Latest Images

OK, I admit it... I've been bummed because of the weather we've had for much of the summer.  I have been imaging, but perhaps once every couple of weeks.  Either its just been cloudy, or the evenings have started out cloudy and cleared late at night, and I've just been too tired to do anything with the scope.  I like to set up before the sun goes down, but if it's cloudy, I dont bother.

We have had a few good nights, and I've gotten pictures that I've been too lazy to post here.  This is one reason I put up the facebook page - you'll see many pictures just hours after I take them.  The blog usually goes into more detail about the objects that I image, so the two kinda go hand-in-hand.  If you have a facebook account, I suggest you like the page that that is linked on here to get the full story and a sneak preview of what I'm doing.

Now on with the images I've missed...

First, I'll start off with a Hubble Palette of NGC7380, the Flying Horse Nebula.

This is the one and only image that I've taken using  Oiii, Hα and Sii.  Sii is mapped to red, Hα to green and Oiii to blue.  all 10 minute exposures, 5 each.  This was imaged on 9/5/2013.

A little earlier (8/23/13) I imaged NGC7635, the Bubble Nebula in Cassiopeia.  I also did this in narrowband using 10 minute exposures.  This was shot in Hα and Oiii only.  I created 2 images, one a "realistic" and a false color version.

 

Here is the "Realstic" version, Hα mapped to red and Oiii mapped to blue and green.

The false color image, with the Hα mapped to blue and Oiii mapped to red and green with different histogram stretching applied to the red and green.  I also took a few star cluster images that evening, but there was haze, and the clusters were far to the south, and were not real impressive.

On 9/10/13, I got an impressive Hα of NGC6888, the Crescent Nebula.  I imaged this one before using 5 minute subs, but this time I used 10 minute subs and the image showed far more nebulosity.

I'm VERY happy as to how this one turned out.  It is one of the deepest images that I've seen of this object.

Then, on 9/28/13, I went to an astronomy club meeting, and the weatherman called for clear skies, so I imaged the Helix Nebula (NGC7293) with an audience present.  This one came out very nice also.

This too has been in narrowband.  Hα mapped to red, and Oiii to Green and Blue.

Also imaged Jupiter on a couple of occasions when the sky cleared late.  this was the best one.....

I have yet to get the more interesting side, showing the Great Red Spot.

Oh, and on 10/1/13, I imaged NGC6946, the Fireworks Galaxy which came out pretty good using LRGB.

On 10/18/13 a penumbral lunar eclipse occured, of which I got a picture towards the tail end of the event.  Note the bottom right is slightly darker, and the moon has a yellowish tint.  I did no color enhancement, only a little sharpening in Photoshop.  I took this using the Canon T3 and 70-300mm zoom at 300mm, f/9.

OK, I think this brings us pretty much up to date.  I did do some imaging, but not a great amount, being this post covers about 2 months or so.  The weather hasnt been that great, a clear night here and there, and its been like that all summer.  I hope this winter, this trend changes.

Messier 17

The Swan Nebula, or the Omega Nebula, depending on its orientation.

Imaged it using LRGB, first time in doing so.  However, I was running out of time, as clouds were moving in.  The evening I imaged this, I first took a set at Oiii, which was not my intent, so I had to start again using Hα.  The image consists of 1 hour of Hα luminance, and only 10 mins each RGB color.

 

I found it very difficult getting the colors right.  The bottom image was a second attempt, although some like the top one better.

M16, Hα & Oiii

I've imaged M16, the Eagle Nebula last year with the dslr.  This time, I used the CCD with Hα and Oiii.  If I had a Sii, I could have dome a hubble palette.  There was very little Oiii signal in this object.

Scope:    Celestron C6N
Mount    Celestron CG5
Camera  Orion Starshoot G3
Filters    Celestron Oiii, Orion Hα 7nm
Exposures  5 X 5 minute Ha, 6 X 5 min Oiii
Processing  Deep Sky Stacker, color combining and post processing in Photoshop CS5


This is the original size of the image put out by this camera.

