AAPOD2 Image Archives

Sort 2024 By Month: January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December

December 2021, 2021 Jason Matter December 2021, 2021 Jason Matter

M42 and Running Nebula

I Image Description and Details :

Setup: Skywatcher 200/800 + Qhy10 CCD + Optolong L-Pro/ Neq6 rowan Mod / 50mm guide scope + asi 120 mm mini / 36*300s, gain 3 temp -10
Zone: Penne (Italy), bortle class 5/6

Copyright: Mazzocchetti Marco

Read More
2021, December 2021 Jason Matter 2021, December 2021 Jason Matter

m92

Image Details

Messier 92 (also known M 92, or NGC 6341) is a globular cluster of stars in the northern constellation of Hercules. It was discovered by Johann Elert Bode in 1777, then published in the Jahrbuch during 1779. It was inadvertently rediscovered by Charles Messier in 1781 and added as the 92nd entry in his catalogue. It is about 26,700 light-years away from the Solar System. It is one of the brighter of its sort in apparent magnitude in the northern hemisphere and in its absolute magnitude in the galaxy, but it is often overlooked by amateur astronomers due to angular proximity to bright cluster Messier 13, about 20% closer. It is visible to the naked eye under very good conditions.

This image taken in September 2021.
L-channel - 60 x 150 sec. bin 1x1;
R-channel - 24 x 150 sec. bin 1x1;
G-channel - 24 x 150 sec. bin 1x1;
B-channel - 24 x 150 sec. bin 1x1.
Total integration time about 05:30 hours.

My setup: Telescope 8" Celestron Schmidt-Cassegrain (SCT) CPC800 GPS (XLT) on the equatorial wedge, focal reducer Starizona Night Owl 0.4х, Feq=864mm, camera Starlight Xpress Trius SX694, SX mini filter wheel, filters Astrodon LRGB E-series gen.2 .
Capture and processing software: MaxIm DL6, PHD2, PixInsight, StarTools, Photoshop CC, Zoner photo studio 14.
North at the top.

Copyright: Boris Vladimirovich

Read More
2021, December 2021 Jason Matter 2021, December 2021 Jason Matter

Ferrero 6 (Fe 6) Planetary Nebula

Image Description and Details : I have been capturing Ferrero 6 for two months on my second rig. Typically here in Michigan USA, the autumn has the most amount of clear nights out of the year. Subsequently I planned on a deep space object that was very faint and challenging. Unfortunately this autumn was not typical at all with a major amount of cloudy nights and precipitation, like the rest of this past year here. Even with the amount of integration time I piled on, I really had to massage the data pretty hard. Very few have attempted to capture it, so I thought I would give it a try.

Ferrero 6 (Ferrero 6 • Fe6 • PN G129.6+03.4) Planetary Nebula was discovered as part of the IPHAS survey. It's spectroscopically was confirmed as a true planetary nebula by the professional astronomer Laurence Sabin in September 2011. It has also been independently discovered by the French amateur astronomer Laurent Ferrero in 2013. Its structure consists of a low surface brightness bubble with a size of 3.5 arcminutes, which is accentuated by a thin bright rim on the outside. It is very likely to be an ancient evolved planetary nebula that is interacting with the interstellar medium.

Copyright: Copyright: Douglas J Struble

Read More
December 2021, 2021 Jason Matter December 2021, 2021 Jason Matter

Thor's Helmet

Image Description and Details :

Popularly called Thor's Helmet, NGC 2359 is a hat-shaped cosmic cloud with wing-like appendages. Heroically sized even for a Norse god, Thor's Helmet is about 30 light-years across. In fact, the cosmic head-covering is more like an interstellar bubble, blown with a fast wind from the bright, massive star near the bubble's center. Known as a Wolf-Rayet star, the central star is an extremely hot giant thought to be in a brief, pre-supernova stage of evolution. NGC 2359 is located about 15,000 light-years away toward the constellation of the Great Overdog. This remarkably sharp image is a mixed cocktail of data from broadband and narrowband filters, capturing not only natural looking stars but details of the nebula's filamentary structures. The star in the center of Thor's Helmet is expected to explode in a spectacular supernova sometime within the next few thousand years.

