Pocketrubbish

Barnard 72, the Snake Nebula

Dan — Thu, 16 May 2013 03:10:31 +0000

Finally had a decent night! Last months weather was poor but we got a break last weekend. Perfect conditions all night long. This is a pretty tough target, tons of bright stars combined with super faint dust make processing interesting. I think I may revisit this area soon

Image Location and Date: Orange County Astronomers dark site in Anza, CA, May 11th
Object: Coma Cluster
Mount: Orion Atlas EQ-G
Imaging scope: Orion 8″ f3.9 Astrograph
Imaging FL: 800mm
Imaging focal ratio: f3.9
Imaging camera: Canon 1100D (Rebel T3) Modded with CLS-CCD filter
Lights: 47x300sec @ ISO 1600

Calibration: Darks, flats, Bias
Guide scope: Tair-3c with Orion StarShoot Auto Guider
Other details: guiding with PHD, captured with APT, processed in PixInsight + PS

Coma Galaxy Cluster

Dan — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 06:56:05 +0000

I’ve always wanted to go after this one and while the site I use really isn’t dark enough for this sort of work I decided to have a go at it anyways.

I also noticed that my T3 has the dark line under bright stars problem! I always use 1600 ISO but for this image I decided to experiment with 800 ISO. So back to 1600 ISO from now on.

Image Location and Date: Orange County Astronomers dark site in Anza, CA, Feb 16th
Object: Coma Cluster
Mount: Orion Atlas EQ-G
Imaging scope: Orion 8″ f3.9 Astrograph
Imaging FL: 800mm
Imaging focal ratio: f3.9
Imaging camera: Canon 1100D (Rebel T3) Modded
Lights: 40x600sec @ ISO 800

Calibration: Darks, flats, Bias
Guide scope: Tair-3c with Orion StarShoot Auto Guider
Other details: guiding with PHD, captured with APT, processed in PixInsight + PS

You really have to see the full scale image to see all the tiny galaxies in the background. Pretty cool.

Here is an annotated version pointing out Quasar HB89(1256+280). This is an object over 10 BILLION light years away.

Rosette Nebula HaRGB

Dan — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 06:28:52 +0000

Had a go at the Rosette over the last two weekends. I knew it would fill up my frame (and then some) but thats okay, I wanted all the pretty inner details. I captured the RGB last weekend, only got a couple hours because of snow/fog/clouds. Went out last night during the first quarter moon and got some hydrogen alpha courtesy of my 12nm clip in filter. Much better now!

Image Location and Date: Orange County Astronomers dark site in Anza, CA, Dec 15th, Feb 9th and 16th
Object: Rosette Nebula
Mount: Orion Atlas EQ-G
Imaging scope: Orion 8″ f3.9 Astrograph
Imaging FL: 800mm
Imaging focal ratio: f3.9
Imaging camera: Canon 1100D (Rebel T3) Modded
Lights: 23x600sec @ ISO 1600 HA
19x300sec @ ISO 1600 w/CLS filter (RGB)

Calibration: Darks, flats, Bias
Guide scope: Tair-3c with Orion StarShoot Auto Guider
Other details: guiding with PHD, captured with APT, processed in PixInsight + PS

The Great Orion Nebula – 4 panel mosaic. Over 11 hours total exposure time.

Dan — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 05:46:37 +0000

Since I moved up to the 800mm focal length scope M42 doesn’t fit neatly into the frame on a APS-C DSLR and since I wanted to image it this season I decided a four frame mosaic was the way to go. This was taken over three nights, got around 3 hours per frame. I used Pixinsight HDR tools to merge 5sec and 30sec core exposures with the overall image.

Image Location and Date: Orange County Astronomers dark site in Anza, CA, Dec 15th, Jan 5th and 12th
Object: M42 Great Orion Nebula
Mount: Orion Atlas EQ-G
Imaging scope: Orion 8″ f3.9 Astrograph
Imaging FL: 800mm
Imaging focal ratio: f3.9
Imaging camera: Canon 1100D (Rebel T3) Modded
Lights: 134x300sec @ ISO 1600 RGB Total, average around 33 per frame.
Calibration: Darks, flats, Bias
Guide scope: Tair-3c with Orion StarShoot Auto Guider
Other details: guiding with PHD, captured with APT, processed in PixInsight + PS

Update!

Dan — Mon, 24 Dec 2012 20:15:14 +0000

Long overdue upgrade of the equipment page, check it out.

Horsehead Nebula from Anza – HaRGB

Dan — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 05:39:33 +0000

Only night I got to out this November was the Friday after Thanksgiving so even though the moon was up until around 2 am I decided to go for it. I captured three hours of HA data until the moon went down using my Astronomik 12nm HA Clip-in filter and then another two hours of RGB with the CLS-CCD filter.

