Seeing Stars

July 9, 2023 by grahamrob in Broadband, Deep Sky Objects, General Astronomy, History, Imaging, Star Cluster and tagged Canes Venatici, Globular Clusters | Leave a comment

Of all the incredible features that constitute the Universe, located relatively close to home, I always marvel at the nature of globular clusters. Largely unknown by the lay person and myself until I took-up astronomy, more than 150 of these incredible objects orbit around the Milky Way in the form of a spherical halo both above and below the galactic disc. Between galaxy season (March – April) and the appearance of the Sagittarius arm of the Milky Way in the summer, is the globular so-called cluster season, which is heralded by the arrival of M3, one of the brightest and most popular of the clusters.

M3 was discovered by Charles Messier in 1764 but only correctly identified as a globular cluster twenty years later by William Herschel. Consisting of more than 500,000 million stars, of which at least 274 are variable stars, it is estimated to be over 11-billion years old, thus being some of the oldest stars in the Universe.

Using data gathered remotely from a Takahashi 106 FSQ situated in the dark skies of New Mexico, USA, the resulting image shows this spectacular object in all its glory. Apart from the marvellous star details within the cropped version of M3 (see top of the page), there’s also much to see and enjoy in the original widefield image (see above), that is also bountiful of colourful stars as well as several galaxies. Altogether I’m very pleased with the final image, which is probably my best globular cluster so far.

	IMAGING DETAILS
Object	M3 Globular Cluster AKA NGC 5272
Constellation	Canes Venatici
Distance	34,000 light-years
Size	18 arc minutes, which spans approx. 180 light-years
Apparent Magnitude	+6.2

Scope	Takahashi FSQ 106 FL 530mm f/5 + Moonlight Nightcrawler focuser
Mount	Paramount MyT
Guiding	Yes
Camera	QSI 683-WSG8 KAF-8300 full frame CCD sensor 5.4nm pixels
	FOV 1.94^o x 1.46^o Resolution 2.1”/pix. Image array 3326 x 2,507 pix
Processing	Deep Sky Stacker, PixInsight v1.8.9-1
Image Location & Orientation	Centre – RA 13:42:12.768 DEC +28:23:5.03
Exposures	L x12, R x12, G x19, B x12 x 300 secs @ -20C Total Integration Time: 4hr 35min
Calibration	30 x 300 secs Darks x56 Bias & x20 LRGB Flats
Location & Darkness	Deep Sky West – amateur hosting facility near Rowe, New Mexico – USA SQM Typically >= 21.7
Date & Time	May 2018

Glactic Waltz

June 23, 2023 by grahamrob in AstroBin, Broadband, Deep Sky Objects, Galaxy, General Astronomy, Imaging and tagged Canes Venatici, M51, Whirlpool Galaxy | Leave a comment

The size and diversity of the cosmos produces many wonderful features, of which M51 the Whirlpool Galaxy ranks highly amongst astrophotographers and is certainly one of my favourites. Unfortunately, it is at the limit for my equipment and location, though in 2020 I was fortunate to capture over 16-hours integration time and a reasonable image (see here). Whilst currently in the summer doldrums of limited darkness, I chose to process M51 data previously obtained using a Takahashi FSQ 106 located at Deep Sky West in New Mexico, USA.

Seen face-on from Earth, the balanced arms of this grand design galaxy contains dark dust lanes, blue star clusters and numerous pink star-forming regions rich in hydrogen gas. But it is the cosmic dance taking place between M51 and its companion dwarf galaxy NGC 5195 that makes this such an exciting and popular object.

The most popular theory of what’s happening, is that the smaller galaxy is passing behind M51 and the joint gravitational forces are interacting between the two, resulting in the misalignment of stars and unusually bright blue and pink areas across the M51 galaxy. Though not certain, it seems that their fates are inextricably linked and might eventually merge. Whatever the process taking place, it will take millions of years if not longer to play out and is likely to provide this exciting spectacle for many generations of astrophotographers yet to come!