If  I were to image this again, I think I would do an RGB with an Hα luminance.

Although this is a low resolution camera, I like imaging with this over the DSLR, as the exposure time is much less.  The sensitivity is much better than the DSLR.  The vignetting is almost nil, and with the exception of about a dozen hot pixels, the noise is way better.  I could never have taken a picture this clean with a total of 10 frames with the DSLR's, let alone get the fainter nebulosity on the bottom of the image. 

The following is the monochrome Hα image.

No brightening of this image was performed.  Noise reduction in the dimmer areas was done, and the star sizes were made slightly smaller, but generally, this is what I ended up with coming out of DSS.

M82 with the CCD

I imaged M82 the other day, when it was rather low in the northern sky.  It was cloudy to the south, where I wanted to image.  Ursa Major was totally in the clear, so I thought I'd give it a try.

I imaged this using Ha for the red channel, and wideband green and blue to fill in the other colors.  The Ha was unaffected by the light pollution, as I was able to easily pick up the starburst region which I have never gotten before. The star spikes are artificially added using Carboni's astro tools.

What is interesting with the CCD is that very little post processing is required after these images are taken.  Very little histogram stretching is required.  The hardest part is combining the colors properly, but the detail appears pretty much as you see it here, after the channels are combined.  With the dslr, I'd have to stretch the histogram massively to get this, and even then, the starburst area does not show up.

I really need to take notes on the next DSO I image and write down the post processing workflow.  You wouldnt believe how simple it is, once the colors are combined and corrected, however, because the color levels are never correct when theyre taken, its difficult to know when they're right. 

To summarize, when Iprocessed this, I combined the colors, got rid of the nasty gradient on the green and blue, because of the light pollution, got the color balance close.  Did some very minor histogram stretching, a little bit of noise reduction.  Reduced the star size... sharpened, and here it is....

This is the unprocessed Ha stack with the only modification being done was to set the black point.  This is a stack of 5 frames.  No noise reduction, no histogram stretching...This is just as you see it coming out of DSS, except the black point was set in photoshop.  This was used as my red channel in the above image.

M27 Narrowband

If I ever needed proof of the difference in image quality one gets with a dedicated CCD vs a dslr, this has to be it.  I imaged in 2 colors, 8 3 minute frames per color (Ha and Oiii), mapped the Ha to red and the Oiii to green and blue.  The amount of stretching in photoshop was nil - just a wee bit to bring out the edges, but for the most part, this is how bright this appeared on the capture screen.

If that werent enough, I didnt stop there.  I re-mapped this into a Hubble Palette version.  Even more detail is visible!

Not bad for a 2-color image.  This narrowband stuff is turning out to be too much fun!  I still cant get over the fact that I did this with about 45 minutes worth of camera time.

This is a picture of last year's M27 taken with the dslr. 

Although not a BAD image, there was a lot of image stretch to bring out the fine detail, and lots more imaging and processing time.  Of course, this is a standard RGB using the dslr. 

Narrowband Imaging the Crescent Nebula

Received my Hydrogen Alpha filter yesterday and we got lucky and had a couple hours of reasonably clear sky.  Although I didnt get as many exposures as I'd liked, my first real attempt at narrowband imaging was a success.  I imaged 2 objects - the Ring Nebula (M57) and NGC 6888, the Crescent Nebula in Cygnus.  The Ha frames that I took of the ring were washed out possibly due to clouds, but the Crescent came out just fine.  

I have never before gotten this much detail on this object before.  In the past, I was able to capture the bright outline with a tiny amount of  the inner nebula.

The above image consists of only 25 minutes of H Alpha and 25 minutes of O3.  Ha was mapped to red, Oiii mapped to green and blue.  I used the Ha stack as the luminance.  This was done with my light polluted backyard, and the Oiii was taken during the last full, supermoon.