Explanation: The long exposure on Hydrogen Alpha and Oxygen III shows the formation of emission nebula with detail of sparks and borders on two long horizontal structures that converge on center near to an open cluster. The picture shows features of luminosity and stellar formation material that is part of gas and dust in the nebula. The Fighting Dragons of Ara Nebula is an object that requires long exposure for Stacking from the city where details of star formation canvas are product of previous supernovae explosions. For the image processing some wavelength adjustment was done in order to enhance shapes in relation to background removal. An amazing nebula located at 4Ly in the southern hemisphere night sky.
Sequence:290 Light Frames x 800 ISO 1'20 Flat Frames x 800 ISO 1'20 Dark Frames x 800 ISO 1'20 Bias Frames x 800 ISO 1/4000
Setup:Radian Raptor 61 mmCanon T3i (Mod)iOptron Skyguider ProOptolong L-Extreme
Location:Cochabamba, Bolivia.
Date:August 20, 2022. Hrs: 4:23 UTC.
The Fighting Dragons of Ara Nebula on Hydrogen Alpha and Oxygen III
This beautiful cottage is located near Šumava mountains in Czech Republic. This lovely place keeps its calm and its starry sky which makes this location perfect for astronomers and other friends of clear skies.
Picture was taken in October 2021. This pano was cropped out from full sky pano which was made from 44 single shots with exposure time 13 seconds. Canon EOS 6D camera was used with ISO 6400 and Sigma Art 24 mm lens with aperture 2.2.
A beautiful night at Gran Canaria was spent photoshooting this beautiful region of night sky in Scorpus. Look at the beautiful nebulae around Antares (the brightest star in this constellation) and dark nebulae. At the right upper corner there is blueish nebula called Blue Horsehead nebula.
Technical info: Canon EOS 6D mod., Samyang 135 mm f/2@2.2, ISO 1000. 137 single shots with exposure time 60 seconds were used and stacked. I used Vixen Polarie mount.
Re: Submissions: 2022 September
Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2022 11:11 pm
by Sergio
Sagittarius Triplet
A well known and photographed area in Sagittarius with classics Messier and NGC objects standing out in front of a crowded star field due to the proximity to the galactic plane.
Image taken from Buenos Aires suburbs
NGC 6951 is face-on Seyfert Type II galaxy in the constellation Cepheus. At a distance of about 75 million light-years, the galaxy is viewed through the Integrated Flux Nebula (IFN). The residual light of our galaxy illuminates this faint nebula.
To celebrate my 18th birthday, I decided to process one of my favorite Hubble images! This was taken back in 2009 to celebrate the International Year of Astronomy by WFPC2. Given that it was taken by such a low-sensitivity sensor, this image actually had a whole lot of noise to deal with. I spent a while carefully removing hot pixels and cosmic rays to make the image look better. In case you’re wondering what exactly you’re looking at, here’s a little explanation about the galaxies:
Arp 274 is a system of three galaxies that appear to be partially overlapping in the image, although they may be at somewhat different distances. The spiral shapes of two of these galaxies appear mostly intact. The third galaxy at far left is more compact, but shows evidence of star formation. Two of the three galaxies are forming new stars at a high rate. This is evident in the bright blue knots of star formation that are strung along the arms of the galaxy on the right and along the small galaxy on the left. The largest component is located in the middle of the three. It appears as a spiral galaxy, which may be barred. The entire system resides at about 400 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation Virgo. The colours in this image reflect the intrinsic colour of the different stellar populations that make up the galaxies. Yellowish older stars can be seen in the central bulge of each galaxy. A bright central cluster of stars pinpoint each nucleus. Younger blue stars trace the spiral arms, along with pinkish nebulae that are illuminated by new star formation. Interstellar dust is silhouetted against the starry population. The pair of foreground stars on the right are inside our own Milky Way.
Image Details:
Ha - 30x300s, bin 1x1, -10c, gain 0
L - 30x120s, bin 1x1, -10c, gain 0
R - 30x120s, bin 1x1, -10c, gain 0
G - 30x120s, bin 1x1, -10c, gain 0
B - 30x120s, bin 1x1, -10c, gain 0
6.5 hrs total integration
Moon illumination 36%
Bortle 5
Acquisition/Processing:
NINA, Sharpcap, PHD2/Pixinsight, Photoshop CC
Instagram @colorado_astro
Re: Submissions: 2022 September
Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2022 7:54 pm
by ejhebert
I was blessed with a few good nights this past week. This is WR-134, It's a Wolf-Rayet Star (in the very center) located about 6,000ly from Sol in the constellation of Cygnus. There is faint bubble nebula surrounding the star that is caused by the intense radiation and fast interstellar winds. WR-134 is five times the radius of our sun and 400K times as luminous (it's really, really bright).
