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Monday, November 3, 2008

Sh2-224 & Sh2-223

In this image, there is two supernova remnants!
Both are extremely faint. Exposure time was 15x1200s = 5 hours,
and in final image there was very litle information.
I wanted to try this difficult targe to see can it be imaged from the city center and
with QHY8 color camera. After tweaking the data about an hour, I was able to say, it can.
Image here is a false color image, H-alpha = Red.
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Imaging data:
Camera, QHY8 - Filters, Baader 7nm H-alpha
Optics, Tokina AT-X 300mm @ f2.8
Exposures, 15X 1200s H-alpha, flats and bias
Guiding, LX200 GPS 12" + PHD-guiding and Lodestar

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Cassiopeia A

Supernova remnant in Cassiopeia.
This target is most difficult to capture and process.
I never realise how dim this really is. "Cartes Du Ciel" gives surface brightness
for this object as low as Mag 37 !
Fast optics, Tokina 300mm @ f2.8 helps to capture those few photons.
There is some internal structure details visible in S-II channel,
they can be seen in Hubble palette image as red.
More information in Wikipedia:
There is two version of this image here, first image is in "natural" color composition
from narrowband channels, H-alpha 100% + 35%S-II = RED, O-III = GREEN and
O-III 100% + 30%H-alpha = BLUE.
Second version is Hubble palette composition. S-II =RED, H-alpha = GREEN and O-III = BLUE
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Imaging data: Camera, QHY8 - Filters, Baader 7nm H-alpha, Baader 8,5nm O-III and Baader 8nm S-II - Optics, Tokina AT-X 300mm @ f2.8 - Exposures, 12X 1200s H-alpha, 1 X 1200 O-III and 6X1200s S-II + flats and bias - Guiding, LX200 GPS 12" + PHD-guiding and Lodestar

Is there a outer burst in Cassiopeia A?

This starless image might show a hint of it.

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Sh2-155, S-II channel added




I Managed to use two hours clear window to shot S-II
channel last night.
After that it's possible to make a real three colour narrowband composition.
Here precented as a Hubble palette, S-II = RED, H-a = GREEN and O-III = BLUE.
Imaging details are same, than in previous post,
just S-II information is added, 3 X 1200s.

Monday, October 27, 2008

Sh2-155, The Cave Nebula

"natural" color version H-alpha
Version with reduced stars -
Last night I shot a new Sharpless catalog object, Sh2-155 in constellation Cepheus.
It's sometimes called the "Cave Nebula" doe the central formations shape,
I can't see the cave there though.
I shot three hours of H-alpha and one and half hours of O-III.
There is very litle of O-III there, but with extreme stretching of the data it was usable.
Image here is a narrowband color composition where H-alpha is Red and
O-III is Blue, Green color is synthesized from H-a and O-III channels.
There is three versions, first with "natural" colors and second with H-alpha only.
Third image is same color image but with reduced stars. The purpose of this image is
to show the nebulosity alone.
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Imaging data: Camera, QHY8
- Filters, Baader 7nm H-alpha, Baader 8,5nm O-III and Baader
- Optics, Tokina AT-X 300mm @ f2.8
- Exposures, 9X 1200s H-alpha, 4 X 1200 O-III + flats and bias
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Guiding, LX200 GPS 12" + PHD-guiding and Lodestar