Picture of the Day  (actually it's kind of - Picture of the week - sorry)

Barnard's Loop in Orion

Modified Canon 350D

180mm Canon lens

7nm Hydrogen-Alpha

Ha 2 x 9 x 600 sec, 1x1 bin, 2-pane mosaic

Field of View: 08°28’ x 3°08’ centered on RA 05h54m11s DEC -02 °43’29”. North angle 0 °; east 90° CCW from north

Notes:E.E. Barnard discovered this vast and expanding ionized hydrogen cloud by long exposure photographs in 1895. The gas is being blown out and illuminated by very hot nearby O and B stars in Orion.

This 2 pane mosaic was stitched together using the improved Photomerge feature found in Adobe Photoshop CS3. This method of generating mosaics is far easier and much more seamless than the older method of combining images with the Free Transform function and adjusting the individual panes with Curves and Brightness to affect smooth transitions.

Archives - click on an image to enlarge

NGC 7331 (the Deer Lick Group) and Stephan’s Quintet are two well known and unrelated galaxy groupings in the constellation Pegasus. The Deer Lick Group is dominated by the large spiral galaxy NGC 7331, located on the right side of the above image. The smaller galaxies NGC 7335, 7336, 7337 and 7340 are nearly ten times further away than NGC 7331.

12 x 240 seconds, 10" SN F/4, Canon 350D modified.

Image by Aaron Worley

Coronado PST Ha
DMK 41 monochrome firewire camera
Stacked 170 out of 205 frames
Exposure: limb = 20.57 ms, disk = 1.60 ms

This great image illustrates that the Sun has been strangely unblemished this year. On more than 200 days so far this year, no sunspots were spotted. That makes the Sun blanker this year than in any year since 1954, when it was spotless for 241 days.

Jupiter image by Aaron Worley

Celestron 9.25" SCT
DMK 21 monochrome firewire camera
Astronomik RGB filters
Stacked approx 800 out of 1200 frames in RGB channels
Exposure: R=19.29 ms, G = 16.97 ms, B = 33.33 ms

Thor's Helmet is created by the brightest star inside the "bubble". This star
is a rare Wolf-Raynet star, a massive, hot blue giant whose high velocity solar
wind slams into the surrounding interstellar gas and dust and creates the intricate
patterns in this nebula. Thor's Helmet is in the constellation Canis Major.

The main bubble is about 30 light years across, and it is 1500 light years
from earth.

Camera: Canon 350 XT (modified)
Exposure: ISO 800, 5 minutes x 12
Telescope: 10" Schmidt-Newtonian, Baader coma corrector

M57 and IC 1296

Mouse over to highlight the spiral galaxy IC 1296
IC 1296 is far dimmer than M57, but it was captured by the 12 bit per channel camera.
In order to show M57 on 8 bit per channel displays, IC 1296 was all but lost.
Locally increasing exposure 8 times, IC 1296 becomes easily visible.

M110

24 x 240

Canon 350D - Modified

NGC 6939 and 6946

12 x 4 min.

Canon 350D - Modified

Meade 10" SN

IC1311

A small cluster of stars associated with nebula.
Canon 350D Self-Modified - 50mm f 2.8
48x300sec exposures
flats/darks/bias applied

Abell 2151 Hercules Galaxy Cluster

500 million lightyears

8 x 5 min  ISO 1600

Perseid

350D - 50mm lens (cropped)

M106 is a bright spiral galaxy located in the constellation Canes Venatici.  Like M63 and M94, it was discovered by Pierre Mechain in 1781 and later added to Messier's catalog.   Several surrounding galaxies are present in this field of view, including NGC 4217 (lower left), NGC 4220 (lower right), and NGC 4248 (center). 

Thin Crescent Rising  (23 hours from new)

This was my first shot after sighting the moon at 6:11 a.m. 7/31/2008.  Photo Details: 1.3 second exposure, Canon 350D, 80-200 f2.8 ED AF lens at 2.8, ISO 800 setting, significantly cropped from original.  Moon was 1.34% illuminated, 10 deg up

IC 1396 complex, in the high and far off constellation of Cepheus.

