AnnMarie's Blog

Cygnus really is a truly stunning constellation, lying right across the Milky Way. It has emission nebulas, planetaries, clusters and is a constellation who, at least for me, does indeed look like its name, a swan.  Here are a few images of some of the sights that I haven’t already covered:

Above is M29 an open cluster called “The Cooling Tower”. (Canon 20D Prime f10 on C6SGT – ISO1600 8mins in 11 subs). Alternatively referred to as NGC6913, this is a magnitude 7 object at a distance of between 4 – 7 thousand light years. I rather like this one, it’s well named and the variation of star colours make for an interesting sight.

This image is of NGC6888, “The Crescent Nebula”. (Canon 20D Prime f6.3 on C6SGT – ISO3200 39mins in 26 subs). At the heart of the crescent nebula there is a ‘Wolf-Rayet’ star. This is an unusual type of star that burns exceptionally hotly but consequently lives for only a short time. This star (HD192163 or WR136) is losing solar matter at an enormous rate and this is driven away by extremely strong solar winds. Ionising energy from the star causes this matter to ‘glow’. My image above needed considerably longer exposure, perhaps 2 or 3 hours. Hubble has taken stunning close up images of this shell of gas & matter being ripped apart by the strong solar winds; have a look.

This final image is of M39 another open cluster. (Canon 20D Prime f10 on C6SGT – ISO1600/3200 5.5 mins in 9 subs). This is a loose open cluster with a magnitude of 4.6 and at a distance of 825 light years. It is also referred to as NGC7092 and you may just spot it with a careful eye on a dark night.

I would like to return to Cygnus in the future and spend some more time enjoying the views that the Swan has to offer.

My photographic exploration of the constellation Cygnus continues…

  Click image for larger version …

Click on the image to see a larger version.

This image shows NGC7000 ‘The North American Nebula’, and IC5070 ‘The Pelican Nebula {incl. IC5067}. These 2 emission nebulae are part of a significant cloud of interstellar gas. The red colour is caused by hydrogen that is being ionised by radiation from a star (possibly Deneb?). This emission is from the Hydrogen alpha line and is therefore seen as red. The shapes of the nebulae are partly due to this ionised hydrogen cloud but also due to a dark cloud of interstellar dust that lies between the nebula and ourselves, blocking out the visibility of some areas.

The image was taken with a piggybacked Canon 20D and Canon 100-400L lens.

Exposure details as follows: fl=235mm ISO1600 f5.6 1hr 30mins 30sec in 30 subs.

Here is a close-up exert of the Pelican Nebula:

Amazing how bird like it is really. As is fairly obvious the names for these nebulae come from their rather distinctive shapes; in front of the pelican’s beak is a small nebulous area with 2 bright stars, this is sometimes called the ‘skull nebula’. I don’t think I like that idea! As a whole the gas cloud is thought to be about 1,900 light years from earth. Whilst not really bright enough for naked eye viewing these are large objects (several moon widths) and would be worth viewing through good binoculars or a widefield scope.

NGC6992 & NGC6960 (as pictured below) along with NGC6979, are the main visible remnants of a supernova explosion that happened at least 15,000 years ago. They are clouds of hot gaseous matter.

The image above (Canon 300D Sigma 300mm lens) is a rough wide field mosaic image to show the positioning of the two detailed images below. To the left is NGC6992, with NGC6960 on the right. I hope to revisit this site and carry out more detailed wide field imagery, in the future. The supernova would have been centred approximately half way between these two remnants.

NGC6960 as imaged above is my favourite part of this object. Often called ‘The Veil Nebula’ by itself this is a beautifully delicate & colourful object. The image was taken using a Canon 20D at Prime focus on a C6SCT @ f6.3 & ISO3200. 46 sub exposures were taken for a total exposure time of 1hr 9mins. Click on the image to see a larger version.

This image of NGC6992 was taken with the same details as above, save for a total exposure time of only 39 minutes (in 26 subs). The different colours are due to different elements that when excited in gaseous form, emit various specific wavelengths of light. Imaging with a standard daylight camera (as here) does not show all the red & infra-red light; a modified camera would have considerably more sensitivity to that end of the spectrum. As before, click on the image to see a larger version.

Last night the moon set behind Corris at about 9 ‘o’ clock, Jupiter was also shining brightly in the same section of sky.

 40s f4.5 ISO200 22mm

This was the view from my home at 9pm last night. The village of Corris is beneath the setting moon, to the right of the image are lights from Aberllefenni; Jupiter is the bright object half way from the moon to the top left corner. The original picture shows at least 25 stars but they may be lost in the small version above.

The small picture below shows the same view in daylight (this morning).

