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Saturday, September 11, 2010

NGC253, 3D transform test



Galaxy NGC 253 2D/3D transformation.




This is a small experiment to show the internal spiral structure of "Silver Dollar" galaxy better. This is simply done by stretching the galaxy image under the PhotoShop. Resulting frames are then animated to a movie file.

Original image of NGC 253 and technical details can be seen here:
http://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2010/09/ngc-253-silver-dollar-galaxy.html


NGC 253, the "Silver Dollar" galaxy




A spiral galaxy in constellation Sculptor.

This galaxy is undergoing a period of intense star formation. Areas with a Blueish hue, are most active regions of the star formation. This is a nearby galaxy, distance is "only"  about 11 million light years.
Largish target, apparent dimensions are, 27,5' x 6,8'. Longer axis is almost as wide as a full Moon (30')


A closeup to show the actual resolution. Note. there is hundreds of dim background galaxies in the image.



Technical details:

16" RCOS ja Apogee U9000 camera. 
LRGB combo. An Australian remote telescope
14x600s for the Luminance and 2x600s / RGB-channel . Dark, Bias and Flat calibrated.
Raw data is shared by Petri Kehusmaa and J-P Metsavainio

Processing workflow:
Image acquisition, MaxiDL v4.xxx
Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack.
Deconvolution with a CCDSharp, 30 iterations.
Levels, curves and color combine in PS CS3.

Friday, September 10, 2010

Opening image of the Autumn season 2010



Close up of the NGC 7000, the "North America" nebula.
Image is composed from O-III and H-a narrowband channels to a bi-color image.
This palette is close to a visiblel spectrum.

Last night we had about three hours of astronomical darkness, up here 65N.
I'll shoot more H-alpha and the S-III channel later.

An experimental starless version to show the actual nebula

Processing work flow: 
Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07. 
Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack. 
Deconvolution with a CCDSharp, 30 iterations. 
Levels, curves and color combine in PS CS3.

Telescope, Meade LX200 GPS 12" @ f5 
Camera, QHY9 Guiding, SXV-AO @ 6Hz 
Image Scale, 0,75 arcseconds/pixel 
Exposures H-alpha 7x1200s, binned 1x1
O-III 1x1200s binned 3x3

Notes.
I had some problems with the camera orthogonality. Due that, stars at to and bottom are stretched.
I'll re shoot this material again after I have fixed the problem. 


Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Galaxy NGC 613




NGC 613, barred spiral galaxy in southern constellation Sculptor. 
Distance is about 65 million light years. Image is a broadband LRGB-composition.
This target has a smallish angular diameter, about 5,5' x 4,2'. I might try this one again with a better seeing, at this time seeing was about 3,5" FWHM.


The telescope:




Close up


Technical details:

16" RCOS ja Apogee U9000 camera. 
LRGB combo.
9x600s for the Luminance and 1x600s / RGB-channel . Dark and Flat calibrated.
Raw data is shared by Petri Kehusmaa and J-P Metsavainio

Processing workflow:
Image acquisition, MaxiDL v4.xxx
Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack.
Deconvolution with a CCDSharp, 30 iterations.
Levels, curves and color combine in PS CS3.