Whilst I was satisfied with my image obtained here in Surrey at Fairvale Observatory in 2020, there’s no denying that the data set from New Mexico is in a different league and was a pleasure to process. Given the short focal length of both telescopes, Takahashi FSQ 106 (530mm f5) and William Optics GT 81 (382mm f4.72), out of the camera both set-ups inevitably produce a wide FOV but nonetheless pleasing images (see image above). However, the quality of the DSW data holds up much better when cropping out M51 and its dance partner, thus showing off the aforesaid details of this dynamic and colourful scene to great effect (see top of page).

	IMAGING DETAILS
Object	M51 Whirlpool Galaxy & NGC 5195
Constellation	Canes Venatici
Distance	23 million light-years
Size	Approx. 77,000 light-years (M51 only) ~10 arc minutes
Apparent Magnitude	-+8.4

Scope	Takahashi FSQ 106 FL 530mm f/5 + Moonlight Nightcrawler focuser
Mount	Paramount MyT
Guiding	Yes
Camera	QSI 683-WSG8 KAF-8300 full frame CCD sensor 5.4nm pixels
	FOV 1.94^o x 1.46^o Resolution 2.1”/pix. Image array 3326 x 2,507 pix
Processing	Deep Sky Stacker, PixInsight v1.8.9-1
Image Location & Orientation	Centre – RA 13:29:55.31 DEC +47:11:41.608 Top Left = North
Exposures	L x 16, R x 18, G x 16, B x 17 @ 900 sec & -20^oC Total Integration Time: 16hr 45min
Calibration	48 x 900 secs Darks x47 Bias & x20 LRGB Flats
Location & Darkness	Deep Sky West – amateur hosting facility near Rowe, New Mexico – USA SQM Typically >= 21.7
Date & Time	January 2018

Monkey Business

May 3, 2023 by grahamrob in Broadband, Deep Sky Objects, Equipment, General Astronomy, Imaging, Narrowband, Nebula, Software and tagged Nebulae, Orion Constellation | Leave a comment

Constellation names mostly originated from ancient Middle Eastern, Greek, and Roman cultures, when they identified groups of stars and named them after their gods, goddesses, animals, and objects that were important to them. Other world-wide groups and throughout time – Native American, Asian, and African – have also made and named similar pictures from star groups based on their cultures and related beliefs. Given the number of stars observed when looking up into a clear dark sky, it is obviously helpful to ‘construct’ familiar patterns and adopt memorable names, which can then be used to identify areas of the sky in a way that can be easily identified by all. I have no problem with this long and well-established convention, which despite their antiquity works just as well in the modern world but I do have an issue with nicknames.

I’ve smiled at some of the nicknames given to popular, usually deep sky objects that have been well established by astronomers, but despite the possible use of describing their form, I am increasingly finding them a distraction when considering the merit of astrophotography images: Seagull Nebula, Running Man Nebula, Pelican Nebula etc. The problem is that they absolutely do look like the object they’re meant to depict but, like an earworm is to music, once seen they are difficult to view any other way.

With this partly in mind, for the first time in seven years I recently chose to image NGC 2174 again. I previously used the William Optics GT81 with a modded Canon 550D DSLR camera, which resulted in an image that wasn’t too bad, except it looked like a monkey! Given its nickname of the Monkey Head Nebula, this was to be expected but unfortunately, thereafter the picture of a monkey has remained with me ever since when I view NGC 2174 images. The challenge on this occasion was therefore to limit the monkey’s impact on the image, thereby showing the object for what it really is – an emission nebula.

Using the same OTA but with a mono CMOS camera and a good set of filters, the new data set obtained was much improved, and with better processing experience it was time to see the monkey (or not) in a new light. The first thing to do was present the image in an orientation that produces a more favourable perspective (less monkey like). Using a basic SHO palette in PixInsight the initial image was promising (see below) but with an alternative PixelMath dynamic SHO palette* and then processing with autocolor script, color saturation, Russell Croman’s XT-suites and other tweaks, I was pleased to see that the monkey was nowhere to be seen in the final image (see image at the top-of-the-page), or at least to my eye.

At last, it is now possible to look at NGC 2147 and see the inherent features of this interesting emission nebula, where new stars are being born at a rapid rate. Moreover, the inner details can now be clearly viewed within, thus also showing the associated open star cluster NGC 2175 and more. As a result of this monkey make-over, the NGC 2174 image now not only looks much better but critically, I no can longer see the ape! Now where’s that Seagull?

