NGC 1499 – The California Nebula

 AP1200GTO, AP130GTX, Apogee U16, Astronomical, Daysprings Observatory, Emission Nebula, Equipment, Nebula  No Responses »
Apr 042020
 

We’ve had far too many rainy days followed by isolation and the closure of astronomy parks and related facilities. Even if it cleared, we have nowhere to go. So here’s a quick reminder of the winter nebula that are leaving now not to be seen until next year. I wish I had time to do a mosaic and capture the whole nebula but I didn’t. It truly is a LARGE nebula. This image is 2.4 degrees across and could hold more than 18 full moons. (The moon varies between about 29′20″ – 34′6″ in size)

NGC 1499
AP130GTX, Apogee U16M, 14x20min HA
Clinton, TN

IC 1805 / SH2-190 The Heart Nebula

 AP1200GTO, AP130GTX, Apogee U16, Astronomical, Cluster, Dark Nebula, Daysprings Observatory, Emission Nebula, Nebula, Open Cluster  2 Responses »
Dec 012019
 

IC 1805 / Sharpless 190, more commonly known as the Heart Nebula, lies approximately 7,500 light years from Earth. This data set was comprised of 43x20min Ha, 23x20min O[III], and 24x20min S[II] for a total exposure time of 30 hours over several nights in November 2019.

Melotte 15 – The open star cluster that lies at the center of IC 1805 and provides the radiation that gives the nebula it’s soft glow.
NGC 896 – The brightest part of the Heart Nebula; it was cataloged separately because it was the first part of the Heart Nebula to be discovered.
The Heart Nebula – This image spans almost 2.6 degrees x 2.6 degrees. For scale, it would take 27 full moons to fill this field of view.

North American Nebula / Gulf of Mexico / Pelican

 AP1200GTO, AP130GTX, Apogee U16, Astronomical, Dark Nebula, Daysprings Observatory, Emission Nebula, Nebula, Observatory, Widefield  No Responses »
Jul 282019
 

We had a great clear spell 7/23 through 7/27 with only moderate lunar interference in the early hours of the morning. This is 14 hours of exposure divided equally across Hydrogen-alpha, Oxygen [III], and Sulfur[II] emission lines. Scope was an AP130GTX with Apogee U16 CCD on an AP1200GTO mount. Located outside Clinton, TN. The following are crops from the main image.

Finally, here is the nearly full frame image encompassing the whole area.

Back in Operation with Pics to Prove It!

 AP1200GTO, AP130GTX, Apogee U16, Astronomical, Emission Nebula, Nebula, Observatory  2 Responses »
Jan 282018
 

I recently replaced the dome control electronics after the Foster Systems controller bit the dust and I replaced with a MaxDome II controller for rotation and shutter operation.  It’s working flawlessly so far and I couldn’t be happier.  I threw the 5″ refractor back in the observatory with the 16803 chipped camera for a widefield rig at 2.2 arcsec/pixel resolution.  Drizzle processing yields better star shapes/sampling than the low resolution would suggest.  Both images are cropped from the same image with 20.5 hours of total exposure time in the traditional Hubble Pallet.

 

Look Rock Star Party 7/29/2017

 AP130GTX, AP900GTO, Apogee U16, Astronomical, Cluster, Dark Nebula, Emission Nebula, Nebula, Open Cluster, Star Parties  1 Response »
Jul 302017
 

I was the first one to arrive for the star party on Saturday night at Look Rock South.  It’s a beautiful view to the south looking into the Smokies.

 

We definitely had some clouds for the beginning of the night with some sucker holes now and then.  I was never able to get off a 20 minute shot without the clouds rushing in within 10 minutes…

But things finally started to clear up and the Milky Way really started to pop out.

Emission Nebula NGC 6820 or Sharpless SH 2-86. AP130GTX with Field Flattener Custom 4″ OAG Apogee U16 CCD w/Baader Ha 7nm filter AP900GTO Mount 9x20min Exposures Image Scale 2.16 arcsec/pixel; reduced to 4.32 arcsec/pixel

Once it was cleared up I was off to take some test shots and validate the portable rig was ready for more serious projects.  NGC 6820 AKA Sharpless SH 2-86 and all the surrounding emission and dark nebula has always been a favorite of mine.  It’s located in Vulpecula not that far from M27, the Dumbbell Nebula.  It reminds me of a less popular M16 with it’s gas and dust pillars and dark globules.  Open cluster NGC 6823 resides in the midst of the nebula and is about 6,000 light years away.

 

Cygnus Mosaic

 AP900GTO, Apogee U16, Astronomical, Emission Nebula, FSQ-106ED, Nebula, Widefield  No Responses »
May 312015
 

Last year (2014) I was conducting some mosaic tests for future projects.  I attempted a widefield 9 panel mosaic in Cygnus and processed the hydrogen alpha data but never got around to completing the tri-color Hubble Pallet image until now due to some difficult to process issues in the O[III] and S[II] channels.  Those difficulties, combined with the fact that I only gathered about one frame of each channel per panel in the mosaic (very thin data!), meant that I wasn’t exactly thrilled to process this one to completion.  Time away from the hobby due to the out of state relocation though has made me a little anxious to get back to imaging so I decided to revisit some of this forgotten data.

Cygnus Mosaic Cropped & Reduced to 50% Size. 9 Panels, 1x20min per Ha, O[III], S[II] Channel per panel. Total Time 9 hours. Taken with an Apogee U16M and Tak FSQ-106ED.

Cygnus Mosaic Cropped & Reduced to 50% Size. 9 Panels, 1x20min per Ha, O[III], S[II] Channel per panel. Total Time 9 hours. Taken with an Apogee U16M and Tak FSQ-106ED.

Cygnus Mosaic – Hydrogen Alpha Emission

 AP900GTO, Apogee U16, Astronomical, Emission Nebula, FSQ-106ED, Nebula, Widefield  No Responses »
Oct 262014
 

I began work on a tri-color Hubble Pallet image during the summer of 2014 but due to weather and other obligations did not capture much in the way of Oxygen [O III] and Sulfur [S II] emission data for the mosaic project so am leaving it as a monochrome image using only the Hydrogen Alpha emission line data.

Cygnus Mosaic in Hydrogen Alpha Emission Line FSQ-106ED Apogee U16 CCD Baader 7nm Ha Filter AP900GTO Mount 6x20min Exposure Campmeeting Observatory, Sewickley, PA

Cygnus Mosaic in Hydrogen Alpha Emission Line
FSQ-106ED
Apogee U16 CCD
Baader 7nm Ha Filter
AP900GTO Mount
6x20min Exposure
Campmeeting Observatory, Sewickley, PA

Cygnus Mosaic – Annotated

Hydrogen Alpha Mosaic – Test Framing w/ the Moon for scale

 AP900GTO, Apogee U16, Astronomical, Emission Nebula, FSQ-106ED, Nebula, Widefield  No Responses »
Jul 072014
 

It’s that time of year when Cygnus rises high over head and displays a multitude of nebulous treasure.  This mosaic is only a portion of the Cygnus constellation but represents a large patch of sky almost 9 x 9 degrees.  This is only a test framing as I create a game plan for a summer long imaging project.  For a sense of scale, I have included a gibbous moon which was not part of the original image as well as a full scale crop of the Crescent Nebula, bottom right, to show the full size scale of the original 83 megapixel image.

Mosaic_12

Cygnus Mosaic in Hydrogen Alpha FSQ-106ED Apogee U16 AP900GTO Baader Ha Narrowband Filter 9x20min total exposure

 

 

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