 1/640s f5.6 ISO100 24mm

Atmospheric conditions can effect the colour that the moon appears to us, sometimes creating the beautiful rich hues that we were treated to last night.

When you look up at night, with the naked eye, the vast majority of objects that you see are in our galaxy, The Milky Way. Look carefully on a dark summer’s night and you will see a light ‘milky’ band across the sky; you’re looking down the spiral arm of our galaxy. If you can find the constellation Sagittarius then you are looking towards the centre of our galaxy. 

The Milky Way Canon 20D 10mm f3.5 90sec exposure ISO1600 on tracking mount. Dark subtraction ‘On’.

In this image the galaxy centre is off the bottom left corner, partially behind dust lanes; it is thought to be a super massive black hole.

If you place your mouse over the image, labels for 3 stars will pop up; Altair, Vega and Deneb. These 3 stars make up the asterism that is known as “The Summer Triangle”. During summer months in the northern hemisphere this triangle can clearly be seen almost right over head in the middle of the night.

 Our Galaxy is the second largest in our local group ( M31 Andromeda is the largest) and is classified as a barred spiral. In the above image you can clearly see a dark lane of galactic dust. These are observed in many galaxies, as in the below image of our neighbor, Andromeda.

M31 Andromeda – Canon 20D 1500mm f10 21x1min exposures ISO3200 – C6SGT

Super massive black holes are believed to be at the core of many galaxies.  In the chart below I have highlighted the summer triangle in yellow:

Chart produced with Stellarium

Also shown are several notable objects like the Dumbbell Nebula & Ring Nebula which you can read about elsewhere in this blog. Also shown (in red) is Cygnus-X1.

Cygnus-X1 is considered to be a black hole (std not super massive), it was in fact the first object to be widely accepted as a black hole – as such it was the subject of a bet between Stephen Hawking & Kip Thorne. It is a binary system consisting of HDE 226868 (a supergiant star) which is orbiting (and being consumed by) an unseen object of almost 9 solar masses (the black hole).

M94 is a tight spiral galaxy with a bright core. Around the core there is a region of star formation, followed by tight well ordered spiral arms. M94 is thought to be about 14.5 million light years away.

Click image for more details & images …

Multiple wavelength images of M94 can be seen on Caltech’s Cool Cosmos site.

(updated images 8th Sept ’07)

Another Messier object discovered by Pierre Mechain, this is one of my favourites, to date. It is a rather dull object with a photographic magnitude of about 12. The body of the ‘butterfly’ appears significantly brighter within visual wavelengths and it is tricky to bring out the detail of the ‘wings’. The expanding gas in these ‘wing’ areas is less dense, hence the apparent difference.

Click on image for details & more…

Inaccuracies in tracking whilst taking deep sky images cause the star shape to appear oval, this can be counteracted by using a guiding system that monitors star position & makes corrections when necessary. All my images to date are unguided and as soon as funds allow I really want to set up a guiding system. Hopefully this will allow for  longer exposures & tighter more detailed end images.

M63 is a spiral galaxy belonging to the M51 group.It is a highly structured spiral with many star formation areas in its spiral arms.

Click on the image for more…

Discovered in 1779 by Pierre Mechain (Charles Messier’s friend & colleague), it has been much observed ever since. In 1971 a supernova was observed within M63.

This is a planetary nebula, a star that has ‘blown up’. The expanded gases are ionised by radiation from the star’s remnant and this creates a beautiful display for us to view. M57 is quite easy to view, even with a relatively small telescope and is well worth the effort.

As ever click on the image for details & larger imagery.

I followed my by now standard development process using Iris for registration, stacking & stretching, Photoshop for levels adjustment & noise control and finally Lightroom for final cleanup & fileing. One additional process was used for this image, a Richardson Lucy deconvulution was carried out in Iris.

M81 was dicovered by a Mr Bode in 1774, hence the galaxy’s name. It is the largest galaxy of the M81 group.

Click on the image below for larger images & more details …

The galaxy is a classic spiral whose nature has been enhanced by the nearby presence of M82. The M81 group is some 12 million light years distant from Earth.

The detailed images of M81 & M82 were taken during a full moon, with intermittent high level cloud. These are far from ideal conditions for imaging deep sky objects and I increased the exposure times to assist with image detail capture. The total exposure time for the above image was just over 1hr 10mins.

M82 is an irregular galaxy also known as NGC 3034. It is a member of the M81 galaxy group, as can be seen in the image below:

M82 is the ‘cigar’ shaped galaxy to the right, whilst M81 is the spiral to the left.

Click image for close up & details …

Its core has been deformed by a close shave with M81, this is seen as dark central banding & expulsion of gaseous matter from the centre. The galaxy is also an extremely bright source of both infra-red & radio waves.

