A Clear Night - The Horsehead Nebula and the Flame Nebula

 

The Flame Nebula and the Horsehead Nebula

This is the best image I have done in a couple of year of these two winter sky nebulas, well, winter for the northern hemisphere of our planet, at least.

One of the reasons is that for years I have tried to make the sky around them black when in fact they are shrouded in galactic dust. So some dusty areas takes on a magenta/reddish color (the Horsehead Nebula) and other areas (in this case) are brownish, as in the Flame Nebula in the lower left.

I am still not satisfied (will I ever be?) but I am happy with this result of post-processing!

Scope: 600mm doublet refractor F/5

Camera: Canon T3i (modded for Ha)

Mount: Celestron AVX

Guide Camera: ZWO ASI120 monochrome

Exposure: 240 sec   ISO: 1600

Stack of 23 exposures = 92 minutes of integration

(with darks, no flats or bias frames this night)

Post-processing:

Affinity Photo for stacking

Luminar 2018 for image processing

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Observatory almost completed !

 Here are a few pics of my roll-off observatory and control room... (click pics for a bigger image)

The path from the house to the obs...

The wide open southern skies !

More pics to come !

Clear Night! The Sculptor Galaxy

 Since my move to south-eastern Arizona I have been longing to image some of the galaxies that hang lower in the night sky than I could image from central Oregon. Tonight I focused my attention on the Sculptor Galaxy:

NOTE: To view a LARGER image of any photo on this blog follow these three basic steps:

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The "Seven" Sisters? - The Pleiades Open Star Cluster

 High overhead in the evening during the winter is the beautiful bright open star cluster known as the Pleiades.

The name of the Pleiades comes from Ancient Greek. It probably derives from plein ("to sail") because of the cluster's importance in delimiting the sailing season in the Mediterranean Sea: "the season of navigation began with their heliacal rising". However, in mythology the name was used for the Pleiades, seven divine sisters, the name supposedly deriving from that of their mother Pleione and effectively meaning "daughters of Pleione".

So why are the Pleiades called the Seven Sisters, when only six stars can be seen with the eye? In fact, the number of stars you can see within the Pleiades cluster, using just your eye, varies depending on your own eyesight, local atmospheric transparency and light pollution levels. Some people simply see fainter stars than others. It’s possible that early skywatchers, whose skies were darker and clearer than our modern skies, more often saw more than six stars here. Even today, people with exceptional vision see seven, eight or more stars in the Pleiades with the unaided eye. With binoculars you can easily see far more!

The Bible mentions this star cluster (that is easily visible to the unaided human eye) in Job 9:9 and Job 38:31 as well as in Amos 5:8. It has been known since antiquity to cultures all around the world, including the Celts, Irish, Hawaiians, Aboriginal Australians, the Persians, the Arabs, the Chinese, the Japanese (who call them Subaru), the Maya, the Aztec, the Sioux, the Kiowa and the Cherokee... any many more!

With small telescopes or average binoculars, but especially when long-exposure photographs are taken some hint of nebulosity around the cluster is seen. The "veil" around the bright blue stars is called a reflection nebula, caused by dust reflecting the blue light of the hot, young stars.

Studies show that the dust responsible for the nebulosity is not uniformly distributed, but is concentrated mainly in two layers along the line of sight to the cluster. These layers may have been formed by deceleration due to radiation pressure as the dust has moved towards the stars. - Wikipedia

NOTE: To view a LARGER image of any photo on this blog follow these three basic steps:

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3. To progressively enlarge the image with Windows: use CONTROL and + for larger view and CONTROL and - to reduce the size of the image. OR with a Mac: use COMMAND and + to progressively enlarge the image OR COMMAND and - to reduce the size of the image.

Far, Far Away: The Triangulum Galaxy

 In the northern sky in the area near the Andromeda Galaxy is a delicate galaxy: the Triangulum Galaxy.

It is far fainter than Andromeda but is very beautiful.

Given the clear skies and the fact that my observatory is completed enough to begin some serious imaging I thought I would give it a go!

The little pink spots are regions of star formation in this galaxy far, far away.

The Triangulum Galaxy is a spiral galaxy 2.73 million light-years (ly) from Earth in the constellation Triangulum. It is catalogued as Messier 33 or NGC 598

NOTE: To view a LARGER image of any photo on this blog follow these three basic steps:

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My last shot at Comet Leonard?

Wow! It cleared up just enough for another shot at Comet Leonard  (the skies are going to cloud up for a week or so) so this is likely my last chance since it will be retreating from Earth very quickly.

This is a single shot (hoping to do some integration later) taken about 6:30 pm tonight (Monday).

Double WOW!  There is real detail in the tail, looks like the comet head is spinning as one of the strands starts on the left hand side of the comet and then angles over to the right hand side the farther the streamer is from the head (at least it appears that way to me).

Data:

Scope: 80mm refractor (non-solar Daystar) f/5 600mm

Mount: AVX

Camera: Canon T3i (modded)

ISO: 1600

Exposure: 30 sec

Image cropped tight

Post-processed with Luminar 2018 software

NOTE: To view a LARGER image of any photo on this blog follow these three basic steps:

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Comet Leonard C/2021A1 finally!

For days I have been frustrated by early evening clouds after sunset that were right were the comet was. But finally I was able tonight (December 19, 2021) to get a decent capture of this comet before it heads out of our area of the solar system. It was below Venus and barely above the Huachuca Mountain range to my south-west. This is cropped quite a bit but one can just make out it's short fanned tail.

Scope: Daystar 80mm doublet f/5 600mm fl

Camera: Canon T3i modded

Mount: AVX

Exposure: about 15 sec at ISO 200

Some post processing with Luminar 2018

NOTE: To view a LARGER image of any photo on this blog follow these three basic steps:

1. Click on the photo. This will open a view of the photo... but not necessarily the largest, close-up view.

2. To view it even larger now, right click on that photo and select "Open image in new tab". Depending on the actual size of the image it may take longer to display the image.

3. To progressively enlarge the image with Windows: use CONTROL and + for larger view and CONTROL and - to reduce the size of the image. OR with a Mac: use COMMAND and + to progressively enlarge the image OR COMMAND and - to reduce the size of the image.