Image of the day

Captured by
Mark Eby

IC1396 Cepheus Bubble Nebula

About Astromart

My Account

New to Astromart?

Register an account...

Need Help?

Posts Made By: Ron Wodaski

December 5, 2002 06:34 AM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

Trapezium with C14/ST-10E

Posted By Ron Wodaski
This is a single 60-second image of the Trapezium with the C14/ST-10E combination. I am still working on getting a good collimation; left edge stars are kinda funky.

The scope goes down to New Mexico in a few days, where I am setting it up as an internet controlled imaging scope. It will be on a Paramount ME.

I have other images of the Trapezium, but have not yet processed them. I am curious to know what will show up in a stack of the images, but don't know when I'll get time to process them!

Ron Wodaski

December 30, 2002 10:51 AM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

Saturn and M1 in H-alpha

Posted By Ron Wodaski
In order to try to show both objects (their brightness levels are dramatically different), I imaged with a hydrogen-alpha filter. I took 11 5-minute exposures of M1, and 44 2-second exposures of Saturn, and merged the two by carefully overlaying Saturn in its actual position. The longer images showed saturn severely bloomed.

Saturn is quite small in this wide field image; look for it at top center. Taken with FLI CM-10E and Takahashi Sky90.

Ron Wodaski
author of "The New CCD Astronomy"
http://www.newastro.com

January 7, 2003 08:45 PM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

M1 and Saturn

Posted By Ron Wodaski
This is a composite image showing Saturn and m1 in the same field of view. Taken with the Newastro Remote Telescope at New Mexico Skies - C14 with ST-1001E.

The exposure of Saturn and its moons is 0.11 seconds. M1 is a stack of ten 10-second exposures. The two were combined and aligned in Photoshop. I used a separate layer for Saturn itself; it was too bright even to show in the image image as its moons!

Ron Wodaski
http://www.newastro.com/remote

January 7, 2003 10:20 PM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

Saturn catches up to M1

Posted By Ron Wodaski
Here is a merged image showing where Saturn was at 2:51UT on Jan. 5, 2003. (This was taken at 7:51pm Mountain Time at New Mexico Skies, NM).

The background image of M1 was taken about a week before Saturn covered M1, in order to eliminate any of the severe glow from Saturn. The Saturn image was taken at the time indicated above. I created the color image of Saturn from a set of RGB images, each 0.11 seconds long, combined in MaxIm DL. I then used Photoshop to composite everything together: a layer for the moons (amazing what you can get in a 0.11-second image with a 14" aperture!), a layer for Saturn, and a layer for the color image of M1. Saturn had a dark edge, so I boosted the contrast to eliminate this, and added a bit of glow to mask it further.

Taken with the Newastro Remote Telescope.

Ron Wodaski
http://www.newastro.com/remote

January 25, 2003 10:22 AM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

Cone Nebula Ha with double the exposure

Posted By Ron Wodaski
I took another 80 minutes of the Cone Nebula in Ha tonight. This slightly more than doubles the total exposure time, and has the effect of smoothing out the dimmer portions of the image. I've reduced the size of the image here because to my eye that made it even smoother. Taken with New Astronomy Remote Telescope (C14 with ST-1001E).

If you'd like to see the full size version:

http://www.newastro.com/remote/images/CONE2b_Ha.jpg

Ron Wodaski
http://www.newastro.com/remote

January 26, 2003 11:48 AM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

M78 with Remote Telescope

Posted By Ron Wodaski
I did a demonstration of the Remote Telescope for a client tonight, but clouds rolled in (even in New Mexico!!! ) as we were doing RGB. THis is 30 minutes of luminance (3x10 minutes) and a single set of RGB imges (10:10:10 RGB, but with clouds increasing from red to blue exposures). I had to visually weight the colors to try to approximate correct color. Considering most of the images were through high clouds, it turned out nicely. C14 and SBIG ST-1001E.

Ron Wodaski

February 11, 2003 06:04 AM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

IC443 wide field with Sky90/ST-10XE

Posted By Ron Wodaski
I took the images for this picture the middle of January, but never got the time to process them. This is 5 10-minute images with an H-alpha filter. It shows quite a bit of nebulosity beyond just IC443. I was surprised at how deep it goes for such a short exposure; I normally figure on 2-3 hours for most H-alpha shots.

Taken with the Sky90 on the Paramount ME with an ST-10XE, using my remote setup in New Mexico. This is a cropped and reduced version; for the full-size version, please see:

http://www.newastro.com/remote/images/IC443_HaS90.jpg

Ron Wodaski
http://www.newastro.com/remote

February 11, 2003 10:27 AM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

Sombrero galaxy

Posted By Ron Wodaski
Here's another image from January that I am finally getting around to finishing. The seeing was not great on the night I took this image, so I took about twice as many as I would normally. This allows me to apply deconvolution more effectively, and brings out some of the dust-lane detail of the Sombrero. Taken with C14 and ST-1001E camera on Paramount ME. 45 minutes of luminance only; will have to pick up color when the clouds leave again.

Ron Wodaski
http://www.newastro.com/remote

February 23, 2003 11:01 AM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

M78 LRGB wide field

Posted By Ron Wodaski
Been clouded out in New Mexico for more than a week, but had some clear skies tonight to do a little imaging. It was windy, so I imaged with the Sky 90 and ST-10XE camera.

This image of M78 has 80 minutes of luminance and 8 sets of RGB at 5 minutes each, so 40:40:40 minutes RGB. Taken on Paramount ME via internet; scope is at New Mexico Skies.

The color is a little unusual. Typically, I am trying to remove green because of light pollution, but there isn't any at New Mexico Skies. So the green here is from - what? Maybe OIII emissions, but it's really there and now I am curious to find out what it is. The red/pink glow at upper left is a small piece of Barnard's Nebula, the huge circle of HII emission around Orion. Judging from the color, it is emitting in h-beta (blue) as well as H-alpha (deep red). This is a fascinating area, with numerous reflection, HII, and other nebulosity all over the place.

This is a small version, about half size. For the full size version, please see:

http://www.newastro.com/remote/images/M78_LRGB2.jpg

Ron Wodaski
http://www.newastro.com/remote

February 24, 2003 11:31 PM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

Pleiades LRGB wide field

Posted By Ron Wodaski
I have wanted to image the Pleiades for years, but have always been put off the the blooming. It appears that dark skies make the job much easier - shorter epxosures reveal more nebula detail, so there is less blooming to deal with.

Still, the one-minute exposures I used for this image were pretty severely bloomed; here is an example:

http://www.newastro.com/remote/images/m45_bloom.jpg

Fortunately, my DeBloomer cleaned things up very nicely. I combined 17 of these one-minute images for the luminance, and 8 RGB sets of 30:30:30 seconds binned 2x2. I tried 30:30:60 seconds as well, but the uneven exposure made the blue stars too big, and they dominated even more than they do here. Didn't think that looked very good - there's some value in taking equal exposure times beyond just the conveninece.

Color balancing was difficult, but the dark skies showed my some things I didn't know, such as the area of red nebulosity at lower right. I'm guessing, but it looks to me as though there is some dust between us and the blue nebulosity in that area, including across the blank area of sky at lower right. A much deeper exposure would be required to find out for sure.

Ron Wodaski

Funding Member

Telescopes, Astronomy, Binoculars

Sponsors


View all sponsors

Search