	IMAGING DETAILS
Object	NGC 2174
Constellation	Orion
Distance	6,400 light-years
Size	40 arc secs
Apparent Magnitude	+6.80

Scope	William Optics GT81 + Focal Reducer FL 382 mm f4.72
Mount	SW AZ-EQ6 GT + EQASCOM computer control & Cartes du Ciel
Guiding	William Optics 50mm guide scope
	+ Starlight Xpress Lodestar X2 camera & PHD2 guiding
Camera	ZWO ASI294MM CMOS sensor
	FOV 2.87^o x 1.96^o Resolution 2.50”/pix Max. image size 4,144 x 2,822 pix
EFW	ZWOx8 EFW & 31mm Chroma HSO & LRGB filters
Capture & Processing	Astro Photography Tool + PHD2 + Deep Sky Stacker, PixInsight v1.8.9-1, Photoshop CS3
Image Location & Orientation	Centre = RA 6:09:39.801 DEC +20:29:12.851 Right = North Up = East
Image PI Processing: Dynamic Pixel Math*	R = (O^~O)S+~(O^~O)H G = ((OH)^~(OH))H+~((OH)^~(OH))O B = O
Exposures	Ha 36 x 300 sec (3hr), OIII 30 x 300 sec (2hr 30m), SII 32 x 300 sec (2hr 40m) Total Integration Time: 8hr 10 min
	@ 120 Gain 30 Offset @ -15^oC
Calibration	5 x 300 sec Darks 15 x HSO Flats & Dark Flats @ ADU 32,000
Location & Darkness	Fairvale Observatory – Redhill – Surrey – UK Typically Bortle 5-6
Date & Time	25^th + 26^th February + 2^nd March 2023 @ +19.00h
Weather	Approx. < 3^oC RH >=65% 🌙 +25 to +50%

Icelandic Aurora

April 7, 2023 by grahamrob in Astronomy holidays, DSLR, Earth, Equipment, General Astronomy, Imaging, Solar system, Viewing, Widefield Imaging and tagged Aurora Borealis, Northern Lights | Leave a comment

It’s just over 6-years since my last arctic adventure, which was a trip along the Norwegian coast by ship from Bergen to Kirkenes and back, stopping along the way for deliveries and pick-ups at 30-ports. On that occasion we had good views of the Aurora Borealis whilst at sea somewhere north of the Arctic Circle and with some difficulty, I was eventually able to obtain some images (see below). Standing outside on ther deck at +70^oNorth latitude in February was incredibly cold, making camera operation difficult, whilst the ship’s movement from side-to-side and up-and-down was hardly conducive to photography of the night sky!

This time, I’m just back from circumnavigating the island of Iceland by car from mid to late-March, which is described more fully on my other website Round The Bend here. It was timed to avoid the worst of winter conditions and, with darkness quickly disappearing as Spring / Summer beckoned, maybe still get a chance to see and image the Northern Lights again – this time on terra firma. Despite such planning, severe snow, ice and very strong winds were common for much of the time but, when it was clear the scenery was spectacular and, on a couple of evenings later in the trip, the Aurora Borealis put on a great show.

Situated just below the Arctic Circle, mostly between 64^oand 66^o latitude, Iceland is well known both for its geology and sightings of the Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights. As a geologist, I travelled to Iceland primarily to view the rocks and though it was getting late in the season, I was also keen to see the Aurora again if possible. Given the days of bad weather it was therefore fortunate to have clear skies and good views of the Northern Lights on two separate evenings whilst on the south coast, first at Gerdi near Jökulsárlόn and later just south of Kirkjubaejarkklaustur.

Despite my previous experience, each aurora is different and on this occasion I found using a Canon 700D DSLR mounted on a Gorilla Pod, using a Sigma wide-angle lens set at a focal length of 10mm f3.5 + ISO 3,200 and 10 second exposures generally produced a good image. It seemed that we were on the southern edge of the aurora on the first night at Gerdi (see top of the page), which was therefore weaker but exhibited a striking purple colour (helium). The following night the aurora was much stronger, this time mostly green (oxygen) with red and purple fringing (nitrogen & helium) and generally much more active, resulting in some great views with the naked eye and even better images (see below).

