M33 - Finally there

18:03 9/10/2011 UTC

I think I've finally had enough with this galaxy. I tossed my last luminance data away due to horrible flexure and thought I should reshoot it.. I was at Deep Sky Meet few weeks ago, a very nice star party in Tähtikallio. Not the best conditions I've seen, but enough for some serious astroimaging. I managed to pull almost 4 hours of luminance. I didn't complete the image still as I have always wanted to shoot those candy colors for this galaxy using H-alfa. M33 if full of bright HII regions and adding some H-alfa into red channel really brings them up as bright saturated red blobs. Last night I finally got some H-alfa data from my backyard, even weather cut the session short. All almost 7 hours worth of data combined and here's the result.

NGC/IC Object List:
NGC598 galaxy RA:01h33m51.9 Dec:+30°39m'29" BMag: 6.2, M 33 Triangulum Galaxy
NGC604 gaseous nebula RA:01h34m32.6 Dec:+30°47m'04" BMag: ,

[High Resolution : 1751x1751]

Camera: Atik Instruments 4000LE | Telescope: Skywatcher ED80 Pro 80mm f7.5 refractor, William Optics 0.8x focal reducer | Mount: Vixen GP-D2, Boxdoerfer PowerFlex MTS-3SLP drive controller | Filters: Baader 2" LRGB Filter Set, Baader H-alpha 7nm 2" | Guiding: The Imaging Source DMK 21AU04.AS CCD camera, Teleskop-Service 50mm f4.1 Guidescope, Stark-Labs PHD Guiding | Exposure: L 22x600s (3h40) unbinned, CCD @ -25° RGB 8x240s (32m) each binned 2x2, CCD @ -15° Ha 6x600s (1h) unbinned, CCD @ -25° Total exposure 6h26m | Software: CCDWare CCDStack, Adobe Photoshop CS4, Stark-Labs Nebulosity 2, GradientXTerminator Plugin | Location: 60°44'00"N 26°12'46"E (Tähtikallio Observatory/Artjärvi, FI), 60°31'N 26°52'E (Koivula/Kotka,FI) | Image Field: 1.546 x 1.547 degrees | Image Center: Ra 01h33m52s Dec +30°41'10" | Target altitude in the beginning of the exposure 37°

IC2118 - Looking for winter targets

00:07 28/9/2011 UTC

At the evening the weather was quite promisign and we decided to head into Tähtikallio. Unfortunately weather really did not co-operate and there was some haze most of the night. But in the morning hours weather cleared a bit and I chose to test targets for late fall or winter for broadband imaging. IC2118 The Witch Head nebula is located near Rigel, a blue bright star at the lower right corner of the constellation Orion. It is a large and extremely faint reflection nebula, believed to be lit by the radiation of Rigel. I got far from enough signal for this target, but confirmed it is a nice framing for my setup. So IF finnish weather gods will co-operate (a big IF) for once during the winter - maybe I return to this and try to collect loads of more of data for a nice image. Difficult target for us Finns.

NGC/IC Object List:
IC2118 gaseous nebula RA:05h04m09.0 Dec:-07°15m'00" BMag: , NGC 1909 Witch Head Nebula

Camera: Atik Instruments 4000LE | Telescope: Skywatcher ED80 Pro 80mm f7.5 refractor, William Optics 0.8x focal reducer | Mount: Vixen GP-D2, Boxdoerfer PowerFlex MTS-3SLP drive controller | Filters: Baader 2" LRGB Filter Set | Guiding: The Imaging Source DMK 21AU04.AS CCD camera, Teleskop-Service 50mm f4.1 Guidescope, Stark-Labs PHD Guiding | Exposure: L 3x600 (30m) unbinned, CCD @ -25° RGB 5x240s (20m) each binned 2x2, CCD @ -25° Total exposure 1h30m | Software: CCDWare CCDStack, Adobe Photoshop CS4, Stark-Labs Nebulosity 2, GradientXTerminator Plugin | Location: 60°44'00"N 26°12'46"E (Tähtikallio Observatory/Artjärvi, FI) | Background sky brightness (SQM): 20.93 mag/arcsec² | Image Field: 1.789 x 1.785 degrees | Image Center: Ra 05h07m04s Dec -06°47'02" |

M33 - LRGB Practising

20:47 27/8/2011 UTC

It's been long time since I've been out imaging for various reasons. We had a small star party or kind of a get together in Ursa Artjärvi Observatory. I had bought a new guidescope and never tested it before. To my surprise it was too long to focus into stars. Of course I was in the middle of the nowhere in sense of mechanical tools (like lathe for example) and just had to improvise. We bravely sawed it 30mm shorter and duct taped (yes you read correctly - duct taped ) the parts together. Guess what. It flexes and my stars looked like chicken eggs in 10 minute subs. But fortunately not that much. I only lost full resolution quality - a little web image is still manageable so I decided to process it anyway. Guiding by the way was fantastic with this little scope. I actually got 0.08 pixel RMS error meaning sub arcsecond tracking accuracy. Now I have the guidescope fixed and I surely will shoot a new luminance to this as soon as I get a new opportunity. Meanwhile I am going to do some H-alfa exposures from my backyard. All in all, a nice and fun start for the season!

