Posts Made By: Enrico Africa

Hi all,

Here is some recently processed data from 2013, SH2-173, popularly known to some as the "Phantom of the Opera" nebula:

http://www.skiesbyafrica.com/Nebulae/SH2-173.html

75% sized image at

http://www.skiesbyafrica.com/Nebulae/Images/SH2-173/SH2-173_2013.jpg

Comments and suggestions welcome!

Eric

It’s been a while. I have a few new images to send off, so there may be a trickle of new images coming your way. Yes, some of them date from a few years back, but better late than never.

Here are a couple. Details can be seen on the website:

M97, the Owl Nebula:
http://www.skiesbyafrica.com/Nebulae/M97.html

Larger image:
http://www.skiesbyafrica.com/Nebulae/Images/M97/M972014.jpg

Comments and suggestions welcome!
Regards,
Eric

Hello,

As I alluded in my last post back in February (it’s been three months already?!?), I have a few images coming. Here are a couple that were actually shot in 2015. Details can be found at the web site:

IC 5146, the Cocoon Nebula
http://skiesbyafrica.com/Nebulae/CocoonNebula.html

Larger image:
http://skiesbyafrica.com/Nebulae/Images/Cocoon/Cocoon2015.jpg

NGC 7331 and the Deer Lick Group of galaxies:
http://skiesbyafrica.com/Galaxies/NGC7331.html

Bigger image:
http://skiesbyafrica.com/Galaxies/Images/NGC7331/NGC7331-2015.jpg

Enjoy,
Eric

Hello everyone,

Back in 2009, I shot IC426 (http://skiesbyafrica.com/Nebulae/IC426.html). This target was actually a "second choice"; I had recently found out back then about IC 423 and IC 424 in a post where it was described as a "mother Orca and her pup". That description charmed me so much I *knew* I had to shoot that target. However, the equipment I used didn't allow me to shoot that target effectively, and I went for IC 426 instead, which was in many ways still fortunate as that object was (and still is) not imaged often.

Fast forward 6 years, and I finally had a combination of equipment that allowed me to shoot IC 423 and IC 424 (which are in a similar region of sky as IC 426) once and for all:

http://skiesbyafrica.com/Nebulae/IC423.html

Larger image:
http://skiesbyafrica.com/Nebulae/Images/IC423/IC423_2015.jpg

I actually shot these targets early in 2015, and only recently started to process them. So here they are finally, seven years after I first heard of these targets.

There was a bright glare from Mintaka at the lower right edge of the original data, which I managed to tame, though I wonder if some of that is actual nebulosity. I didn't remove the other artifacts around the two objects, in case those are actual faint nebulae as well.

Enjoy,
Eric

Hi,

The penumbral eclipse shone through some thin clouds over our back yard. I made sure to shoot that I used the same camera and telescope (Canon EOS Rebel T6i and Astro-Physics AP130EDFGT) that I used to shoot the Super Moon from November 2016.

I'd always wanted to do a side-by-side comparison of a Super Moon with a non-Super Moon. The bonus is, the non-Super Moon happened to be going through a partial eclipse!

http://spaceweathergallery.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=132884

Enjoy!
Eric

Hello all,
On March 4, 2017, the bright star Aldebaran in the constellation Taurus was occulted by the waxing First Quarter Moon and was visible over most of the USA. I was able to capture this event from my brother-in-law's house (he has better horizons than we do from our backyard). This is a composite of images and videos taken before, during and after the event.

Optics: Astro-Physics AP130 EDFGT
Camera: Canon Rebel T6i
Mount: Celestron CG-5 AS/GT

http://spaceweathergallery.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=133627

Enjoy,
Eric

Shot from Eddyville, Kentucky. HDR composite taken with a Canon t6i on a Borg 90fl riding on a Celestron CG5 mount.