The Unicorn’s Finger

March 14, 2023 by grahamrob in Deep Sky Objects, Narrowband, Nebula, Star Cluster and tagged Monoceros | Leave a comment

SH2-284 is an HII star forming region of dust and gases, sculpted by the radiation and interstellar winds emanating from the young (3 to 4 million years) open star cluster Dolidze 35 located near its centre. Along the inner edge of the main ring structure are numerous dark dust pillars and Bok Globules, not unlike those of the Elephant’s Trunk nebula, of which the largest seems to resemble a hand with a large bony finger at the end pointing inwards (see cropped + rotated image below).

Despite its close resemblance to the Elephant’s Trunk and the nearby Rosette nebula, the emission nebula SH2-284 is by comparison somewhat overlooked. Being some x8 times further away it’s apparent size is a good deal smaller and much fainter in nature but still forms an excellent late winter image target.

	IMAGING DETAILS
Object	SH2-284 or LBN 983
Constellation	Monoceros
Distance	18,000 light-years
Size	0.50^o
Apparent Magnitude	Faint

Scope	William Optics GT81 + Focal Reducer FL 382mm f4.72
Mount	SW AZ-EQ6 GT + EQASCOM computer control & Cartes du Ciel
Guiding	William Optics 50mm guide scope
	+ Starlight Xpress Lodestar X2 camera & PHD2 guiding
Camera	ZWO ASI294MM CMOS sensor
	FOV 2.87^o x 1.96^o Resolution 2.50”/pix Max. image size 4,144 x 2,822 pix
EFW	ZWOx8 EFW & 31mm Chroma LRGB filters
Capture & Processing	Astro Photography Tool + PHD2 + PixInsight v1.8.9-1
Image Location & Orientation	Centre = RA 06:45:20.506 DEC +00:18:12.758 Right = North Top = East
Exposures	Ha 53 x 300 sec, OIII 36 x 300 sec, SII 36 x 300sec = 11hr 30 min R 35 x 60 sec, G 35 x 35 sec, B 34 x 60 sec = 1hr 44min Total Integration Time: 13hr 14 min
	@ 120 Gain 30 Offset @ -15^oC
Calibration	5 x 300 sec & 20 x 60 sec Darks + 15 x LRGB & Ha, OIII, SII Flats & Flat Darks @ ADU 32,000
Location & Darkness	Fairvale Observatory – Redhill – Surrey – UK Typically Bortle 5-6
Date & Time	6th^th + 7^th + 8^th + 9^th + 13^th February 2023 @ +19.30h
Weather	Approx. <=3^oC RH >=70% 🌙 Full Moon – waning

The Flame & Frogs

February 26, 2023 by grahamrob in AstroBin, Deep Sky Objects, Imaging, Nebula, Processing, Widefield Imaging and tagged Auriga | 1 Comment

There’s a lot going on in and around the Auriga constellation and this winter I’ve been mainly imaging in this region, almost exclusively using the Samyang 135 widefield rig. Here with the whopping 7.50^ox 5.67^ofield-of-view this set-up provides, it easily incorporates both emission nebulae IC405, AKA the Flaming Star Nebula and it’s nearby (visually) neighbour IC410, the Tadpoles Nebula, as well as much more.

Hydrogen gas ionized by the central AE Auriga star produces the dominant strong red colour, which combined with the rippling dust and gas lanes that run through the head of IC405 leads to a ‘flame affect’ and thus the nebula’s popular nickname.

The structures in IC410 are illuminated by radiation from the open star cluster NGC1893, located at the centre of the nebula. Hot, massive, young stars abound, especially around Simeis 129 & 130, the two tadpoles. These structures are ‘wriggling away’ from the centre of the nebula, because of the prevailing stellar winds and radiation pressure from the stars in NGC 1893.

This image is the cornerstone of a series of covering a wider area completed during January, which I intend to first present individually before, hopefully, bringing them together as an HOO mosaic later.

This image has been processed as two SHO versions of the Hubble Palette: (i) a basic mix above and (ii) using a dynamic mix ( main cropped image at top-of-the page). Once more I have been impressed by the ability of this small camera lens to produce exceptional detail and colours, but especially here with the starless Ha version of IC410, where the signature features or so-called tadpoles have been captured to great effect (see cropped starless Ha version of IC410 below).

