National Astronomy Week Event 4th March 2014

WYAS held a special opening at the Rosse observatory on March 4^th as part of National Astronomy Week.

The theme was “Jupiter and its moons” The event was well attended by the public and club members. We had our 14” SCT in the dome operational, plus our 18”, 10”, 8” scopes and reverse binoculars all in use by the public.

We setup astrophotography on the 8” SCT and took these images during the night of Jupiter with a Phillips SPC800 web cam and Orion using a DSLR with a 40sec exposure at ISO3200.

NGC7023 - The Iris Nebula

The Iris Nebula (also known as Caldwell 4) is a bright reflection nebula in the constellation Cepheus. NGC 7023 is actually the cluster within the nebula, with the nebula lit by a magnitude +7 star (SAO 19158) within the cluster. The nubula lies 1,300 light-years away and is approximately six light-years across.

27/11/2013
82x300sec Subs, Darks, Flats and Bias

The North America & Pelican Nebulae

The North America Nebula (NGC 7000) and the nearby Pelican Nebula (IC 5070) are parts of the same interstellar cloud of ionized hydrogen in the constellation Cygnus. The shape of NGC7000 resembles that of the continent of North America, complete with a prominent Gulf of Mexico and the Cygnus's Wall is the term used to describe the Mexico and Central America part of the nebula; this area being the most concentrated star formations area of the whole nebula.
These nebulae are large, covering an area of more than six times the size of the full moon, and it is estimated to be about 1800 light years distance and around 100 light years across. This image is a 3-Panel mosaic covering an area approximately 3° x 2°

27/11/2013
A 3-panel mosaic.
Each Panel: 16x300sec Subs, Darks, Flats and Bias.

The Elephant's Trunk Nebula

The Elephant's Trunk is a concentration of interstellar gas and dust within the much larger ionized gas region IC 1396 located in the constellation Cepheus, about 2,400 light years away from Earth. The nebula is now thought to be a site of star formation, containing several very young stars (less than 100,000 years old) that were discovered in infrared images in 2003.

30/10/2013
25x300sec Subs, Darks, Flats and Bias

Witch's Broom & Pickering's Triangle

These nebulae are part of a much bigger nebula called the Veila Super Nova Remnant. It is a cloud of heated and ionized gas and dust in Cygnus and constitutes the visible portions of the Cygnus Loop. The source supernova exploded some 5,000 to 8,000 years ago, and the remnants have since expanded to cover an area roughly 3 degrees in diameter (about 6 times the diameter, or 36 times the area, of the full moon).

7/9/2013
25x300sec Subs, Darks, Flats and Bias

M27 Dumbbel Nebula

The Dumbbell Nebula known as M27, is a planetary nebula in the constellation Vulpecula at a distance of about 1,360 light years from Earth. This image was taken at a WYAS open night on 2nd September 2013. This was taken using my 8" Celestron U2K SCT scope guided with a Canon 40D DSLR. This image is a stack of the best 26 images taken with a 180sec exposure at ISO 800. This image has an overall combined exposure of 78 minutes approx. Images taken in RAW were stacked using Deep Sky Stacker software to create a composite image with final image processing done in Photoshop CS6 with the aid of B McSorley.

Orion's Sword

Orion’s Sword is an asterism made up of NGC1973 (The Running Man Nebula), M42/M43 (The Orion Nebula) and the bright star Iota Orionis. The centrepiece, The Orion Nebula, is one of the brightest nebulae in the sky and is visible to the naked eye. The Orion Nebula is located at a distance of around 1,344 light years and is the closest region of massive star formation to Earth. It is estimated to be approximately 24 light years across, with  a mass of about 2000 times the mass of the Sun.  It is also sometimes referred to as The Great Nebula in Orion or The Great Orion Nebula.

15/01/2013
8x300secs, 8x120secs, 8x20secs Subs, Darks, Flats and Bias.

M27 - Dumbbell Nebula

The Dumbbell Nebula also known as the Apple Core Nebula, is Messier object 27, or M 27, or NGC 6853). This is a planetary nebula in the constellation Vulpecula, and is at a distance of about 1,360 light years from Earth.

This image was taken at a WYAS open night on 19th September 2012 using one of the new piers on the Telescope pad. This was taken using my 8" Celestron U2K SCT scope unguided with a Canon 40D DSLR.

This image is a stack of the best 47 from 65 images taken. All images are 59 seconds exposure at either 800, 1200 or 1600 ISO. This image has an overall combined exposure of 46 minutes approx. Images taken in RAW were stacked using Deep Sky Stacker software to create a composite image with final image processing done in Photoshop CS5. 

