Veil Nebula complex in Cygnus

I hate clear nights! Last week was a string of clear early dawns. I had to get out of bed very early in the mornings to set-up my gears. And in the process, waking up the dog and getting his irritated stare. My lower legs became a landing strip for mosquitoes and no amount of shaking diminished their zeal. And for what? A couple of hours each night acquiring data for this image. Its not even photogenic! But every time I look at the Cygnus constellation, I find my eyes transfixed at the area where this object is. So, I had to do it. My astro friends will hate me if they found out that I prayed for cloudy nights for this week! Its a full moon anyway . .

Technical details: 2.5 hours of H-alpha @ 10 mins per sub, 1 hour of OIII data @ 10 mins. per sub, STF8300M camera & EF200 F2.8 lens. Additional 1 hour of color from 400D DSLR @ 3 mins per sub. Bicolor (clipping masks) processed using H-alpha and OIII data. Star colors overlayed using DSLR data.

NGC 6888 The Crescent Nebula Widefield

Last week for three early dawns, I forced myself out of bed to gather data for this image of NGC 6888, popularly known as the Crescent Nebula. I attempted to frame the image with emission nebulosity at the bottom to represent an open palm seemingly catching a falling object.  The intricate folds and filaments of the Crescent respond well to the H-alpha filter while the bluish shroud covering the nebula is highlighted by using an OIII narrowband filter.

Technical details: Exposures made with H-alpha filter of 90 minutes, OIII filter of 90 minutes using STF-8300M camera. Color exposures of 60 minutes using Canon 400D DSLR. Acquisition software: Nebulosity; Processed in IRIS; Post-processing in PS CS2. I had a challenging  time processing this image as it was my first time to deal with OIII combined with H-alpha data. All data taken at my place in Taguig City.

The Jellyfish Nebula Region

This “widefield” image shows a view as wide as 10 full moons covering parts of Gemini and Orion. It shows a variety of objects, the Jellyfish Nebula and its fainter neighbor SH2-249, the bright emission and reflection nebula-Monkey head (NGC2174); and the familiar M35 star cluster at lower right. The hydrogen-alpha subs were taken from my place in Taguig City and the color subs were from Antipolo. I used “lighten mode” to initially combine the h-alpha with color but the numerous stars overwhelmed the field, so I blended the “red channel” of the color to the h-alpha and recombine with the composite color then used the HaR as luminance. I experimented in using the Canon 200 lens at brutally full F2.8 for both h-alpha and color!

Simeis 147

Simeis 147 Supernova Remnant. This is what remains of a star that exploded about 30,000 years ago. It so ancient that the expanding debris has expanded so much making it one of the faintest object in the night sky. The image is approximately 7 "full moons" in apparent diameter. It is so huge that it will not fit in the FOV of most telescopes in one go so I tried the FL200mm lens. It was also the "first light" of my STF-8300M and first time to use 10-minute long subs. It was also the first time I headed out to an astro site without testing my equipments so as expected, multiple surprises (read problems) arose. Anyway, the intention is just to capture Simeis 147. Hoping in the near future I can do justice to this beautiful object.

Astroimages & Music

The seemingly endless cloudy nights have driven me to review my astroimages taken throughout the years and combine them in a video. It was a great stress reliever doing it and I found it immensely satisfying. I never get tired watching how each images appears on the screen, reliving the moments when I first took them. Hope I can add some more beautiful images in the years to come!

IC 4592 Blue Horsehead in Scorpious

Not having a modded camera, I was limited to shooting reflection nebula with my unmodded 400D DSLR. First was M78 and next was this obscure object in Scorpious. I knew this will be challenging as it was very faint. Caliraya skies might not be dark enough to acquire good data but that burning desire to revisit this object led me to image it again. The usual process went on - acquisition, processing & post-processing. I got a pleasant surprise during post-processing when I noticed that it had striking resemblance with the Witch Head Nebula I shot last year. Both were looking at a bright star. The witch head at Rigel, and now the Blue Horse head at Graffias or Beta Scorpii. But the similarity ended there. The Blue Horse head is extremely faint. So faint that I might be so foolish to shoot it with a stock DSLR. I was wondering why there were not many images of it on the web compared to its namesake-horsehead nebula in Orion. Now I know-it is not photogenic!

M78 in Orion

M78 in Orion. My modded 350D DSLR was having err99 message last Sunday so I have to use my trusty un-modded 400D to capture this bright reflection nebula in constellation Orion. The sky allowed only 50 minutes total exposure before clouds rolled in. Initially, I didn't recognize the reddish hue at lower left, thinking it might have been a severe color gradient due to light pollution. It took time for me to realize that it was actually part of the huge Barnard's Loop!