	IMAGING DETAILS
Object	IC 405 The Flaming Star Nebula + IC 410 The Tadpoles Nebula
Constellation	Auriga
Distance	1,500 & 12,000 light-years
Size	Approx. 37’ x 10’ & 40’ x 30’
Apparent Magnitude	+6.0 & +10

Scope / Lens	Samyang 135 @f2.8
Mount	SW AZ-EQ6 GT + EQASCOM computer control & Cartes du Ciel
Guiding	Sky-Watcher EvoGuide 50ED
	+ Starlight Xpress Lodestar X2 camera & PHD2 guiding
Camera	ZWO1600MM-Cool mono CMOS sensor
	FOV 7.5^o x 5.67^o Resolution 5.81”/pix Max. Image Size 4,656 x 3,520 pix
EFW	ZWOx8 EFW & 31mm ZWO LRGB & 7nm Narrowband filters
Capture & Processing	Astro Photography Tool + PHD2 + PixInsight v1.8.9-1
Image Location & Orientation	Centre: RA 05:19:54.329 DEC +33:47:12.699 Right = North Top = East
Exposures	24 x 300 sec Ha & OIII, 18 x 300 sec SII Total Integration Time: 5 hr 30 min
	@ 139 Gain 21 Offset @ -15^oC
Calibration	10 x 300 sec Darks 20 x Flats & Flat Darks
Location & Darkness	Fairvale Observatory – Redhill – Surrey – UK Typically Bortle 5 – 6
Date & Time	2^nd & 9^th January 2023 @ +18.30h
Weather	Approx. <=2^oC RH >=80% 🌙 +80%

Supernova Sensation

February 6, 2023 by grahamrob in Deep Sky Objects, Equipment, Imaging, Narrowband, Samyang 135, SNR, Supernova, Widefield Imaging and tagged Auriga | 2 Comments

Straddling the boundary of Taurus and Auriga, is the giant supernova remnant (SNR) Simeis-147 AKA SH2-240 or the Spaghetti Nebula. It is believed that the stellar explosion that created Simeis-147 occurred some 40,000 years ago, leaving behind a rapidly spinning neutron star or pulsar at the core of the now complex, expanding SNR; the nebulous area has an almost spherical shell consisting of numerous filamentary structures. With an apparent diameter of 3^othe SNR spans some 160 light-years, making it a very large astrophotography target.

I’ve long admired the spectacular SNR Simeis-147 AKA Spaghetti Nebula, which I first imaged with my standard William Optics GT81 scope in January 2022. The outcome (see image below) was pleasing but with the limited FOV it had to be just a nibble of this large object – something of an appetiser you might say. Therefore, ever since putting my Samyang rig together last summer I’ve had only one object in mind with this excellent widefield set-up, which had to be the full menu version of Simeis-147!

Apart from its size, Simeis-147 is very faint, making long exposure time essential, which is always difficult in the UK. However, a rare spell of cold, clear nights this January provided sufficient opportunity over five nights to obtain just over 20-hours integration and a complete image of this truly magnificent SNR.

Notwithstanding the favourable conditions and long-time achieved – a record for me at this location – the faint nature of this object made image processing difficult too. After experimenting, I eventually adopted a tone mapping technique: pre-processing each individual wavelength stack before removing the stars, stretching and processing each of the starless Ha and OIII images before combining using Pixel Math in the ratio: R – (Ha*1.70) + G – (OIII*0.80)+(Ha*0.20) + B- (OIII*0.80)+(Ha*0.20).

With further processing of the HOO starless combination I was able to obtain the desired result of marvellous SNR detail, together with pleasing Ha (red) and especially OIII (blue/green) colours, that altogether with the addition of the stars and some final tweaking produced a striking image with good depth. Moreover, I feel the widefield setting achieved using the Samyang 135 lens produces a striking setting for this fascinating object.

