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Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Start of the new projects, Sh2-216 & LDN 1622



This time I'll work with two objects, since LDN 1622 is very low up here, 65 North. I can shoot about two and half hours, before it's too low. My second target for rest of the night is Sharpless 216, an extremely faint planetary nebula. Both projects have been started at 20.02.



LDN 1622, a dark nebula in Orion
Ra 05h 55m 11s Dec +02° 00′ 00"


A gray scale image of H-alpha emission. I'll shoot rest of the emission lines, needed for a color image, later.

LDN 1622, "Boogie Man Nebula", in Orion is a silhouette of dark nebula at lower half of the image. At background, there is part of the "Parnad's Loop", a large cloud of hydrogen surrounding the nebula complex at Belt and Sword of Orion. LDN 1622 is much closer, than a more famous Orion nebulae, about 500 light years.
This target is very difficult to shoot, since it doesn't rise high, up here 65N. Maximum elevation is only about 27 degrees, at the end of the imaging session, the elevation is only 14 degrees above horizon.  I actually had to stop imaging for a while, to avoid a chimney at top of the opposite building. 

Processing work flow:
Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07.
Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack. 
Levels, curves and color combine in PS CS3.

Equipments:
Tokina AT-X 300mm f2.8 @ f2.8
Platform and guiding, Meade LX200 GPS 12" @ f5
Camera, QHY9
Guider, Lodestar
Image Scale, 3,79 arc seconds/pixel

Exposures:
Baader H-alpha 7nm 12x1200s, binned 1x1




Sh2-216, A planetary Nebula in Perseus
Ra 04h 45m 35s Dec +46° 48′ 30"


A gray scale image of H-alpha emission. I'll shoot rest of the emission lines, needed for a color image, later.

Sharpless 216 (aka Simeis 288, Marsalkova 44, LBN 742, GN 04.41.3) is a closest known planetary nebula and also one of the oldest known. Due the old age, it's very diffused, dim and large, apparent diameter is about 1,6 degrees. This must be one of the dimmest targets I ever have shot!

Processing work flow:
Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07.
Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack. 
Levels, curves and color combine in PS CS3.

Equipments:
Tokina AT-X 300mm f2.8 @ f2.8
Platform and guiding, Meade LX200 GPS 12" @ f5
Camera, QHY9
Guider, Lodestar
Image Scale, 3,79 arc seconds/pixel

Exposures:
Baader H-alpha 7nm 30x1200s, binned 1x1 (10h)




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