Month: August 2016

NGC6820 Nebula

August 23, 2016
H II nebula
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NGC6820 Nebula doesn’t have a name, so let’s call it Hidden octopus nebula (because only one tentacle is visible). Hidden octopus nebula is a giant cloud (50 light years in diameter) of ionized hydrogen alpha gas, where new stars are born. The tentacle forms a similar structure just like in the more famous M16 Eagle nebula. It’s located in the constellation Vulpecula (Little fox) not far from M27 Dumbbell nebula and it’s 6000 light years from Earth.

The picture was processed in the bi-color technique. This means I collected the photos through two filters: H alpha and OIII. H alpha was inserted into the red channel, and OIII into the green and blue one.

ngc6823-nebula-2016-08-04-300s-30c-22ha-20oiiii-fl1000-gpu

Telescope:Newton 254/1000 mm
Aperture:254 mm
Focal length:1000 mm
Mount:Gemini GF53f
Autoguiding:ZWO 174MM, TS 60/240 mm
Camera:Moravian instruments G2 8300M @-30C
Corrector:GPU
Filters:Baader Ha OIII
Exposure:22xHa 30 s, 20xOIII, bin 1x1
Date:2016-08-23

M11 Wild Duck Cluster

August 10, 2016
Open cluster
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Wild Duck Cluster is one of the biggest known open star cluster. It’s located in constellation Aquila (Eagle), it contains approximately 2900 stars (you can count them on the picture) and it’s very far – 5500 light years from the Solar system. The name “Wild Duck” comes from the observation of Admiral Smyth – he saw wedge-shape group of stars. I don’t know about you, but I don’t see any V-shape formation, maybe Admiral Smyth was observing during very cold night and tried to warm up by grog or something.

M11 Wild Duck Cluster

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NGC7023 Iris nebula

August 10, 2016
Reflection nebula
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Iris nebula is one of the most difficult deep space object to capture. Not the nebula itself, but the dark clouds around it. In order to capture these clouds you have to be under very good skies – with minimal light pollution. The reason is simple – the clouds are dark, but the background as well, therefore if you want to visualize the contrast between something which is dark and something which is even darker, good skies are essential. Since I live in sub-urban area, I had to wait till 1 o’clock at night. At this time nearly all street lamps are switched off and the light pollution drops to acceptable level.

Anyway back to the nebula – it’s reflective nebula (similar to Pleiades) located in constellation Cepheus. It’s 1300 light years far from the Solar system and it has 6 light years in diameter.

NGC7023-Iris-2016-08-08-30C-17x300sL-14x120sRGBb2-FL1000-GPU

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M17 – Omega Nebula

August 3, 2016
H II nebula
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Omega Nebula is a giant cloud of the hydrogen gas where new stars are born. It’s around 5000 light years from Solar system and it has 15 light years in diameter. The nebula is located in constellation Sagittarius (The Archer) and it’s the most massive star-forming location in our galaxy. Visual observation is possible, but only with the telescope (medium or big aperture) and from the place with low light pollution.

Since this nebula is visible in summer, there is not enough time to collect enough photons during one night (short nights in summer). Therefore I had to photograph this deep space object several nights (4 in total) and I collected 7.2 hours of the exposure time. Since the light pollution is quite high on the south, I used narrowband filters to collect three channels (H alpha, OIII and SII). I was playing with pixel math and placing partially some narrowband images into Red Green Blue channels and here are the results of my experimentations:

M17-2016-07-05-22Ha32OIII32SII-300s-30C-FL1000-01 M17-2016-07-05-22Ha32OIII32SII-300s-30C-FL1000-RGB M17-2016-07-05-22Ha32OIII32SII-300s-30C-FL1000-SCNR

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