Target: WR-134
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
Filter: Chroma 3nm
36 x 600s (Ha)
102 x 600s (OIII)
Integration: PixInsight
27, 28 Aug 2022
01, 02 Sep 2022
Full Resolution @Astrobin: https://astrob.in/5gvqna/0/
Although l imaged this remarkable nebula before - l couldn't resist aiming the new 24" telescope at Tivoli farm to it once more.
In order to cover most of this vast nebula - a 2 frame mosaic was made.
During processing - l noticed an unknown reddish region in the nebula.
To confirm this - l imaged this region with a Hydrogen Alpha filter and... VOILA!!!
There is a RED nebula in the heart of this Blue region.
Adding this Ha data into the image - clearly shows the Red Hydrogen nebula.
Although l imaged this remarkable nebula before - l couldn't resist aiming the new 24" telescope at Tivoli farm to it once more.
In order to cover most of this vast nebula - a 2 frame mosaic was made.
During processing - l noticed an unknown reddish region in the nebula.
To confirm this - l imaged this region with a Hydrogen Alpha filter and... VOILA!!!
There is a RED nebula in the heart of this Blue region.
Adding this Ha data into the image - clearly shows the Red Hydrogen nebula.
I think your image is splendid, and wanted to check out the two stars in the middle of it. However, the designation "Be 149" tells me nothing.
I googled "Be 149" and found another picture of the same nebula. But I found no additional information about the nebula or the stars. I asked Simbad Astronomical Database to give me information about Be149, and Simbad told me: No such object exists.
Do you know the designation of the stars? Alternatively, could you tell me the coordinates for the stars?
Ann
Re: Submissions: 2022 September
Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2022 6:18 pm
by tango33
Hi,
Sorry about this...
"Be 149" is the catalogic name in TheskyX.
The correct referrence is Bernes 149 (Be 149 for shortcut....)
The 2 bright stars are at:
Ra: 16h 08m
Dec: -39d 05m
Sorry about this...
"Be 149" is the catalogic name in TheskyX.
The correct referrence is Bernes 149 (Be 149 for shortcut....)
The 2 bright stars are at:
Ra: 16h 08m
Dec: -39d 05m
Thanks,
Kfir
Thanks a lot! I found them. The two bright stars are HR 5999 and HR 6000, and Simbad Astronomical Database accepts that designation.
Fascinating! The two blue stars are spectral classes A0 and A7, so they are not very hot. They should not produce enough ultraviolet light to ionize an emission nebula. But this dark cloud is an active site of star formation, so I will hazard a guess that the Hα light may be produced by energetic baby stars throwing tantrums in the vicinity.
Ann
Re: Submissions: 2022 September
Posted: Sun Sep 04, 2022 7:51 am
by Jochen Maes
Planetary nebula Sh2-68. It's sometimes refered to as "The flaming skull" nebula. Usually, I think these names are quite far-fetched; with this one I can sort of see it though.
Apart from being fun to look at, the characteristics/story of this specific object is also very interesting. I won't spam it here, but clicking on the included image will take you to my writeup.
The nebula around Wolf Rayet 134 with Oiii highlighted
This is my first submission to Starship* so "Hi Everybody! I've struggled a bit with including an image so hope this displays. If Flickr messes up it is on astrobin at https://www.astrobin.com/iwuovx/
1. An Oiii layer acquired with 16h of Oiii shot with an Altair 3nm narrowband filter in 180s exposures
2. An Ha layer acquired with 3h of Ha shot with an Altair 7nm narrowband filter in 180s exposures
3. A star layer acquired with 64 shots of 60s with an OSC camera.
Layers 1 and 2 were shot with an Altair Hypercam 26M, layer 3 with a 26C. All on an APM 140mm f/7 refractor with the Riccardi 1.0x flattener, guided on an IOptron CEM70G mount.
The approach here with the processing was to capture the main features of the Oiii nebula arising from WR-134, which have an approximately circular outline when captured with a long total exposure. The Oiii structure is often masked by the stronger surrounding Ha emissions, and itself has a high dynamic range so that often when imaged it appears to be around 1/3 of the circle, perhaps with the appearance of a leaping dolphin!
To unmask the Oiii I shot for a long time (16h in total), and furthermore upweighted the Oiii compared to the Ha and the stars. This also reveals some interesting details of the surrounding nebulosity, including several strut-like features. Further details of the dynamics of the WR-134 region are on the web.