Orion Nebula January 23rd and March 27th 2012

The Orion Nebula also known as M42, or NGC 1976) is a diffuse nebula situated south of Orion's Belt in the constellation of Orion. It is one of the brightest nebula, and is visible to the naked eye in the night sky. M42 is located at a distance of 1,344 light years away and is the closest region of massive star formations to Earth. M42 nebula is estimated to be 24 light years across.

January 23rd 2012

This image of Orion was taken with the WYAS 14" Meade SCT.

I used my Canon 40D with an f6.3 reducer to enlarge the view area to capture the full expanse of the Nebula. The image consists of 15 out of 30, 60 second exposures taken at ISO 500. This is approx. 15 minutes exposure time.Stacked in DSS (Deep Sky Stacker), saved as a 32Bit TIF file and then final processing was done in CS5.

Final processing can adjust the tones, color and overall image to show different parts of the Nebula.

The two images to the right are the same base image file but they have been processed differently in the final CS5 processing. 

Which do you prefer??

 March 27th 2012

This image was taken at a WYAS open night on the Telescope pad.

This image is a stack of 38 x 20sec. frames @ ISO 640 using my Canon 40D on my Celestron 8" U2K SCT. This is approx. 12.6 minutes exposure time. Images taken in RAW were stacked using Deep Sky Stacker software to create a composite image with final image processing done in CS5. 

Note the overall exposure on all these images has not burnt out the star cluster in the middle of Orion. However, you can see that the blacks on the upper two images are much better than the lower image. This is partly due to the position of Orion in the sky in March and visibility in March was slightly cloudy which has not given as clear an image.   HOWEVER, it does show that you can obtain acceptable images even when seeing is not as good as it could be. 

M42 - The Great Orion Nebula

This image is a stack of 22 30sec. frames taken on the 8th of January 2011 using my Canon EOS550D and Skywatcher 200P, unguided. It was quite a windy evening so I had to discard about 30-40 shots due to camera shake! The RAW files from the camera were enhanced slightly and converted to 16bit TIFFs using the Canon supplied software - Digital Photo Professional. From here they were stacked using DeepSkyStacker, together with Darks and Flats and then finished off using the GIMP. I used this convoluted method because DeepSkyStacker doesn't seem to work too well with the RAW images from my camera (maybe I'm doing something wrong?) but it works very nicely with TIFFs.
The center of the nebula is a bit over-exposed but all in all, quite a pleasing result....

M42 - 101006

A clear but very dewy night with some high haze. I couldn't resist this. Always a difficult target because of its wide dynamic range. I tried to get a reasonable result without having to take a variety of exposure lengths, short to suit the Trapezium and long to suit the nebulosity. The equipment used was the WO 98 and M25C, but the work is mostly in the processing and this time I tried a self-devised DDP curve in Photoshop. I think with a modicum of success, but many more chances to photograph this target in the coming months.
The exposure was 15x120sec, perhaps between two stools? But the process is worth pursuing for this or other targets.
Stacking and calibration, flats and bias, in AstroArt and all the rest in Photoshop, including some GradX and High Pass sharpening.

The North American, Ferret and Pelican - NGC7000 and NGC5070

These are, or this is, a large nebular cloud to the left of Deneb in Cygnus.
Taken last year with the Pronto on a Meade 14" and my M25C. The exposure was 14x300sec and it was guided by the Meade and an H9C. Acquired in AstroArt and processed there and in Photoshop.
The North American is the large part to the left and the Pelican is the smaller one to the right. The Ferret is the smaller one between them around the 2 bright stars, the eyes. You need an astronomer's imagination. The ferret needs a lot of it,
the Pelican is quite clear but the North American I see as a Water Buffalo. Choose your own names if you don't like these.

M17 - The Swan

It's upside-down here so looks more like a swan than in the sky, where it can be seen visually, with a big enough telescope, as a fairly bright and recognisable shape. It was taken with an M25C and Vixen VMC260L with a Meade 6.3 focal reducer in the optical train to widen the field of view.
Taken on the 16th of June this year, this object is very low in the south so fraught with light pollution and thick air introducing diffraction problems etc. But shortening the focal length eases many difficulties, as does an IDAS LPS filter.
The exposure was 7x300sec, 25 dome flats were taken too, but no darks, and it was processed in AstroArt and Photoshop CS2.