	IMAGING DETAILS
Object	Simeis 147 / SH2-240 AKA Spaghetti Nebula
Constellation	Taurus
Distance	3,000 light-years
Size	Approx. 3.0^o
Apparent Magnitude	Extremely faint

Scope / Lens	Samyang 135 @f2.8
Mount	SW AZ-EQ6 GT + EQASCOM computer control & Cartes du Ciel
Guiding	Sky-Watcher EvoGuide 50ED
	+ Starlight Xpress Lodestar X2 camera & PHD2 guiding
Camera	ZWO1600MM-Cool mono CMOS sensor
	FOV 7.5^o x 5.67^o Resolution 5.81”/pix Max. Image Size 4,656 x 3,520 pix
EFW	ZWOx8 EFW & 31mm ZWO LRGB & 7nm Narrowband filters
Capture & Processing	Astro Photography Tool + PHD2 + PixInsight v1.8.9-1
Image Location & Orientation	Centre: RA 05:41:15.081 DEC +28:05:32.778 Right = North Top = East
Exposures	60 x 600 sec Ha, 62 x 600 sec OIII Total Integration Time: 20 hr 20 min
	@ 139 Gain 21 Offset @ -15^oC
Calibration	5 x 600 sec Darks 20 x Flats & Flat Darks
Location & Darkness	Fairvale Observatory – Redhill – Surrey – UK Typically Bortle 5 – 6
Date & Time	12^th 17^th 18^th 19^th & 21^st January 2023 @ +18.30h
Weather	Approx. <=0^oC RH >=80% 🌙 70% to 0^o New Moon

Dust Extractor

January 15, 2023 by grahamrob in General Astronomy | Leave a comment

Nestled within the western area of the Perseus Molecular Cloud, some 1,100 light-years from Earth is the colourful NGC 1333 complex, one of the closest and most active stars forming regions of the night-sky. I have long admired this exciting object but ruled it out for imaging as unsuitable for my equipment but eventually found its allure too compelling to avoid and just had to give it a try, with a surprisingly good result.

NGC 1333 shows details of dusty regions along with contrasting hints of red emissions from Herbig-Haro objects⁽¹⁾, jets and shocked glowing gases emanating from recently formed stars. In fact, the reflection nebula NGC 1333 contains hundreds of stars less than a million years old, mostly hidden from view by the prevailing dust.

Whilst NGC1333 is clearly the main act, numerous exciting objects abound throughout this complex region, including other reflection nebulae and Herbig-Haro stars, some of which which can be seen highlighted in the plate solving annotation above. However, I’m most pleased that for the first time at this Bortle 5 / 6 area I’ve been able to capture the extensive interstellar dust and gases, which really brings the entire image to life – every cloud has a silver lining. I am blown away by the outcome of this image, in the light of which I’ll need to reassess other hitherto neglected targets.

(1) Wikipedia: Herbig–Haro (HH) objects are bright patches of nebulosity associated with newborn stars. They are formed when narrow jets of partially ionised gas ejected by stars collide with nearby clouds of gas and dust at several hundred kilometres per second.

Final Word: as always, good quality data is the critical factor for all astrophotogaphy images but processing comes a close second in importance and is something I’m continually working on. This time I was able to use two new PixInsight features that were released shortly before Christmas and played an important role in completing the final image – thanks Santa.

Spectrophotometric Colour Calibration (SPCC) – based on results of the Gaia satellite’s work creating a three-dimensional map of our Galaxy, the Milky Way, SPCC usess the astrometric data (location) of all the stars and their related spectrometric data to accurately colour calibrate the image. This is an incredible piece of work that ensures that astrophotography objects, especially broadband wavelengths, can now be properly shown in their correct colours.

Blur XTerminator (BXT) – as astonishing as SPCC is, perhaps the real game changer is Russell Croman’s BXT, which literally does what it says on the tin, very, very well, and is causing something of a riot in the world of astrophotography. Like his other PixInsight tools NoiseXTerminator and StarXTerminator (also very popular), BXT is AI based with truly unbelievable results. The removal of blur, without damaging the image integrity at a pixel level, vastly improves the image quality – significantly improving the effective image resolution, which is like transforming your telescope to a more powerful, higher quality one!