Location/Date – El Sauce, Chile

Imaging System – Planewave CDK17, FLI ML16803, Chroma HaO3RGB filters, 10 Micron GM3000

Exposure – HORGB, 27.5 hours

Copyright: Good Astronomy

Read More
2021, December 2021 Jason Matter 2021, December 2021 Jason Matter

Tadpoles

Image Description and Details :

Taken with C11Edge with 0.7x reducer, Celestron OAG and ASI 1600. Filters were Astrodon 3nm. 13 hours evenly distributed between the Ha, OIII and SII using 300 sec subs and a gain of 300.

Copyright: R.A. Dryfoos

Read More
2021, December 2021 Jason Matter 2021, December 2021 Jason Matter

Comet A1 Leonard

Image Description:

C /. A1 Leonard, the first comet discovered by mankind in the year of., has recently become better. According to predictions, it will become the brightest comet of the year, and is expected to reach a level visible to the naked eye next month. Of course, don't expect to compare to last year's new intelligent comet, at best, a little comet that is visible in a binoscope.
Comet Leonard is a long-period comet, previously orbital period of about years. On December, it will fly Venus, most recently only kilometers. On January, next year, it will pass through the close point of this return. Later, it will move further along a double-curved orbit, likely never to return near the Sun again.
This is sometimes the same in life, don't know how many people or things will be seen after first sight?
November,,,,,, Newton reflector + QHY268M Black and White Refrigeration Camera + Ulong 2 LRGB Filter + Eton CEM120 Equator, focal length 1000 mm, f / 4, refrigeration-15°C, 55 Zhang * seconds, accumulates exposure to minutes.

Copyright: Steed Yu

Read More
2021, December 2021 Charles Lillo 2021, December 2021 Charles Lillo

Himalayan Chandra Telescope

Image Description and Details :

The Indian Astronomical Observatory (IAO), located in Hanle near Leh in Ladakh, India, has one of the world's highest sites for optical, infrared and gamma-ray telescopes. It is currently the tenth highest optical telescope in the world, situated at an elevation of 4,500 meters. Accessing the observatory, located near the Chinese border, requires a six hour drive from Leh, the capital city of Ladakh. The location is deemed to be excellent for visible, infrared and millimeter observations throughout the year due to its low temperatures, humidity, and light pollution. The Himalayan Chandra Telescope is a 2 meter optical-infrared telescope named after Nobel laureate Subramaniam Chandrasekhar. It is a modified Ritchey-Chretien system with a primary mirror made to withstand low temperatures. Imaging instruments include a Faint Object Spectrograph, a near infra-red and an optical CCD camera. The telescope is remotely operated via an INSAT-3B satellite link which allows operation even in sub-zero temperatures in winter.Camera – Sony A7iiiLens – Sony 50mm F1.4Tracker – Fornax LighttrackIIForeground – F11 30 secs iso 800Sky – F4 480secs iso 400Software - PixInsight and Photoshop

Copyright: Vikas Chander

Read More
2021, December 2021 Jason Matter 2021, December 2021 Jason Matter

M78

Squarespace <form-submission@squarespace.info>

Sun, Nov 21, 11:45 PM (9 hours ago)

to me

Sent via form submission from

Image Title: M78 -Stellar Birthplace

Upload your image file, please make your file name as unique as possible!: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1wfHP-6MgmX56a8kce4KuHX1mnfhO5BgR

Video Link?:

Date image was taken: 11/12/2021

Image Description and Details : Messier 78 is the other (IMHO) "great" nebula in Orion, sitting just above Orions' belt. M87 and its companion nebulae NGC2064, NGC2967, and NGC2071 are reflection nebulae in the Orion B molecular cloud. Reflection nebulae are where surrounding gas and dust is illuminated by stars.
They are usually blue in color, and for the same reasons our home world skies are blue.
The curvilinear shapes are carved out by the stellar wind of some very energetic stars.