Canon 350D modified

10" SN

24 x 120 seconds

M52 and the Bubble

Canon 350D modified

10" SN

24 x 120 seconds

The Flaming Star Nebula (IC405, Caldwell 31) is an area in Auriga that glows relatively brightly in hydrogen alpha light due to the interaction of stellar activity and hydrogen gas in the vicinity of the star.

270 minutes [ 27 x 10 minutes ]

Astrodon 6nm Hα filter

IC 1318, the Gamma Cygni region, or the Sadr region is the diffuse emission nebula surrounding Sadr or Gamma Cygni. Sadr lies in the center of Cygnus' cross. IC 1318 is one of the surrounding nebulous regions, others include the Butterfly nebula and the Crescent nebula. It contains many dark nebulae in addition to the emission diffuse nebulae.
Sadr itself approximately magnitude 2.2. The nebulous regions around it are also fairly bright.

Imaging scope was Orion ED80
Canon Rebel XT – IR Filter Modification
 40 x 300s Guided

Sadre Region

200mm f/4  7nm Ha

FULL MOON

NGC2841

Scope: Meade 10'' ARC
Focal length: 1600mm
Camera: ATIK16HR
Exposure: 6 hours

NGC 5985+5982+5981 Draco Triplet

Scope: 9" TMB Apo f/9

CCD: SXV H16 - 4 hours - luminance; 1x1 bin 6 darks; 4.5 hours R,G,B 2x2 bin. 6 darks for 2x2bin.

M3

Canon 350D

10" SN

20 x 120 seconds

M13 and friends

Used Skyview and Minnesota Automated Plate Scanner - North Galactic Pole (MAPS-NGP)

Download larger image here

M5 in Serpens

10" F4 SN

Canon 350D - IR modification

20 x 120 sec ISO 1600

Darks, Bias, Flats

Photoshop

Download larger image here (2MB)

Celestron 9.25" SCT at f/30
Televue 3x barlow
Astronomik RGB filters
DMK 21AF04.AS monochrome camera
2000 frames each in red, green, blue channels captured, 400 stacked per channel
233 ms per frame
Friday March 28, 2008 at approx. 11 PM
Aaron Worley (CVAS Member)

Shaker Heights, OH

Supernova 2008ax in Canes Venatici's Cocoon Galaxy, NGC 4490

10" Schmidt-Newtonian

Canon 350D - IR Filter remover

5 - 6 minute subs

Guided with F/5 80mm and Meade DSI Pro

Maxim DL

Photoshop CS3

Cropped

The Cave nebula region (Sh2-155) in Cepheus

Dietmar Hager

TMB 130/780 apochromat with field flattener 
Modified Canon EOS 350D (Baader UV/IR filter inside)
58x10min at ISO800
Agasvar (Mount Matra), Hungary;  2007.07.13-15.
Transparency: 5-7/10, seeing: 4-7/10, temp.: +6-13°C
Iris, Registar, Photoshop

NGC 3718 + NGC 3729

Dietmar Hager (Austria)

Scope: 9" TMB Apo f/9 Lum; f/7 OSC

CCD: SXV H16 L: 27x10 min; SXVF M25C 27x10 min

Software: AstroArt4 image acqu. guiding, preprocessing: Maxim DL; Registax; CCD sharp

Processing: postprocess. PS CS2 and Pix InSight LE

NGC 3372

Eta Carina

3 x 4 min.

Haven't been too many nights for imaging.....so here's a collage of images.

30 Frame Mosaic Image

60 Hours of Exposure, RGB

FSQ106, STL11000

Rob Gendler

Click here for full frame image with labels

From observing site in Selsey the Moon just barely nicked the planet itself but pleasingly covered about 40% of the rings. The difference in brightness of the Moon compared to Saturn was huge at the time and in order to get both objects imaged simultaneously, one must suffer. In this case I exposed correctly for Saturn which meant that the Moon’s limb was burnt out. A number of shots were taken at 30s intervals (10s movie captures at 60fps, fixed on Saturn) which gave me the positional information I needed to build the composite you see here. The RGB image of Saturn was captured just before the occultation and the lunar limb just after (this is a three frame mosaic). The interval positions shown are separated by 90s in time. South is up in the image and the Moon would be moving towards the upper right.