	IMAGING DETAILS
Object	NGC1333
Constellation	Perseus
Distance	1,100 light-years
Size	6’ x 3’
Apparent Magnitude	+5.6

Scope	William Optics GT81 + Focal Reducer FL 382mm f4.72
Mount	SW AZ-EQ6 GT + EQASCOM computer control & Cartes du Ciel
Guiding	William Optics 50mm guide scope
	+ Starlight Xpress Lodestar X2 camera & PHD2 guiding
Camera	ZWO ASI294MM CMOS sensor
	FOV 2.87^o x 1.96^o Resolution 2.50”/pix Max. image size 4,144 x 2,822 pix
EFW	ZWOx8 EFW & 31mm Chroma LRGB filters
Capture & Processing	Astro Photography Tool + PHD2 + Deep Sky Stacker, PixInsight v1.8.8-7, Photoshop CS3, Topaz Denoise
Image Location & Orientation	Centre = RA 03:29:16.792 DEC +31:25:33.388 Right = North Top = East
Exposures	L x50 R x41 G x43 B x43 x180 sec Total Integration Time: 8hr 51 min
	@ 120 Gain 30 Offset @ -15^oC
Calibration	10 x 180 sec Darks + 15 x LRGB Flats & Dark Flats @ ADU 32,000
Location & Darkness	Fairvale Observatory – Redhill – Surrey – UK Typically Bortle 5-6
Date & Time	25^th November + 15^th & 16^th December 2022 @ +18.30h
Weather	Approx. < -1^oC RH >=85% 🌙 -40% waning

2022 The Year In Pictures

January 1, 2023 by grahamrob in General Astronomy | Leave a comment

At this time of the year, I produce an astrophotography calendar for members of my family, which consists of my better images from the year just ended. In combination with the calendar, I also compile a video of the calendar images set to appropriate music, which we all watch together prior to seeing the actual calendar. It’s a great way to present the images, which look really stunning on today’s large Smart TV’s and is also fun to watch with the family.

2022 CALENDAR

Last year’s new Chroma filters, a new ZWO ASI294MM camera, further processing improvements, dark sky data from a remote Takahashi 106 telescope in New Mexico, USA (indicated by an asterisk *) and the addition of a new widefield rig built around the excellent Samyang 135 lens, contributed to a successful astrophotography year in 2022.

The said calendar video can be viewed on YouTube by clicking HERE and below is a brief overview of each image. More detailed background information and imaging details for those interested can be found in relevant blogs I posted on this website during the year. The background music is the track Leaps and Bounds from Nils Petter Molvaer’s album Re-Vision.

COVER	Pickering’s Triangle: A close-up, starless section of the Cygnus Loop SNR (Supernova Remnant).
JANUARY	M45 Pleiades Nebula: An open star cluster containing over 1,000 stars formed in the last 100 million years. Hot, blue stars are passing through an interstellar dust cloud, with the blue light from the brighter stars reflected off the interstellar dust.
FEBRUARY	Cone Nebula: Located 2,500 light-years from Earth, this rich star forming region is full of hydrogen gas, reflection, and dark nebulae. With nearly 14-hours exposure time this narrowband image shows the Christmas Tree open star cluster, Cone Nebula, and the Fox Fur Nebula to good effect.
MARCH	Barnard-22: Close to the aforesaid Pleiades, lies the dark region of the Taurus Molecular Cloud (TMC), which at 430 light-years is the nearest star-forming region to Earth. Consisting of hundreds of solar masses of primordial hydrogen and helium gas, as well as heavier elements, this vast area of dense stardust obscures almost all light from behind; Barnard-22 forms part of the TMC.
APRIL	**Helix Nebula:*** This iconic planetary nebula in the Aquarius constellation was formed by a star near the end of its life shedding its outer layers, which is expelling the resulting gases into space.
MAY	*Thor’s Helmet**: An emission nebula, produced as a hot dying star, 20-times more massive than the Sun, emits a stream of particles expanding outwards, thus producing an interstellar bubble which here interacts with nearby molecular clouds and gives the nebula its form and glow.
JUNE	Lower’s Nebula: Located in the outer regions of the Orion constellation, between the Orion and Perseus arms of the Milky Way, the nebula mainly consists of ionized hydrogen, which is thought to be energised by a runaway star situated at its centre.
JULY	Sadr Region: This busy image uses a new widefield lens (8 x greater than my telescope’s field-of-view), framed to include some familiar objects across the very large Cygnus-X region, including the yellow-white supergiant Sadr star, Butterfly Nebula (top right) and the Crescent Nebula (centre).
AUGUST	Cygnus Loop / Western Veil Nebula: Located 1,500 light-years from Earth, this supernova is still expanding at 60 miles per second. The debris cloud has been sculpted by shock waves from the star’s explosion, with the colours arising from ionized hydrogen (red) and oxygen (blue) gases.
SEPTEMBER	*Bodes & Cigar galaxies:** Located in the constellation of Ursas Major, Bodes spiral galaxy and the Cigar irregular galaxy are 11.8 million light-years distant. These galaxies have a gravitational lock on each other which has affected the shape and composition of each other.
OCTOBER	Clamshell, North America & Pelican Nebula: The Cygnus constellation is rich in targets and by using the new widefield lens, it was possible to capture all three nebulae in one narrowband image.
NOVEMBER	Horsehead & Flame Nebula: An old favourite located in the Orion constellation, here for the first time imagedin LRGB wavelengths to produce this colourful and exciting image.
DECEMBER	Spaghetti Nebula: The beautiful complexity of this cosmic cataclysm is the product of a massive stellar explosion that took place some 40,000 years ago. Aptly named, the image concentrates on the southern lobe of this very large supernova remnant.
	HAPPY NEW YEAR & CLEAR SKIES IN 2023