Enjoy,
Eric

Hi all,

A new to Lunt60 Pressure tune arrived at our doorstep a few days ago. I was able to bolt its clamshell onto a Vixen dovetail and gave it a first light Friday morning (a bit rushed because the forecast called for clouds to roll in by noon).

First visual light was viewing the Sun through a sparse tree. Not the best view but it gave me a glimpse. I played a bit with the pressure tuner to get a feel for what it does. Views were good, and very reminiscent of my existing LS50 filter. The pressure tuning changes felt more global vs the changes to the view via tilt tuning (no surprise there if I understand it).

Then I got curious about the LS50 filter. Lunt officially told me that it "may work as a double stacker, it might not". Just in case it did, I threaded it on.

WHOA.

Talk about surface features coming alive! Things just became more obvious. Maybe they were visible in single stack, but they just popped in DS. Specifically, there was a filaprom that I just drooled over.

I decided to go for an imaging run when the sun was higher, but of course the clouds rolled in before I could get a decent shot. I still tried a video capture through the clouds. The attached image was the best I could get with clouds constantly rolling over the disk of the Sun. No chance at capturing the filaprom unfortunately.

Hopefully once the new equipment curse lifts I can shoot something decent.

Eric

Hi all,

Roland Christen was asking where my solar posts where. I was posting them on another forum, I decided it's high time I posted here as well.

I could only enjoy the big prominence and filaments on the sun the week ending October 22nd second hand through another solar forum, as I was at work all week (got home too late with the Sun dipping low in the sky), and out and about the Saturday of that week (I did a quick visual peek but did not have time to shoot).

I finally had time to shoot the Sun October 22nd and found....nothing major. There's a possible filaprom in the making (maybe the big filament approaching the limb?), but I did spot a small sunspot, which I just found out is AR2685, the returning AR2673.

I shot several sequences, but only one came out acceptable. This was also my first pass at shooting and applying flats, and I'm pretty pleased with the results.

Shot with a Borg 90fl, Chromosphere Quark and Imaging Source DMK41.

Eric

Hi all,

NGC 7497 is a spiral galaxy similar to our own Milky Way galaxy and is seen from our vantage point edge-on. It lies about 60 million light-years away from us in the constellation Pegasus. Its distance makes it a bit tough to capture details of its disk and dust lanes with existing equipment. What adds interest to this part of the sky is the presence of the integrated flux nebula (IFN for short) that lies in our line of sight to the galaxy. This nebula is clouds of interstellar dust that floats about the plane of the Milky Way which reflect the combined light of all the stars in our galaxy! The particular ghostly segments of the IFN captured in this are part of one cloud catalogued as MBM 54 and lies less than a thousand light-years from us.



http://www.skiesbyafrica.com/Galaxies/NGC7497.html

75% size:
http://www.skiesbyafrica.com/Galaxies/Images/NGC7497/NGC7497-2017.jpg

Older data, but newly added/updated:

Here is an update to M33:



http://www.skiesbyafrica.com/Galaxies/M33.html

75% size:
http://www.skiesbyafrica.com/Galaxies/Images/M33/M33-HaLRGB-2017.jpg

Lynds Bright Nebula (LBN) 777, also known as either the Vulture Head Nebula or the Baby Eagle Nebula, is a faint reflection nebula in Taurus. It lies about 4-1/2 – 5 degrees (that’s 9-10 Full Moon widths) northeast of the much easier-to-see Pleiades star cluster. The brown patch just to the right of the Vulture’s “eye” actually has its own designation: it is a dark nebula cataloged as Bernard 207. LBN 777 is a portion of a large cloud of gas and dust known as the Taurus Molecular Cloud. The brownish color is caused by large dust grains embedded in the gas, which reflects the light of stars inside and near the nebula.



http://www.skiesbyafrica.com/Nebulae/LBN777.html

75% size:
http://www.skiesbyafrica.com/Nebulae/Images/LBN777/LBN777.jpg

Enjoy,
Eric