M78 is the bright area in the center of the image, to the right of this there is a swirl of dust that looks just like the eye-wall of a hurricane, and the side lighting gives some 3-D information about the structure.
Lower to the left there is a dark nebula with tendrils and orange/red light peeping through, this is a stellar birthplace and home to 17 Herbig-Haro objects (energetic jets from new born stars)
I shot this image over 6 nights from the New Mexico desert, M78 still being a late riser so this image was shot at low elevation in the early hours of the morning. This is a full-frame image with minimal cropping at 2560mm focal length @ f7.

Tech stuff:
Scope : Planewave CDK14
Mount : Planewave L-350
Camera : ZWO ASI 6200 MM Pro ZWO filter wheel Astronomik filters
24 x 10 min Red
20 x10 min Green
18 x10 min Blue
All unguided. Darks no flats.
Shot as Bin 1 downsampled to Bin 2x2 in Pixinsight

Copyright: Richard Whitehead 2021

Read More
2021, December 2021 Jason Matter 2021, December 2021 Jason Matter

b33 - HORSEHEAD NEBULA

Image Description and Details :

This image of the horsehead shot in collaboration with a dear friend of mine astrophile. It is about a 3-hour shoot through H-alfa filter and luminance taken by myself through an Apo 152/1200 refractor with the addition of color made by my friend with the T32 telescope from Australia with 1 hour of integration.

Copyright: Valter Luna

Read More
2021, December 2021 Jason Matter 2021, December 2021 Jason Matter

NGC 7129

Image Description and Details :

Young suns still lie within dusty NGC 7129, some 3,000 light-years away toward the royal constellation Cepheus. While these stars are at a relatively tender age, only a few million years old, it is likely that our own Sun formed in a similar stellar nursery some five billion years ago. Most noticeable in the sharp image are the lovely bluish dust clouds that reflect the youthful starlight. But the compact, deep red crescent shapes are also markers of energetic, young stellar objects. Known as Herbig-Haro objects, their shape and color is characteristic of glowing hydrogen gas shocked by jets streaming away from newborn stars. Paler, extended filaments of reddish emission mingling with the bluish clouds are caused by dust grains effectively converting the invisible ultraviolet starlight to visible red light through photoluminesence. Ultimately the natal gas and dust in the region will be dispersed, the stars drifting apart as the loose cluster orbits the center of the Galaxy.Imaging System: Planewave CDK14, Paramount ME2, FLI 16803/Chroma filtersExposure – LRGB, 15 hoursProcessing – PixinsightLocation/Date - Fort Davis, Texas / October 2021

Copyright: Good Astronomy/Steve Timmons

Read More
2021, December 2021, 2021 Monthly Winners Jason Matter 2021, December 2021, 2021 Monthly Winners Jason Matter

NEW DISCOVERY: StDr 140 - Lori's Nebula in Gemini

Image Description and Details :

A new discovery of a candidate planetary nebula in the constellation Gemini. The object was discovered by my good friends the German-French team of Marcel Drechsler and Xavier Strottner in October 2021 using digital sky surveys. This is their 140th joint discovery. Currently, only very few planetary nebulae are known in the Gemini constellation, and now this impressive new nebula has been added. Because the PN candidate is rich in ionised oxygen (OIII), the object appears in a ghostly turquoise blue. It is at an estimated 4,250 light years from Earth.
My thanks to Marcel Drechsler for so expertly processing this image.
Image captured on my remote dual rig at Fregenal de la Sierra in Spain between 4-15 November 2021.
Scopes: APM TMB LZOS 152 Refractors
Cameras: QSI6120wsg8
Mount: 10Micron GM2000 HPS
A total of 76 hours 35 minutes image capture (HaOIIILRGB)


Copyright: Peter Goodhew

Read More
November 2021, 2021 Jason Matter November 2021, 2021 Jason Matter

The "Great Orion nebula" and "Running man nebula"

Image Description:

Picture was captured 5 and 6 november 2021 in Chile, Borttle 4 class . Telescope WO ZenithStar 103, Reductor 0.8, Mount Ioptron Cem40, Filter: UVIR Cut Optolong, Asiairpro, Autoguide 240 mm. 160 lights at 180 secs, 180 lights at10 secs, 100 flats, 100 darks, processed in Pixinsight for Mac.