NGC/IC Object List:
NGC598 galaxy RA:01h33m51.9 Dec:+30°39m'29" BMag: 6.2, M 33 Triangulum Galaxy
NGC604 gaseous nebula RA:01h34m32.6 Dec:+30°47m'04" BMag: ,

Camera: Atik Instruments 4000LE | Telescope: Skywatcher ED80 Pro 80mm f7.5 refractor, William Optics 0.8x focal reducer | Mount: Vixen GP-D2, Boxdoerfer PowerFlex MTS-3SLP drive controller | Filters: Baader 2" LRGB Filter Set | Guiding: The Imaging Source DMK 21AU04.AS CCD camera, Teleskop-Service 50mm f4.1 Guidescope, Stark-Labs PHD Guiding | Exposure: L 12x600 (2h) unbinned, CCD @ -25° RGB 8x240s (32m) each binned 2x2, CCD @ -15° Total exposure 3h36m | Software: CCDWare CCDStack, Adobe Photoshop CS4, Stark-Labs Nebulosity 2, GradientXTerminator Plugin | Location: 60°44'00"N 26°12'46"E (Tähtikallio Observatory/Artjärvi, FI) | Image Field: 1.789 x 1.789 degrees | Image Center: Ra 01h33m55s Dec +30°39'16" | Target altitude in the beginning of the exposure 36°

M31 - HaLRGB project starts from luminance

20:54 9/9/2010 UTC

We got a head start for the #1 star party in Finland, a Deepsky Meet in Artjärvi. It happened we were the only ones treated with a long, clear night sky just the night before the main event. Lucky for us, too bad for the rest of the visitors. Anyway, we did have a splendid time chatting about astronomy and related stuff!

I have a long time wanted a good shot of M31 taken under dark skies. I aimed for the material bridge between M31 and M110 and this time I think got it clearly. I chose to shoot 15min subs, so I needed extra set of shorter exposures for the overexposed bright core. I think this is a fairly good start for this project. Weather Gods will decide when it will a time to continue this with RGB and H-alpha sets.

Camera: Atik Instruments 4000LE | Telescope: Skywatcher ED80 Pro 80mm f7.5 refractor, William Optics 0.8x focal reducer | Mount: Vixen GP-D2, Boxdoerfer PowerFlex MTS-3SLP drive controller | Filters: Baader IR/UV block | Guiding: The Imaging Source DMK 21AU04.AS CCD camera, Orion ShortTube 80mm f5 refractor, Stark-Labs PHD Guiding | Exposure: Ha 13x900+13x60s (3h28m) unbinned, CCD @ -20° | Software: CCDWare CCDStack, Adobe Photoshop CS4, Stark-Labs Nebulosity 2 | Location: 60°31'N 26°52'E (Koivula/Kotka,FI) | Background sky brightness (SQM): 21.44 mag/arcsec² | Image Field: 1.805 x 1.805 degrees | Image Center: Ra 00h42m43s Dec +41°18'49" |

M27 - Season opening test shot

20:45 16/8/2010 UTC

First night out after summer break I usually just test everything is still working and I still remember all the buttons and switches... My usual test target is M27, the Dumbbell Nebula. I've installed a focus motor controller from Shoestring Astronomy to allow me to focus the image from the inside of the house. I have to say it is way much comfortable to achieve sharp focus when you can do it inside using a decent workstation rather than struggling outside with the touchpad in an awkward position. Everything seems to be working as good as it can. I even captured a hint of the outer regions of the nebula. I think I have to shoot this with 20min subs and see how deep I can go, altough it is a little bit small target to my scope. This is a 100% crop of the image around the nebula.

Camera: Atik Instruments 4000LE | Telescope: Skywatcher ED80 Pro 80mm f7.5 refractor, William Optics 0.8x focal reducer | Mount: Vixen GP-D2, Boxdoerfer PowerFlex MTS-3SLP drive controller | Filters: Baader H-alpha 7nm 2" | Guiding: The Imaging Source DMK 21AU04.AS CCD camera, Orion ShortTube 80mm f5 refractor, Stark-Labs PHD Guiding | Exposure: Ha 2x600s (20m) unbinned, CCD @ -20° | Software: CCDWare CCDStack, Adobe Photoshop CS4, Stark-Labs Nebulosity 2 | Location: 60°31'N 26°52'E (Koivula/Kotka,FI) | Image Field: 33.9 x 25.44 arcminutes | Image Center: Ra 19h59m33s Dec +22°43'46" |