Image Location and Date: Orange County Astronomers dark site in Anza, CA
Object: IC 434 Horsehead & Flame Nebula
Mount: Orion Atlas EQ-G
Imaging scope: Orion 8″ f3.9 Astrograph
Imaging FL: 800mm
Imaging focal ratio: f3.9
Imaging camera: Canon 1100D (Rebel T3) Modded
Lights: 26x300sec @ ISO 1600 RGB
36x300sec @ ISO 1600 HA
Calibration: Darks, flats, Bias
Guide scope: SV Nighthawk II with Orion StarShoot Auto Guider
Other details: guiding with PHD, captured with APT, processed in PixInsight + PS

Helix Nebula

Dan — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 20:20:13 +0000

Took this over the course of two nights while waiting for the California Nebula to rise. First night had passing clouds for awhile so I can had toss a few frames. CLS filter helped bring out some of the HA around the nebula but I think this would be worth going back and shooting something like 6 hours of HA to get the outer shell to pop.

Image Location and Date: SDAA Dark Site @ Tierra Del Sol, CA
Object: Helix Nebula, NGC 7293
Mount: Orion Atlas EQ-G
Imaging scope: Orion 8″ f3.9 Astrograph
Imaging FL: 800mm
Imaging focal ratio: f3.9
Filter: CLS-CCD Clip-in
Imaging camera: Canon 1100D (Rebel T3) Modded + Cooled
Lights: 37x300sec @ ISO 1600
Calibration: Darks, flats, Bias
Guide scope: SV Nighthawk II with Orion StarShoot Auto Guider
Other details: guiding with PHD, captured with APT, processed in PixInsight.

California Nebula

Dan — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 19:38:08 +0000

This was taken over the course of two nights from Tierra Del Sol, CA. Each frame was 3-4 hours of exposure time except for the top right frame, I only got 2 hours because of passing clouds.

I used my CLS-CCD filter which REALLY helps with lining up the frames. No feathering was done on the edges, just lined em up!

Image Location and Date: SDAA Dark Site @ Tierra Del Sol, CA
Object: NGC1499 California Nebula
Mount: Orion Atlas EQ-G
Imaging scope: Orion 8″ f3.9 Astrograph
Imaging FL: 800mm
Imaging focal ratio: f3.9
Imaging camera: Canon 1100D (Rebel T3) Modded
Lights: 141x300sec @ ISO 1600
Calibration: Darks, flats, Bias
Guide scope: SV Nighthawk II with Orion StarShoot Auto Guider
Other details: guiding with PHD, captured with APT, processed in PixInsight.

Sadr Region, central Cygnus.

Dan — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 05:14:17 +0000

What a big difference the CLS filter makes, almost looks like I did hargb. I was lucky enough to get 5 hours on this target from a green zone. DSLR cooler (thanks Stephen!) helped big time with the noise.

Image Location and Date: OCA dark site @ Anza, CA
Object: Sadr and surrounding nebulosity.
Mount: Orion Atlas EQ-G
Imaging scope: Orion 8″ f3.9 Astrograph
Imaging FL: 800mm
Imaging focal ratio: f3.9
Imaging camera: Canon 1100D (Rebel T3) Modded
Lights: 61x300sec @ ISO 1600
Calibration: Darks, flats, Bias
Guide scope: 50mm finder with Orion StarShoot Auto Guider
Other details: guiding with PHD, captured with APT, processed in PixInsight.

NGC7023 – The Iris Nebula

Dan — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 05:03:36 +0000

Recently took a week off work and since I’m trying not to spend too much money right now I decided to take my vacation at my club’s dark sky site. This is the first of many images I grabbed… nice thing about having six-seven nights to image is that I have no problem focusing on one object per night and therefore get excellent data.

From http://www.astrocruise.com/milky_way/N7023_05.htm

Object Data: Lying in the western part of Cepheus, this beautiful object is a fairly unusual pure reflection nebula, caused by light from the central magnitude 7 star, SAO 19158, being reflected off the abundance of dust particles LBN 487.

Image Location and Date: OCA dark site @ Anza, CA
Object: Cocoon Nebula
Mount: Orion Atlas EQ-G
Imaging scope: Orion 8″ Astrograph
Imaging FL: 800mm
Imaging focal ratio: f3.9
Imaging camera: Canon 1100D (Rebel T3) Modded
Lights: 58x300sec @ ISO 800
Calibration: Darks, flats, Bias
Guide scope: 50mm finder with Orion StarShoot Auto Guider
Other details: guiding with PHD, captured with APT, processed in PixInsight.