The stacking and alignment of the data was done in Astro Pixel Processor, and the processing in Pixsinsight. In Pixinsight the strength of the 3 layers was rep-balanced to highlight the Oiii. The nebula layer is an HOO image in the RGB channels but with greater weighting on the blue over green. The dynamic range of each layer was also adjusted in Photoshop. Some limited noise reduction was done, and while some noise clearly remains the washing out of detail by going further was not felt to be helpful. This is a 4.8k by 3.6k crop from a 6k by 4k original with the variable WR star dead centre, then downsampled to 2k by 1.5k for this post.
It was shot over ten nights from West Oxfordshire UK during July and August 2022. Shorter summer nights and British weather are responsible for that! It is my first big AP project with the APM 140.
Re: Submissions: 2022 September
Posted: Mon Sep 05, 2022 2:19 am
by SkyViking
Seeing the Cosmic Web - The Large-Scale Structure of the Universe
Educational video showing the Cosmic Web, the large-scale structure of the Universe, visible in my Fornax Ultra Deep Field image.
Make sure you view this in full screen and with the music turned up!
Of all my images I feel that this one is the most profound: A relatively empty looking field in the southern constellation Fornax, about the size of the full Moon. This area of the sky is devoid of most bright stars, and contains almost no obscuring interstellar dust or hydrogen emission. It is therefore a window out into the deepest reaches of the observable Universe. It is also the location of the famous Hubble Ultra Deep Field and several other HST studies over the last couple of decades. With around 60 hours of exposure the limiting magnitude is close to 25.0 which is 25 million times fainter than the dimmest naked-eye stars.
At this depth, the background is filled with tens of thousands of distant galaxies. But to see them properly, we must go on a journey - outside of our own Milky Way galaxy. To filter the many background galaxies from the foreground stars I used Gaia DR3 data to identify and remove all stars in the image, and thus revealing just the extragalactic background.
Every single point of light in the resulting image is a galaxy! There are over 20,000 distant galaxies in this single image. With redshifts of up to z=3.354 the farthest are nearly 12 billion light years away. At that distance the field of view spans an incredible 112 x 147 million light years.
It is clearly noticeable that the galaxies are not distributed randomly. Instead, galaxy groups and clusters form long filaments with massive voids in between. This vast foam-like structure is known as the Cosmic Web; the large-scale structure of the Universe.
Tiny primordial fluctuations in the dark matter distribution immediately after the Big Bang gave rise to these immense structures, created and shaped by gravity. Their origins are imprinted on the cosmic microwave background observed by the Planck satellite - the oldest light in the Universe.
Image Processing
After the raw data was calibrated and combined in PixInsight, the foreground stars were identified using a custom catalogue of sources in the field-of-view generated from Gaia DR3. PixInsight was used to annotate the image and labelling all stellar sources. A manual inspection then identified a further handful of sources as being obviously extragalactic and these were removed from the custom catalogue.
A special starmask purely consisting of the foreground stars was then made using the custom catalog data.
A starless image of the entire field was created by applying StarNet processs in PixInsight. This removed all point sources in the image, including all the faint background galaxies, so to create an image that reveals only the distant extragalactic background objects the starless image was then re-combined with the original image but using the Gaia data starmask. The result is a starless image showing only extragalactic sources!
Cross-checking against the available Hubble Ultra Deep Field catalogues using VizieR, approximately 190 galaxies were identified within the HUDF catalogued area. Assuming the HUDF to be representative of the entire image, and indeed the entire sky, this can be extrapolated to over 23,000 galaxies in this field alone, and over 2.5 billion galaxies visible in the entire sky at this depth.
Resolution ............... 0.765 arcsec/px
Rotation ................. 178.892 deg
Reference system ......... ICRS
Geodetic coordinates ..... 174 45 00 E 36 51 00 N 240 m
Focal distance ........... 1456.58 mm
Pixel size ............... 5.40 um
Field of view ............ 42' 23.3" x 31' 54.8"
Image center ............. RA: 3 32 39.046 Dec: -27 47 28.96
Image bounds:
top-left .............. RA: 3 31 04.405 Dec: -28 03 48.48
top-right ............. RA: 3 34 16.452 Dec: -28 03 00.18
bottom-left ........... RA: 3 31 02.103 Dec: -27 31 53.49
bottom-right .......... RA: 3 34 13.213 Dec: -27 31 05.42
Image Acquisition:
Date: Nov 2021 - Feb 2022
Exposure: LRGB: 2850:250:225:225 mins, total 59 hours 10 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
Re: Submissions: 2022 September
Posted: Mon Sep 05, 2022 3:59 am
by Ann
SkyViking wrote: ↑Mon Sep 05, 2022 2:19 amSeeing the Cosmic Web - The Large-Scale Structure of the Universe
Educational video showing the Cosmic Web, the large-scale structure of the Universe, visible in my Fornax Ultra Deep Field image.
