Tag: deep sky

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NGC 2359 – Thor’s Helmet in narrow band during Full-Moon

Even though the moon was at its brightest, I had to capture some light during the current phase of perfect weather. So I aimed for a rather dim nebula – Thor’s Helmet. I could capture a total of 124x300s images, which I combined to this nice result…

Image data:
Date: 2021-02-27 – 2021-03-01
Location: Graz, Austria
Telescope: 102mm f/7 APO with 0.79x flattener (equals to 564mm focal length)
Camera: QHY183C @ -30C
Filters: Baader H-alpha, O-iii and IDAS LPS-D2
Guiding: MGEN-II with off-axis guider
Exposures: 67x300s H-alpha, 33x300s O-iii

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NGC2264 – The Cone Nebula and Christmas Tree Cluster

Here is another result from last weekend of fine weather. This is the Cone Nebula and Christmas Tree Cluster in NGC 2264, a beautiful H-alpha region.
The image is a 2 1/2 hours pure H-alpha recording. Therefore presented in black and white.

Image data:
Date: 2021-02-12 – 2021-02-14
Location: Graz, Austria
Telescope: 102mm f/7 APO with 0.79x flattener (equals to 564mm focal length)
Camera: QHY183C @ -30C
Filters: Narrow band H-alpha filter
Guiding: MGEN-II with off-axis guider
Exposures: 15x600s Ha

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Virgo Galaxies around M86

This is the next image captured last weekend. I recorded 114 individual exposures of 120s, from which I could use 43 due to clouds crossing in the night.
I annotated the image with the galaxies visible. Among them are:
M86 (mag 8.8)
NGC 4438 (mag 10.0)
NGC 4388 (mag 10.9)
NGC 4440 (mag 11.8)
NGC 4402 (mag 11.9)
and the faintest ones visible are
IC 3386 (mag 16.0)
IC 3349 (mag 17.7)
IC 3363 (mag 17.7)
PGC 40723 (mag 17.7)

Image data:
Date: 2021-02-11
Location: Graz, Austria
Telescope: 102mm f/7 APO with 0.79x flattener (equals to 564mm focal length)
Camera: QHY183C @ -30C
Filters: Baader UV-IR Cut + IDAS LPS-D2
Guiding: MGEN-II with off-axis guider
Exposures: 43x100s RGB

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Leo Triplet with H-alpha and O-iii enhanced

During the last few days there were really promising clear nights. I recorded several data sets from my urban location (under these conditions, going up the mountains would have been a treat!). Now, as there are clouds again, I am processing the captured data. Here is the first result from the Leo Triplet (M65, M66 and NGC 3628).
I still have not yet received my color filters. So here I have a combination of luminance (UV-IR-Cut), H-alpha and O-iii data.

Image data:
Date: 2021-02-12 – 2021-02-14
Location: Graz, Austria
Telescope: 102mm f/7 APO with 0.79x flattener (equals to 564mm focal length)
Camera: QHY183M @ -30C
Filters: Baader UV-IR Cut + IDAS LPS-D2, narrow band Ha, Oiii
Guiding: MGEN-II with off-axis guider
Exposures: 41x100s Luminance, 20x300s O-iii (2x binning), 30x300s H-alpha (2x binning)
Sky-Quality: 19.4-19.6 mpss

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M42 (Orion nebula) in narrow band – Hubble palette

Finally, the clouds did break! After more than 2 months, this is the first chance to do some astro photography. It would have been a great opportunity to go up on one of my mountain observing spots. But with clear skies and a northern wind, temperatures dropped to -10C and below. So I stayed in the comfy warmth of home with urban light. Even though, narrow band images are still possible with quite long exposure times.

With the great Orion nebula, imaging is not too hard to accomplish, as the nebula is really bright. So a set of 110 exposures of 100s revealed the following image. Unfortunately, I could not completely remove the amp-noise from the camera as well as the uneven background. I have to improve my skills in post processing 😉

Image data:
Date: 2021-02-11
Location: Graz, Austria
Telescope: 102mm f/7 APO with 0.79x flattener (equals to 564mm focal length)
Camera: QHY183M @ -20C
Filters: Baader narrow band Ha, Oiii, Sii
Guiding: MGEN-II with off-axis guider
Exposures: 42x100s H-alpha, 42x100s O-iii, 26x100s S-ii

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One night of Messier and Planet hunting at home

My limited view from the balcony is not the best for astronomy. I have approximately 120 degree east to west, facing south-east across the city. The maximum altitude i may see stars with the telescope is 74 degrees. Objects positioned low in the sky are blocked by the adjacent building up to 25 degrees. So I have access to only a smaller part of the sky, with typical Bortle 5-6 visibility.

Even though conditions seem to be unfavorable to setup a telescope…
– at times, I have all the planets in view
– the moon is a wonderful sight, even though the air above the city is far from stable
– several deep sky beauties come into view almost year round
– using light pollution filters work really well under these conditions
– I may view or image every night (time and weather permitting) without the hazzle of packing, driving an hour to one of the next darker sites, setting up, …

To proof that the night sky has still a lot to offer in light polluted urban places, I collected the images below in one single night, within less than 4 hours:

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M5 globular cluster in different exposure settings

Speed of optics and exposure times have a great impact on the resulting image. Even though a higher quantity of individual exposures may improve the result, the total amount of photons collected is key.
The 715mm f/7 APO is significantly slower than the 800mm f/4 photo newton, the total capture time of 600s vs 1560s produces a significantly better result:

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Makarian Chain and Iris Nebula

Even though the dark night in June is quite short, I could capture these images of Makarian Chain around M86 in Virgo and the Iris Nebula.
Images captured near Sommeralm, 30km north-east of Graz. Night sky still suffers from light pollution. The milky way was visible, but not crisp and clear.

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