet
Zwo asi 6200mc
Mount CEM120
98X300" and 50x30"

LOCATION: Munhoz - MG - Brazil
DATES: 08/01/2022 to 10/24/2022

Author: Fernando Oliveira de Menezes
(Organizing author of the book Amateur Astrophotography in Brazil)
https://clubedeautores.com.br/livro/ast ... -no-brasil
Email: Barretosmed@hotmail.com

The Rosette Nebula in RGB color camera (caldwell 49 and NGC2244 Cluster)

What is special about this processing? Exactly nothing. And that was my point all along. I wanted a Rosette nebula without filters (I just used a luminance filter to cut UV and IR).I searched Astrobin for well processed Rosettes and they all seem (from my limited research) to have Ha Narrowband frames. Mine doesn't.

🗓 December, 25th. 2022
Giruá, RS, Brazil. Bortle 4.
FotonAstro Astropipe 200MM F4 Newtonian Astrograph / AM5 Eq Mount
asi2600mc camera
🕶 Astronomik L3 Luminance filter (UV/IR block)
- 88 x 120s frames (3h aprox)
pixinsight, photoshop

The Flame Nebula
www.mattdieterich.com
Copyright: Matt Dieterich

LDN1622, commonly known as the Bogeyman Nebula, is a dark nebula lying in front of a red cloud of ionized hydrogen gas cloud in the constellation of Orion just outside of the famous Barnard's Loop. It's much closer than many of the other more famous nebulae located in this constellation such as the Orion Nebula which is 1300 light years away and 24 light years in diameter. In comparison, LDN1622 is only about 500 light years away and about 10 light years in diameter.

LDN1622 by Chris Plonski, on Flickr

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/525 ... 6ed4_o.jpg

Cederblad 214 (also known as SH2-171) is a large molecular cloud and star forming region in the constellation of Cepheus and is part of the larger NGC7822 region. The star cluster Berkeley 59 is also located within this region. The central star is said to be 100,000 times brighter than our Sun and one of the hottest stars in our stellar neighborhood. Also contained in this area are many dark nebulae, Bok globules and several pillars that are star forming regions. These pillars are "sculpted" by the stellar winds of the stars they form. This region is believed to be about 3000 light years away.

Cederblad 214 by Chris Plonski, on Flickr

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/525 ... 7c89_o.jpg

Hello,
A new process for an acquisition of 2018
Only 5 ha 1200s and 2x600s bin 2 SII and OIII with ASA RC 1m of Chilescope.
I have used the new miraculous deconvolution process of Russel Croman...Not so far of Hubble résolution ...

The full is here : https://cdn.astrobin.com/thumbs/AJ78eA_ ... ouY30K.jpg

Green Flash and Atmospheric Optics
Photo description:
From July to December in 2022, I tried very hard to capture the green flash of the sun as it went down. Whenever the weather is sunny, I start paying attention to weather satellite cloud chart. It's a pity that the most common encounter at the beach is that the sun falls into the clouds in the last few minutes, so the green flash cannot be formed. But in the process of nearly twenty failures, the sun and clouds often have amazing performances, which always make people "Wow!" It's so beautiful! "
In addition to green flashes and rare blue and purple flashes, this composite photo captures several beautiful sights as the sun sets. The second photo on the right is the green rim taken on December 24th. Generally, the green rim are very thin and difficult to see clearly. This green rim of the setting sun above the treetops in the distance is very clear!
Equipment Details: Canon EOS 600D + SIGMA 60-600mm Lens
Post-processing Details: Crop and combine photos with PowerPoint.
Location : Taipei, Taiwan
Time: July to December 2022
Photographer : Meiying Lee (李美英) 　

CATEGORY: Panoramic Shot
INSTAGRAM: @victorlimaphoto
STORY:
This image made in Piedras Rojas represents very well everything that Atacama means to me. Breathtaking landscapes and the best sky in the world for astrophotography. The Milky Way arch crosses the Piedras Rojas lake, the Magellanic Clouds stand out on the left side, Andromeda appears in the right corner just above the clouds, Zodiacal Light illuminates the central part of the image, while the Air Glow colors the sky in shades of green and yellow.
This is a panoramic shot made from 24 shots, 12 per line, with 15 seconds of exposure each. The quality you can get from single shots at Atacama is surreal.
EXIF:
Canon 6Da | Sigma 20mm f/1.4 Art
24x 15sec | f/1.8 | ISO 4000

Piedras Rojas, Atacama Desert in Chile by Victor Lima, no Flickr

The Sun in Calcium K, photobombed by a plane. The solar disk and eruptions are a result of about 25 minutes of lucky imaging and stacking, and the plane is a single frame. The background got extrapolated, and some postprocessing went into removing the lens and filter artifacts that become visible when digging out the protuberances, for the dynamic range in CaK is much less favorable than in Ha. The applied (false) color is the traditional one I apply, to differentiate between true UV, Solar Continuum, Ha etc, while publishing.

A plane in CaK
https://csillagtura.ro/the-sun-in-cak-b ... 022-12-29/
Copyright: Pál VÁRADI NAGY EQ3-mod (home made controller and firmware), mountpusher autoguiding solution (home made and programmed), Sharpstar 60/330 ED-APO, Lunt CaK B600 LS6CAKMDS2, ASI 178MM (cooled).

More images, the source material (the half a terabyte ser videos aside, obviously) are on my website.

With its asymmetric appearance, the edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 4631 resembles a whale swimming through space. NGC 4656, the Hockey-stick Galaxy, lies nearby. In the distant past, the orbiting duet made a close pass. In the process, the Whale Galaxy distorted its counterpart, drawing from it a long tidal stream visible in the photo. These galaxies are seeing intense star formation seen as pink knots in the picture due to these interactions. These regions are hydrogen-alpha emission rich regions where new stars are being born. The long tidal streamer extending out of the Hockey-stick Galaxy is very faint, but with dark skies and long exposures, we could capture it quite well. This image required 20 hours of aggregate exposure time to capture.

Catalogue Name:
Whale (NGC 4631), NGC 4627, Hockey-stick (NGC 4656)
Constellation
Canes Venatici
Distance (Light Years)
~25 Million Light Years

Photographic Information:

Exposure:
HaLRGB – Total exposure 20hours
Equipment:
F3.8 AGO 10” Imaging Newtonian, QSI 683wsg, Paramount MyT, SSAG Auto-guider
Processing:
Pixinsight, Adobe PS

https://www.brahmand.me/2018/06/18/whal ... -galaxies/