Make sure you view this in full screen and with the music turned up!
Of all my images I feel that this one is the most profound: A relatively empty looking field in the southern constellation Fornax, about the size of the full Moon. This area of the sky is devoid of most bright stars, and contains almost no obscuring interstellar dust or hydrogen emission. It is therefore a window out into the deepest reaches of the observable Universe. It is also the location of the famous Hubble Ultra Deep Field and several other HST studies over the last couple of decades. With around 60 hours of exposure the limiting magnitude is close to 25.0 which is 25 million times fainter than the dimmest naked-eye stars.
At this depth, the background is filled with tens of thousands of distant galaxies. But to see them properly, we must go on a journey - outside of our own Milky Way galaxy. To filter the many background galaxies from the foreground stars I used Gaia DR3 data to identify and remove all stars in the image, and thus revealing just the extragalactic background.
Every single point of light in the resulting image is a galaxy! There are over 20,000 distant galaxies in this single image. With redshifts of up to z=3.354 the farthest are nearly 12 billion light years away. At that distance the field of view spans an incredible 112 x 147 million light years.
It is clearly noticeable that the galaxies are not distributed randomly. Instead, galaxy groups and clusters form long filaments with massive voids in between. This vast foam-like structure is known as the Cosmic Web; the large-scale structure of the Universe.
Tiny primordial fluctuations in the dark matter distribution immediately after the Big Bang gave rise to these immense structures, created and shaped by gravity. Their origins are imprinted on the cosmic microwave background observed by the Planck satellite - the oldest light in the Universe.
Image Processing
After the raw data was calibrated and combined in PixInsight, the foreground stars were identified using a custom catalogue of sources in the field-of-view generated from Gaia DR3. PixInsight was used to annotate the image and labelling all stellar sources. A manual inspection then identified a further handful of sources as being obviously extragalactic and these were removed from the custom catalogue.
A special starmask purely consisting of the foreground stars was then made using the custom catalog data.
A starless image of the entire field was created by applying StarNet processs in PixInsight. This removed all point sources in the image, including all the faint background galaxies, so to create an image that reveals only the distant extragalactic background objects the starless image was then re-combined with the original image but using the Gaia data starmask. The result is a starless image showing only extragalactic sources!
Cross-checking against the available Hubble Ultra Deep Field catalogues using VizieR, approximately 190 galaxies were identified within the HUDF catalogued area. Assuming the HUDF to be representative of the entire image, and indeed the entire sky, this can be extrapolated to over 23,000 galaxies in this field alone, and over 2.5 billion galaxies visible in the entire sky at this depth.
Resolution ............... 0.765 arcsec/px
Rotation ................. 178.892 deg
Reference system ......... ICRS
Geodetic coordinates ..... 174 45 00 E 36 51 00 N 240 m
Focal distance ........... 1456.58 mm
Pixel size ............... 5.40 um
Field of view ............ 42' 23.3" x 31' 54.8"
Image center ............. RA: 3 32 39.046 Dec: -27 47 28.96
Image bounds:
top-left .............. RA: 3 31 04.405 Dec: -28 03 48.48
top-right ............. RA: 3 34 16.452 Dec: -28 03 00.18
bottom-left ........... RA: 3 31 02.103 Dec: -27 31 53.49
bottom-right .......... RA: 3 34 13.213 Dec: -27 31 05.42
Image Acquisition:
Date: Nov 2021 - Feb 2022
Exposure: LRGB: 2850:250:225:225 mins, total 59 hours 10 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
Absolutely fantastic image, Rolf! I quite agree with you that I can indeed see the cosmic web here!
As always, I want to know "where in the sky" this is. "Fornax" is not enough of a clue. What are those two prominent galaxies at center left? What are their designations? If you don't know that, maybe you can tell me the designation of the bright orange star to the lower left of them (or, to the southeast of them, if north is up). And if you don't know the designation of the bright star either, then perhaps you can tell me the coordinates of the image, and maybe, maybe the coordinates of the two brightest galaxies?
Thanks a lot for your help! And thank you so much for this splendid image! Rarely has a "starless image" been such a good idea!
The center of the milky way is already with us visible early at night, a region unmatched by the views it gives us inside the dark skies of the rural areas of the department of Huila, Colombia.
