Posts Made By: dietmar hager

hi folks,

We are proudly presenting a collaborative result on the fetus-nebula.
Don Goldman+Paul Mortfield and me we have both posted our own results recently.
I used LRGB and Don+Paul mostly O3 and Ha and only a bit of RGB.
In my image the subtile small features of the nebula at around the
„head of the fetus (12h00) came out nicely and since LRGB data was
quite deep, so did the stars and the colors of the nebula, but lacking
of that O3-data of course.
Don’s+Paul's image however showed a lot of really cool stuff in O3 (which I
have never seen elsewhere). Don's purpose was also to add color to the
stars from very short RGB data which was not sufficiently deep for the
nebula as he said.
So, we agreed in throwing our ‚goods’ together and here we are:

http://www.stargazer-observatory.com/ngc7008.html

we hope you folks like that as we do…*g*

best regards,
Dietmar, Don and Paul.

hi guys,

I was lucky to observe the central star in M57, the ring-nebula, a couple times in my 20" f/3.7 dobsonian.
I would like to ask, who of you has ever seen this central star and what equipment was used for this purpose?

thanks in advance!

btw: here is an image of that nebula I took with my photografic equipment:
http://www.stargazer-observatory.com/m57.html

CONGRATS Tom,

you've got another NASA APOD!
and a real gorgeous one!

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080826.html

hey man, that must be routine for you...*g*

hi guys,

here is a link to a cool story Tammy Plotner from UT has written on a
galaxy-image of recent mine.
NGC 6946 is a beautiful spiral galaxy, but its light is dimmed by the
interstellar dust of our own milkyway;

see yourself:
http://www.universetoday.com/2008/09...er-galaxy-ngc-
6946-by-dietmar-hager/

here is all data on the image:
http://www.stargazer-observatory.com/ngc6946.html

thanks for looking,

hi friends,

I aplogize for not being around here for a long time.
day life kept me very busy and cloudy nights kept me frustrated...*g*

let me congratulate everyone of you, producing so beautiful images of intriguing objects!

7 weeks no clear skies, no photography - but so what.
I used the time to strew astronomy among the crouds.
some astronomy-talks, some tutorials have taken place meanwhile and will take place in near future.

it is my intention to bring topics like "light-pollution" and year of astronomy to people's minds.
particularly the cornerstone-project "dark-sky" is foremost on my mind and I am working hard to convince a couple majors in some villages and in the city of linz to look into the possibilities to reduce light pollution.
the ars electronica center in linz is going to cooperate and the major of my home-village wants to build a public observatory!
he is gonna replace the insufficient street-lights with zero-cut off ones.
so, the stone is rolling and I'd like to motivate you all, to also go and try your best.
I know many of you already do that and make great efforts.

it is all about "mind-setting" in common people (common in terms of non-astronomical) - let us make them ask for "what is light-pollution?"
once this term is their minds, they might stand up and act.

reducing light pollution is a multiple win-win - situation for all people involved!


here is some literature and some web-links covering the topics:

www.unesco.at
www.iau.org
www.darksky.org
www.lichtverschmutzung.de
www.hellenot.com
www.globe.gov/globeatnight
www.sternhell.at
www.darkskiesawareness.org

- Itai Kloog (University of Haifa),
- Abraham Haim (University of Haifa-Oranim),
- Richard G. Stevens (University of Connecticut Health Center),
- Micah Barchana and Boris A. Portnov (University of Haifa)
- Željko Andreic, Doroteja Andreic, Ana Bonaca, Korado Korlevic, Petra Korlevic and Mirna Kramar, Višnjan Education Center:"Modelling of light pollution on the territory of Republic of Croatia“

André Müller, Max-Planck Institut for Astronomy, Heidelberg and Günther Wuchterl, Thüringer Landessternwarte Tautenburg:"The First Continous Measurements of Nightsky Brightness with a New Low Cost Luxmeter"

Christoph Aubrecht, Austrian Research Centers GmbH – ARC and C. D. Elvidge, National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration:"Satellite observed nighttime lights as an indicator of human induced stress on coral reefs"

Andreas Hänel, Fachgruppe Dark Sky:"10 years of European Symposiums for the Protection of the Night Sky"

I wish you all the best!