Copyright: Fabrizzio Falconi Romanini

Read More
2021, November 2021 Jason Matter 2021, November 2021 Jason Matter

Sh2-308

Image Description:

This is an image of SH2-308, also known as the Dolphin Head Nebula. It is a huge bubble of mostly ionized oxygen gas about 5,200 light years away in the constellation Canis Major. It is formed by the strong solar winds of a Wolf-Rayet star near the center of the nebula. Wolf-Rayet stars are about 20 times the mass of the sun and are thought to be in the pre-supernova stage of star evolution. The nebula spans an area about the size of the full moon and is about 60 light years in diameter.

November 11, 2021                    

Location: Rio Hurtado, Chile         

Telescope: ASA 500N                  

Camera: FLI PL16803                  

Mount: ASA DDM85                     

Ha: 16x10 minutes (binned 1x1)       

OIII: 20x10 minutes (binned 1x1)     

RGB: 4x5 minutes each (binned 1x1)   

Copyright 2021 Bernard Miller        

Read More
2021, November 2021 Jason Matter 2021, November 2021 Jason Matter

M16 - SHO, the Pillars of Creation

Image Description and Details :

This is a Narrowband image of the iconic M16, NGC 6611, using the Sulphur, Hydrogen, Oxygen (SHO) Hubble Palette convention.
Central to the image are the “Pillars of Creation” as detailed in the famous Hubble Space Telescope image.
The result was very different to my previous work with M20 and I have to say, much easier to get an aesthetically pleasing result.I firstly removed the magenta hue. The blue and gold colours were there from the outset but I enhanced these whilst subduing the green. Overall the result is, I think, in keeping with other reference images that use the Hubble palette.
I used Starnet and then Photoshop, using Kevin Morefield's process to end up with a high quality starless image. From there I was able to apply a number of processes such as HDRMT, LHE, and Unsharp Masking, with judicious use of denoising as well as Curves Transformation to improve the sharpness, definition and contrast, evolving the colours to the classic Hubble palette appearance.
I initially added back the SHO stars, dealing with the usual pink halos, but subsequently reprocessed my RGB data to add back the RGB stars. This gave a more natural and colourful appearance to the stars, which integrated very well. I subdued the stars with Morphological Transformation coming to what I think is a nice balance.
Data capture: 2021-08-13 to 2021-09-09
OTA: C14 EdgeHD
Mount: MX+
Camera: SBIG 16803
Filters: Astronomik 50mm unmounted
Lights: 25.5 hours of integration
Ha: 17 x 1800 secs
OIII: 17 x 1800 secs
SII: 17 x 1800 secs
Bias: 35
Darks: 35
Flats 20 per colour channel per camera change
RA/Dec Coordinates
RA 18h18m45.96s
Dec -13°47'55.59"

Copyright: Niall MacNeill

Read More
2021, November 2021 Jason Matter 2021, November 2021 Jason Matter

The Crescent and Soap Bubble

Image Description and Details :Imaging telescopes: Askar FRA400 F5.6 · GSO RC8" Carbon TubeImaging cameras: ZWO ASI294MM Pro · ZWO ASI1600MM ProMounts: iOptron CEM26 · iOptron CEM70Guiding cameras: ZWO ASI174MM mini · ZWO ASI120MM MiniFocal reducers: Askar 0.7x Reducer · Astro Physics CCDT67Software: PHD2 PHD 2 · N.I.N.A. · PixInsightFilters: Antlia Ha 3nm Pro · Antlia Oiii 3nm Pro · Astrodon Ha 3nm · Astrodon OIII 3nmAntlia Ha 3nm Pro: 60x600" (10h)Antlia Oiii 3nm Pro: 60x600" (10h)Astrodon Ha 3nm: 12x1800" (6h)Astrodon Ha 3nm: 60x600" (10h)Astrodon OIII 3nm: 32x1800" (16h)Astrodon OIII 3nm: 60x600" (10h)Integration: 62h