Another clear night has allowed me to photograph my first ‘Planetary Nebula’. M27 is a stunning example of such objects.

As normal, click on the image above for details & close-ups.

Formed when a star reaches the end of its main sequence life cycle & blows off much of its mass; I think the colours displayed by this expanding matter are stunningly beautiful. What do you think?

Managed to image a few other Messier objects the other night but seeing wasn’t particularly great. Maybe I’ll post some images but I would like to revisit the targets anyway.

Messier object 3 is a beautiful globular cluster of some 500,000 stars. The picture below is one that I took late on the evening of 18th July ’07.

Click on the image to see more details:

M3 is viewed in the constellation of Canes Venatici and is about 34 million light years from Earth. Despite its distance (further from us than our galaxy’s center) it still shines relatively brightly with an apparent magnitude of 6.2.

I currently use a range of software to process my images, with my aim being to maintain a scientifically accurate image that also conveys the beauty of our Universe. Whilst Registax is currently used for video processing & Deep Sky Stacker for quick & dirty stacks; I am growing to prefer Iris for more acccurate & critical work. It may not be the easiest program to learn but its results are excellent; a big thankyou to Christian Buil for his work developing the program. All that said, this image and the previously posted M51 image, were both processed with Iris before final adjustments in Adobe Photoshop & Lightroom.

M51 (NGC 5194) is a beautiful spiral galaxy, some 37 million light years from Earth. The picture below is one that I took in the early hours of 19th July.

Click on the image to see a close-up and more details.

Located in Canes Venatici, M51 is seen here with its companion galaxy NGC 5195. The two are in close proximity, an area of star birth being formed in M51 by the gravity of NGC 5195. The Hubble Space Telescope has been studying this pair in some detail; amongst various discoveries, is that of a central dust disk that may power a black hole.

See later post for much improved image.

I have created a sheet of basic formulae for Astronomy & Astrophotography & am posting it as a download. They’ve been collected from various sources, mainly around the net and then rewritten in the hope of presenting them simply. This was done as a quick & simple project to help my understanding, but perhaps it will be useful to some others. There are many more related formulae out there, but I’ve just included the basic ones for starters; maybe I’ll do an intermediate collection in the future. Elsewhere you’ll find some excellent spreadsheets & utilities to help with calculations but now you’ll know what’s happening behind the scenes Click below to download your file of choice.

Available in 2 formats:

• Adobe PDF download
• Microsoft XPS download

Well with the continuing heavy cloud and rain that we’re having, telescope time is at something of a premium. However yesterday afternoon it did clear briefly; enough for a look at the sun. [Please remember not to look at the sun without proper filtering equipment]. Whilst in a quiet era of it’s cycle, there are still some sunspots to be viewed. Currently  there’s sunspot region 0963 & 0964, as in the picture below:

Sunspot group 0963 is the more substantial group and 0964 you should just make out, bottom right of the intermediate image.

Hopefully this weather will improve soon and then we can return to viewing some more deep sky objects.

Just a quick post to say that last Saturday night the clouds cleared briefly and allowed me a hurried chance at imaging Andromeda (M31).

[Update - Please see my updated post for much improved imaging & information]

For light that’s travelled for over 2 million years it still puts on quite a show.

You can also see two other Messier objects M32 & M110.

The picture was taken with a Canon 20D using a 100-400L lens whilst piggyback on the scope, settings as follows:

ISO3200 f5.6 400mm 5 x 2.5 minute frames, stacked.

In 1610 the Italian scientist Galileo trained one of the new telescope devices on the skies; amongst his observations were 4 moons that orbit Jupiter. Today we know that there are over 60 moon like objects that orbit this great planet; but it’s still an experience to view the 4 Galilean moons [that is, Callisto, Ganymede, Io and Europa]. And so it is here that our continued educational adventures with a telescope have taken us.

Mid summer planet watching at our Latitude can be a seriously middle of the night activity, so whilst the rest of the family slept, I was despatched to carry out the necessary viewing and to return with the photographic & video evidence for our study. The Azores high has recently pushed in over Wales, so seeing conditions were quite acceptable but with some ground mist forming by about 4am. To capture an image of Jupiter & the moons I used a Canon G7 camera and afocal technique. That is, focus the digital camera to infinity & then take a picture of what you see through the telescope eyepiece. A problem here is that an exposure for the moons is far too bright for any detail in Jupiter to be saved. Therefore the next step is to capture some planetary detail, for this I used a CCD camera (Celestron’s Neximage) mounted via a Barlow lens onto the scope. The resulting avi file was processed with Registax and the best 70 frames stacked.