Dietmar

Hello friends,

it seems it has been quite a while since I posted an image to the group.
This is mainly due to a very annoying mixture of bad weather and little time for the beloved hobby.
…cloudy nights and overcast days give the chance to use ones time for different things:
Educational talks on astro-related events, astro-education in public schools and more importantly, getting some interesting projects on wheels like raising people’s sensitivity to the IYA09, light-pollution and dark-sky per se.
Politians are hard to convince about things that really make sense for all of us (and not so much for the political party…),…the only argument they tend to accept is: money,…and introducing low-power-consuming laps and street-lights seems to be the very key… but this is really OT here…sorry.
Next summer we (the ars electronica center in linz and me) intend to let the „city-fathers“ turn out all „un-essential“ lights at night (well, that must be something like 99%...) around the main-place in town (250.000 inhab) and conduct a public huge star-party for each and everyone. Should be cool!

A couple days ago I was lucky to find time AND clear skies…it took me a while to figure how to run all the cables between the scope, filterwheel, electric focuser, and stuff…*g*
Honestly – after more than 8 weeks of „abstinence“ in astrofotografic terms I was just about to loose my routine here…
Well, here we are with a version of ngc 891, imaged with my „big boy“ the 9“ tmb apo und decent conditions.
A couple remarkable images have been posted here lately of that object, and I hope mine still qualifies for giving you a good time looking at it…
All data is on the website.
http://www.stargazer-observatory.com/891.html

here is the link to the full-size frame:
http://www.stargazer-observatory.com/891-full.html

thanks a lot for taking a look – and I apologize for the looong post.
Best to you all and tell all the people being your reach about IYA and what it’s all about.
Dietmar

hi guys,

2 clear nights were granted recently and eneabled gathering some photons on an object I had on my to-do-list for a long while.
this nice interactive galaxy is a tough object - tougher than I thought, and the final result sure would proft from much more exposure time...if only the heavens would grant more clear skies...
so - here is what I have gotten so far.
maybe I'll get the chance to collect some more data soon.

all data is on the website - as usual:
http://www.stargazer-observatory.com/772.html

full size:
http://www.stargazer-observatory.com/772-full.html

please find time to check ou the enlarged crop version as well:
http://www.stargazer-observatory.com/772-enl-crop.html

thanks for looking - I hope you enjoy!

regards,
Dietmar

hi group,

actually this is a reprocess of older data I acquired in spring this
year,...as you can probably tell by the object's name ngc 4214,...it
is not her time richt now...*g*
but since weather keeps my obs.collecting dust instead of photons I
decided to give it another go from scratch.

http://www.stargazer-observatory.com/4214.html

thanks for looking everyone!

hi guys,

sorry for the almost non-astronomical post....almost...
I am not sure if it fits here perfectly, but since it has so many astropic embedded,...I thought I'd rather try it here...

I'd like to share this cool astro-music-video-clip
Aramis music studios has recetnly produced:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDe8gYPTG44

cheers,
Dietmar

hello guys,

finally I am able to post something new.
well, quite frankly it is not perfectly new, as I added 3 hours of Ha and 2.5 hours of O3 to a one shot color image I had taken in 07 and beginning of 08.
hmmm - it took my 3 months to gather this tiny little bunch of data.
this is supposed to tell you guys in the land of milk and honey what bad weather really means...

so this is the final result of "combining it all".

OSC at f/9
O3 and Ha at f/7.
both of course taken with my 9" TMB Apo

all data can be found here, as well as the images.
http://www.stargazer-observatory.com/M%2076.html

HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Dietmar