Copyright: Tal Akerman

Read More
2021, November 2021 Jason Matter 2021, November 2021 Jason Matter

M27 Collaboration

Image Description and Details : 3 astrophotographers' collaboration on M27 :

Halpha and Oiii long exposures with Newton 10" and ASI2600mm : 224 x 300s by Mathieu Guinot
Halpha and Oiii long exposures with RC16" and ASI2600mm : 200x300s by Sebastien Kuenlin
RVB long exposures with Newton 10" and ASI2600mm : 90x120s by Mathieu Guinot
Halpha lucky imaging with Newton 12"and Playerone Neptune color II : 5000x2.5s by Stephane Gonzalez
IR - RVB lucky imaging with Newton 12"and Playerone Neptune color II : 40000x500ms by Stephane Gonzalez

The processing of the M27 nebula always presents a certain difficulty and forces choices because of the great difference in luminosity between the core and the extensions on the one hand, and the strong presence of Halpha and Oiii signals on identical zones on the other hand.
These artistic choices have been made with maximum respect for the scientific coherence of the object, although this is not 100% possible: indeed, one obtains a saturated core if one wants to take advantage of the signal on the most distant extensions, or one does not distinguish these if one wants to maintain an unsaturated core. It is therefore necessary to use HDR processing as sparingly as possible, which inevitably alters the object's dynamic range but allows a compromise to highlight the different signals making up the nebula.

In the end we are very happy to present the fruit of this work with the objectives fulfilled:

- to enjoy the details of the short exposures
- to take advantage of the extensions of the long exposures
- to ensure coherence between the levels of detail thanks to the intermediate image taken in long exposure at long focal length
- keep the dynamics of the object as "real" as possible
- not to perceive any artefact or transition linked to the mixing of the three images


Sébastien, Stéphane and Mathieu, November 2021

Copyright: Stephane Gonzalez, Sébastien Kuenlin and Mathieu Guinot

Read More
November 2021, 2021 Jason Matter November 2021, 2021 Jason Matter

CG4 Cometary Globule in Puppis

Image Description and Details :

Image acquired using the Telescope Live remote imaging platform.Telescope: ASA 500N Newtonian. 500mm aperture, focal length 1900mm, f/3.8CCD Camera: Finger Lake Instruments FLI 16803.Equatorial Mount: ASA DDM85 direct drive.Astrodon LRGB filters.L: 15 x 600sR: 12 x 600sG: 10 x 600sB: 12 x 600sProcessed with Astro Pixel processor, PixInsight and Affinity Photo.

Copyright: Nik Szymanek

Read More
2021, November 2021 Jason Matter 2021, November 2021 Jason Matter

The Pillars of Darkness (B22 Region)

Image Description and Details :

This is part of the Taurus Molecular cloud complex apparently located about halfway between the Pleiades and Aldebaran and about ~430 l.y. from here. The shape of the nebula reminds me of a darker version of the Eagle Nebula's Pillars of Creation, leading to my title. Also captured, though only as 6 small smears, is a 70km-wide asteroid called 322 Phaeo (discovered 1891) which was moving through the area at the time. I shot this nebula was shot in Bortle 1 skies over 6 nights at the 2021 Okie-Tex Star Party in Western Oklahoma during early October 2021. Transparency throughout the week was mediocre so only 16 hours of a larger 26 hour total was used for stacking. William Optics Star71-II APO (345mm FL, f/4.9)ZWO ASI1600MM-P at Gain 76 & -10C, ZWO LRGB filtersLum: 316 x 120"(Rx62, Gx56, Bx64) x 120"APT for capture, PixInsight for stacking & processing

Copyright: Brent Newton

Read More
2021, November 2021 Jason Matter 2021, November 2021 Jason Matter

Sparkles in the Sun

Image Description and Details :

Solar Activity on October 25, 2887,2890, 2886, I was able to capture the large bulge that was had that day, M1.3 class flashes, we are still in the solar shekel number 25, which according to estimates, could last much less than expected , due to the great activity that has been seen, and that was ahead of the forecasts, for now to enjoy these spectacular solar landscapes, at every moment the sun gives us a different view, to capture it!

Copyright: Arturo Buenrostro

Read More