Pete Lawrence, Selsey England

Technical Details:
March 2, 2007, maximum coverage for Pete at 02h52m UT. C-14 (14″ SCT) at prime focus (f/11) + Lumenera SKYnyx 2-0 camera.

Propeller nebula (DWB 111) in Cygnus

TMB 130/780 apochromat with field flattener 
modified Canon EOS 350D (Baader UV/IR filter inside)
17x10min at ISO800, Baader UHC-S filter

Comet Holmes and the California Nebula

Modified Canon 350D made this possible

The "Leo Trio" Galaxy Group (M65,M66,NGC3628)

Thank you Éder Iván

TMB 130/780 apochromat with field flattener 
modified Canon EOS 350D (Baader UV/IR filter inside)
30x10min at ISO800

Markarian's Chain in Virgo

TMB 130/780 apochromat with field flattener 
modified Canon EOS 350D (Baader UV/IR filter inside)
30x10min at ISO800
 

Comet Holmes and the California Nebula

Canon 350D  - 50mm - one 300 sec. exposure

LDN1622 - The Dancing Dolphin NebulaASA N12 f/3.5
from Thomas Davis

STL11000M
HaRGB 210:120:80:120minutes; unbinned

Ok, this is not the official common name for this nebula (it doesn't have one), but to me it looks like two dolphins jumping (the larger has nose, dorsal fin, right and left flippers). The larger one has a ball (vdB62) balanced on its head. vdB63 is just "below" its right flipper.

The Heart Nebula
Thank you Taylor Chonis

Scope: Takahashi Epsilon 250
Mount: Software Bisque Paramount
Camera: SBIG STL11000M
Filters: Astrodon RGB and 6nm H-alpha
Total Exp Time: 13 hrs
This image is what I call an "H-alphaR H-alphaR G B" image. This is because it is composed of a single frame out of the H-alpha data and the R data and used this frame for the Luminance channel as well as the Red channel. No image taken with a Luminance filter is included in this image.

Venus - Jupiter Conjunction 1-31-08

Canon 350D, 200mm f/2.8 lens

1.5 seconds, ISO 800

Foxfour

Complements of  Stefano Conti

12" Meade a F7 ST10XME lum 30 hr + OIII and SII

VdB 152 wide field nebula in Cepheus

Takahashi BRC-250, 1260 mm, F/5 - Takahashi FSQ-106, 530 mm, F/5

Finger Lakes ProLine 16803 / CFW-4-5

German equatorial mount Astro-Physics 1200 GTO

LRGB 300:60:60:60. L bin 1, RGB bin 2

14,15,16 Jun 2007

Sicily, Loc. Piano Battaglia -Madonie

FWHM: 5.4"

21.4 mag. per squared arcsec

MaxIm-DL, Registar, PhotoShop

NGC 7094 planetary nebula

Thank you Don Goldman

NGC7094 has a magnitude of 13.6 and an apparent diameter of 1.6 arc minutes and is located near globular cluster M15.

Don shot the image with a RC Optical 16″ f/8.9 Ritchey-Chrétien, SBIG STL11000 CCD camera, and an exposure of 5.25 hours

Barnard's Star motion

Thanks to Peter Erdman

This is really neat! The huge proper motion of Barnard's Star (~10 arc sec/yr)

Five 10 sec exposures taken 1 year apart (5 years in this image)

TMB8 f/9

ST10 camera

red filter

NGC6939 and NGC6946 in Cepheus

Thank you Hunter Wilson

Canon 30D Unmodified
27x180sec at iso 1600
30 Darks/Flats/Bias
Orion ED80 with WO 0.8 reducer/flattener
Open Cluster NGC 6939 and spiral galaxy NGC 6946.
NGC 6946 is a spectacular galaxy, but unfortunately dim because of it's proximity to our galactic plane - this interferes with the light coming from NGC 6946. At a distance of 10 million light years, this galaxy is one of about a dozen nearby neighbors to the Milky Way - although this recently in dispute.
Together with M83, NGC 6946 shares the record number of observed supernovae.