The image shows the scorpius constellation among countless stars, executioner of the giant hunter Orion according to one of the stories of Hesiod Orion together with artemis during a hunt, he boasted of being able to kill any animal on the face of the earth, Gaia the mother earth sends the scorpion to do battle and as a consequence death to Orion, a story written among stars.
Gear:
Canon 7D Mark II
Lens Tamron SP 45mm f/1.8
Skywatcher Star adventurer
Image: 20x60s ISO 1600 9 panels for sky, 1x25s Rokinon 16mm ISO 1600 for foreground.
Process on Pixinsight 1.8.2 and Photoshop CC 2022
Re: Submissions: 2022 September
Posted: Mon Sep 05, 2022 7:46 am
by AndreaFacco
Milky Way from Italy over the Braies Lake in Alto Adige
The photo consists of 2 shots: the mountain with an exposure of: 30 sec, f2.8, 1600 iso
And the Milky Way was shot at 13 sec, f2.8, 5000 iso, using the technique of the stacking
The photos were taken with a nikon Z6II and a Tamron 15-30 f2.8
Re: Submissions: 2022 September
Posted: Mon Sep 05, 2022 11:49 am
by deckardbr
Here is an image of Cepheus clouds (LDN 1228 and others):
Image credit: Andrea Bergamini and Sameer Bharadwaj
Full resolution and tech details here: https://www.astrobin.com/a089d4/B/
Star spikes were added in post processing since I think they work well here. However, the link above also includes a version without them.
My first visit to Helmos Observatory was back in 2020 when we (a group of four photographers) organized an excursion just after the COVID-19 global quarantine. Then, I used an APS-C sensor type DSLR camera; with excellent colours and dynamic range and an excellent choice at its price.
At the end of July, I went to the same spot again, although this time with different equipment; a full-frame DSLR and quality lenses. In addition, throughout these two years, my techniques and my way of the shooting have improved, so it was a completely different experience.
In this image, you can see clearly the famous summer constellation of Scorpius, Airglow, Light Pollution, the Aristarchos Telescope of the Helmos Observatory, as well as a girl watching the night sky for the first time in such a dark location. Let's hear her impressions.
"It was my first time staring at the night sky and actually seeing the stars, the constellations, the planets, and the milky way like this, a majestic view that made me realize the broad spectrum of our galaxy.
I wore four layers of clothing to keep myself warm at an altitude of 2340 meters. Yet, there was some other kind of coldness surrounding me, that was not because of the height; I got to anticipate that I was gazing at the eternal; constellations named after our ancestors. Even if you already know that theoretically, it's different when you get there and see it - our ephemerality as opposed to the universe's longevity and continuation. Maybe it should not scare us; After all, we are, in a way, part of this longevity, and we will continue our being along with the universe."
Captured using my Nikon D750 and the Nikkor 20mm f1.8G lens on my Benro Mach 3 Aluminum tripod.
Re: Submissions: 2022 September
Posted: Mon Sep 05, 2022 4:42 pm
by Jeff_Reitzel
Informally known as the “Wizard Nebula” due to it's shape. NGC 7380 is an open cluster of stars still embedded in the dust and gas from which they formed. This beautiful emission nebula is located about 7200ly away and seen in the Constellation Cepheus. This is 19hrs NB integration Using my SVX127D scope and QHY268M camera. Data acquired at various dark sites in Idaho throughout the month of August 2022.
Description:
Sh2-173 is an emission nebula lying 8,800 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cassiopeia. It is part of the Perseus arm of our Milky Way Galaxy. Its shape and dark dust clouds bear a resemblance to the mask worn by the Phantom of the Opera in the Broadway musical or the film starring Lon Chaney. https://skyandtelescope.org/
Equipment:
ASI2600MM-Pro camera Optolong 2" 3nm Ha and LRGB filters Orion 6" f/4 Newtonian telescope Starizona Nexus .75x Reducer/CC @ f/3
Bee Link Mini PC
Image Details:
Ha - 40x300s, bin 1x1, -10c, gain 100
L - 100x60s, bin 1x1, -10c, gain 100
R - 40x120s, bin 1x1, -10c, gain 100
G - 40x120s, bin 1x1, -10c, gain 100
B - 40x120s, bin 1x1, -10c, gain 100
9 hrs total integration
Acquisition/Processing: NINA, Sharpcap, PHD2 / Pixinsight, Photoshop CC
Saturn - September 4th
Posted: Mon Sep 05, 2022 6:30 pm
by Efrain Morales
Saturn on September 4th, Now gaining distance from opposition. (LX200ACF 305mm OTA, CGE Mount, ASI290mm Cmos, PoerMate 2.5x Barlows, Astronomik RGB filter sets.)