Having captured the images, they were then combined in Photoshop before being given a final tweak in Lightroom. Orientating everything correctly is a bit tricky since the different lens set-ups flip the images in different ways, so my apologies to any hardcore astronomers if I’ve slipped up on that one. The resulting image is below, it’s far from perfect and I hope to improve, but it’s good enough for some fun & education. Besides the feeling of recreating Galileo’s observations & photographing them, is a really exiting one.

Whilst waiting for the right moment to take the above shots, I was experimenting with some other techniques (prime, positive projection & wide field). One thing I was doing was taking wide field shots with my Canon 20D mounted on the scope’s equatorial mount. This set-up allows the camera to track the stars, thereby avoiding star trails in exposures over 30 seconds. Whilst taking a series of 1 minute exposures, the camera captured several shooting stars but of particular interest was a bright object that appeared in two frames, whilst crossing the sky from west to east. I processed & stacked these two frames (with Deep Sky Stacker) and then tweaked in Photoshop. Here’s the resulting image, orientated as seen from the observatory:

I then started researching to identify the object, which turned out to be the International Space Station [thanks to Heavens Above]. So the image title should be “ISS crosses beneath Milky Way”, since the original exposures were of the south eastern view of the Milky Way; a cool bonus for the night. I wonder what Galileo would have thought?

The sky is a truly wonderful sight, our sparkling ceiling of glittering stars. Tamsin is fascinated by space and all that’s in it.

I guess her interest is helped partly by catching on with my interests but also helped along by Linda Chapman’s excellent ‘Stardust’ children’s story books, which she loves.

While I’m on the topic may I heartily recommend Linda Chapman’s other books, especially the ‘My Secret Unicorn’ series.

Anyway back to Astronomy, Tamsin’s interest in such things is very strong; so last week we went off to pick up a telescope to study the sky with.

It’s a middle of the road Celestron scope, a 6inch Schmidt-Cassegrain, and portable yet big enough when combined with our dark skies to give a decent view of the major celestial objects.

To get the most out of it, we’re planning to take up Astrophotography. We’ll use a T-adapter to attach my Canon DSLR cameras directly to the scope but we’re also going to attempt some afocal photography using the Canon G7 (got to find an adapter mount for that). In addition we’re using a Neximage CCD imager for video capture & stacking. I’d also love to convert an old webcam for deep sky imaging but all things in due course. Anyway enough of the technical stuff, what have we been doing with it?

Well the last week has given us a clear day and a few clearish evenings, with no moon to start off on, we’ve had to find different targets. The Sun (with Solar Filter) was fun but it’s fairly quiet at the moment, so not to many sun spots to observe. By night Saturn has been fantastic and the views that we’ve had after only a few hours, I am just blown away by. Finally, just last night, we turned our attention briefly to M42 in Orion, then the cloud rolled in; not before we’d had an appetising taster of what a nebula can look like. Tamsin was jumping up and down like a jack-in-a-box!

Here are three sample images that we’ve captured:

(Fig2 & Fig3 used a F6.3 reducer corrector, Fig2 was also through a 25mm Plössl eyepiece, Fig1 simply used the scope “as is”)

{Additional processing in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop}

Figure 1 – Saturn, CCD capture processed in registax

Figure 2 – The Trapezium (M42), handheld afocal with Canon G7

It was a cloudy night tonight, so I thought I’d make this post but its getting way too late now, after all I’ve got an observatory roof to build J soon.

Well this seems like a suitable first post. Over the last few days we’ve been hoping for clear skies tonight. Why? Because a lunar eclipse was due to occur. This is when the earth passes between the sun & the moon. They don’t happen at every full moon because the moon’s orbit is tilted and so a perfect alignment only occurs every couple of years or so.

This evening was looking like being a cloudy let down but we hoped for clearer conditions and they duly arrived.

10-27pm 3^rd March

Gradually the shadow of the earth crept up over the moon, as the picture above shows.

As time went on we were dogged by clouds but we all sat outside and persevered. 11-21pm was the time that totality was predicted for, but there’s some leeway with lunar eclipses and our patience was rewarded by the following beautiful clear view.

11-34pm 3^rd March

As you can see, the shadow cast by Earth creates a red hue over the whole moon, which is now very much darker than normal. Those of you with sharp eyes will have noticed two stars next to the moon. Both are in the constellation of Leo, the brighter one being cLeo Magnitude 5 @ 150 light-years and the other is 56Leo Magnitude 5.93 @ 325 light-years.

As with all things, time marches on and as the eclipse passes, the earth’s shadow drifts off the moon, as shown below:

12-50am 4^th March

And so an evening of fun came to a close. I think Tamsin will need a sleep in tomorrow morning J