Feel The Space

December 15, 2022 by grahamrob in Broadband, Deep Sky Objects, Equipment, Galaxy, General Astronomy, Imaging, Widefield Imaging and tagged Andromeda galaxy, DSO Imaging | Leave a comment

As our closest galactic neighbour, I’ve imaged M31 the Andromeda Galaxy five times since beginning my personal astrophotography journey in 2014, each time using my William Optics GT81 apo refractor – first with a DSLR, then a ASI1600mm-Cool and most recently ASI294MM cameras. Andromeda is perhaps the perfect object for my equipment, as it just fits the field-of-view of the aforesaid set-up, which produces something of an up-close-and-personal image of this alluring galaxy. But despite the success of these images, perhaps there’s an alternative view?

This year, I therefore deployed my Samyang 135 + ASI1600MM-Cool rig to capture 6 ½ hours of Andromeda, the result of which shows a whole new perspective of M31. The widefield format of this lens produces greater context than previous images, whilst still obtaining excellent details and colours of the galaxy itself. As a result, this final image (see above) better reveals the galaxy in its true glory deep in space, which in some ways I believe can be more powerful than the more popular close-up renditions of this impressive object (M31 with star reduction applied to the image below).

	IMAGING DETAILS
Object	M31 Andromeda Galaxy
Constellation	Andromeda
Distance	2.5 million light-years
Size	3.2^o x 1^oor 220,000 light-years
Apparent Magnitude	+3.44

Scope / Lens	Samyang 135 @f2.8
Mount	SW AZ-EQ6 GT + EQASCOM computer control & Cartes du Ciel
Guiding	Sky-Watcher EvoGuide 50ED
	+ Starlight Xpress Lodestar X2 camera & PHD2 guiding
Camera	ZWO1600MM-Cool mono CMOS sensor
	FOV 7.5^o x 5.67^o Resolution 5.81”/pix Max. Image Size 4,656 x 3,520 pix
EFW	ZWOx8 EFW & 31mm ZWO LRGB & 7nm Narrowband filters
Capture & Processing	Astro Photography Tool + PHD2 + Deep Sky Stacker, PixInsight v1.8.8-12, Photoshop CC, Topaz Denoise
Image Location & Orientation	Centre: RA 00:42:34.682 DEC +41:14:06.324 Right = North Top = East
Exposures	L 75 x 60 sec, R 27x G27x B22 x 180 sec, Ha 17 x 300 sec Total Integration Time: 6hr 28 min
	@ 139 Gain 21 Offset @ -15^oC
Calibration	Darks, Flats & Flat Darks
Location & Darkness	Fairvale Observatory – Redhill – Surrey – UK Typically Bortle 5-6
Date & Time	17^th, 21^st & 22^nd November 2022 @ +20.00h
Weather	Approx. <=5^oC RH >= 85% 🌙 approx. New Moon