Moon and Mars

Rick Saunders

1-20-08

Canon XT with a Nikkor 180 f/2.8ED stopped to f/4
2 images 'merged', one 1/80 sec and one 1/320 sec, both at ISO400

Vela supernova remnant

About 11,000 years ago a star in the constellation of Vela exploded. This bright supernova may have been visible to the first human farmers. Today the Vela supernova remnant marks the position of a relatively close and recent explosion in our Milky Way Galaxy. A roughly spherical, expanding shock wave is visible in X-rays. In the optical photograph shown here, the 100+ light-years span spherical blast wave is shown in detail. As gas flies away from the detonated star, it reacts with the interstellar medium, knocking away closely held electrons from even heavy elements. When the electrons recombine with these atoms, light in many different colors and energy bands is produced.

 The Vela SNR image presented here is one of the largest deep-sky image ever released; the full-resolution version is a whopping 1.018 gigapixel, or 1,018 megapixel. For comparison, a modern digital camera produces images of just 8-10 megapixel and a good modern LCD screen is able to show just 1/1000^th of the full-res in a time. The uncompressed version of the file is nearly 3 Gigabytes.

The image's field of view is about 9.3 × 8.5 arc degrees, so it shows a plague of sky nearly wide as 19 times the apparent diameter of the full Moon.

Click Here for finder chart

Eta Carina Narrowband

Greg Bradley

Takahashi NJP Model-Z Temma-2 350x GOTO Mount
SBIG Research Series STL-11000M Class 2 CCD Camera
Takahashi FSQ106N

ESA / DLR / FU Berlin (G. Neukum)
Mars' moon Phobos taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera on Mars Express 1/10/07

Cederblad 214 and NGC 7822 in the Hubble Palette

Thanks to Enrico Africa

SBIG Research Series STL-6303E Class 1 CCD Camera
Takahashi EM-200 Temma-2 700x GOTO Mount

This image represents 20 hours and 18 minutes of total usable exposure time (6 hours of H-alpha, 7 hours of SII, 7 hours of OIII, and 6 minutes each RGB for
natural star colors).

Comets 17P and 8P

Russ Swaney

M31/M32/M33/M34/N752/N925/N404

Canon 350D

50 mm f1.4 @ f3.2

1x600 sec.

For a  larger image here.

Vela Supernova remnant

Greg Bradley

Takahashi NJP Model-Z Temma-2 350x GOTO Mount
SBIG Research Series STL-11000M Class 2 CCD Camera
Baader filters
Takahashi FSQ106N

Beta Lyrae (Sheliak)

Thank you Peter Muks

Takahashi TSA-102S 102mm APO Refractor

Camera: Canon EOS 350 D
Mount:Homemade Goto-Mount
Guiding:Crosshair eyepiece
80x30 sec
ISO 800

M96 - Thank you Adam Block

SBIG Research Series STL-11000M Class 1 CCD Camera
RC Optical Systems Telescope Command Center
RCOS telescope

17P and Perseus by Alessandro Maggi

Takahashi Epsilon 180ED Hyperbolic Astrograph
SBIG ST-10XME w/ KAF-3200ME Class 2 CCD
 

Saturn by  Damian Peach                

14" Schmidt Cassegrain @ F39                   

Lumenera Lu075M CCD camera

South Buckinghamshire, UK

Antares region

Complements of Takehiko Hashimoto

Equatorial: EM-200T2.Jr
Lense : EF200mmF1.8L(1.8)
Camera : EOS300D(Seo_special)
Exposures : LPS-P1 5mX3 4mX1 ISO800
Location : Sirabiso plateau,Japan