AAPOD2 Image Archives
A Cosmic Mess - 80 hours of M81 and M82
mage Description and Details :
This 80-hour image shows a deep look into the area of the two galaxies M81 and M82 and surroundings. The well known Integrated Flux Nebula shows a lot of detail Arp's loop is clearly defined. Another very interesting part were the H-Alpha observations. Nothing new, really, but rarely shown in a field this wide. For one the "Cap of M82". Its a small area of glowing hydrogen next to M82, likely associated with the Starburst.The small galaxy Holmberg IX also showed a lot of hydrogen signal, that's why it almost looks purple instead of the "usual" blue.The image was taken from January through April 2021, in 11 different nights. Roughly 2/3 of the data was acquired from a dark site, the rest in my Bortle 6 Backyard. Image details: 80 hours total integration time 21h Luminance 8h Red8h Green8h Blue35h H-AlphaCelestron RASA8 Skywatcher EQ6QHY 183M Processing mainly done in PixInsight, though some in Photoshop
Copyright: Julian Shroff
A Sunflower in a Sea of Shattered Stars
Image Description and Details :
This image shows the galaxy M63, also known as the Sunflower Galaxy. What sets this galaxy apart from other spiral galaxies is its extensive halo and tidal stream. These streams often occur when a galaxy has a close encounter with a nearby satellite galaxy. The result is a big stream of remnants of the satellite galaxy.The image was taken throughout February(13.02, 18.02, 20.02, 22.02, 01.03.) and early March, party out of my backyard, party from a dark site, both located near Freiburg in Germany.The gear used was the following: Celestron RASA8, QHY183M, Skywatcher EQ6, TS-Optics LRGB filters. The exposures were mainly 90sec at Gain 0, though some had 60s subs because of the moon. Total integration time amounts to 25hours.Processing was mainly done in PixInsight, although I also used Adobe Photoshop and AstroPixelProcessor. The main challenge was to bring out all the faint dust without "blowing up" the stars and details, PixInsights multiscale processing certainly helped a lot in making that possible.
Copyright: Julian Shroff