MadMan's Astronomy and Astrophotography Pages - Photos of the Week
21 months and counting
since I bought my first
telescope and took my
first picture (below)....

Mike
Photos of The Week - September, 2012
Back to working with the G-11 mount and a dual camera Canon lens setup as
well as the Tak 106.
Deneb to Albirea - First Mosaic -
H694 with Canon EOS 24-105mm
zoom @ 105mm.  Registar and PS4.
No Frame below
Dust & Scratches to show gas
Hubble
Narrowband
CFHT
Narrowband
HaRGB+HaLum -
Method 2
Ha Only
Re-Process of Dumbbell Nebula captured at 2100 mm
focal length (f7).  M25C in the C11" Edge HD.
SHO Hubble + HaRGB Stars
Ha Only
No Frame or spikes below
Dust & Scratches to show gas
Sii, Ha. Oiii Hubble Palette Presentation
Experimenting with mosaics for the first time, doing some re-processing and (finally) getting back to the Tak and some narrowband work. Capture, imaging and
processing by Mike DeMita using Nebulosity, PHD, DSS, PixInsight and PS4.  Multi-camera images use Registar for registration.
Gamma Cas Nebula (IC 59 and IC 63):

IC 59 and IC 63 are a combination of emission and reflection
nebulae located near Gamma Cassiopeiae in the middle of the
Cassiopeia asterism that looks like the letter "M" or "W"
depending on whether the constellation is above or below
Polaris.

The blue reflection portion of the nebulosity is illuminated by
the light of Gamma, the brilliant blue star in the frame.  

Gamma is also known as Navi, a nickname given to it by
Virgil Ivan Gus Grissom, the second astronaut in space for
the United States.  He named this star after his own middle
name spelled backwards. Gamma, was used for celestial
navigation because it was easy to find and identify visually.
Done in both broad and
narrowband wavelengths,
this image combined LRGB
and Ha, S2 and O3 filters.  
The SXVR-H694 camera
was used in a Takahashi FSQ
106 EDXiii refractor @ f3.7.

2h20m of Ha, 1 h each of Sii
and Oiii and 30 minute each
of LRGB allow for many
combinations.
NGC 7822:

Hot, young stars and cosmic pillars of gas and dust seem to crowd into NGC 7822. At the
edge of a giant molecular cloud toward the northern constellation Cepheus, the glowing star
forming region lies about 3,000 light-years away.

The image includes data from narrowband filters, mapping emission from atomic oxygen,
hydrogen, and sulfur into blue, green, and red hues. The atomic emission is powered by
energetic radiation from the hot stars, whose powerful winds and radiation also sculpt and
erode the denser pillar shapes.

Stars could still be forming inside the pillars by gravitational collapse, but as the pillars are
eroded away, any forming stars will ultimately be cutoff from their reservoir of star stuff.

Based on other framings I have seen from Nasa, this field spans around 80 light-years at this
objects estimated distance.
Done using
Astrodon 5nm Ha,
S2 and O3 filters
with a  
SXVR-H694
camera in a
Takahashi FSQ
106 EDXiii
refractor  @ f3.7.  

2 hours each of
Ha, Sii and Oiii
15 minute
subframes.
No Frame
Another processing
result.  Better?
September 21-23:  

Two milestones this weekend.  First, I figured out how to really do the HaRGB + Ha as Lum presentation and how use HDR Wavelets in PixInsight (see M33 below).  Second, I FINALLY LEARNED how to use Maxim DL for
mosaics.  I accidentally broke up a short attempt at the California Nebula into 3 image sets, so I had to do a mosaic equal to about 1.5 panels with my H694 to get most of the Nebula in the frame.  Lastly, I wrote a nice Action
for PS4 that breaks the nebulosity from the stars in either a grey scale or RGB and leaves you with the original, a grey starless nebula for luminance, a color nebula with no stars and the stars themselves - all separated.  It even
does a reasonable job of filling the holes the stars leave while leaving the gas detailed.  Couple of example results from all of the above below for what they are worth:
M33 in an HaRGB+Ha Lum presentation.
H694 camera.  Tak 106 @ f3.7.  
Below are a framed version and the HaRed,
unprocessed but colorized channel.
Start of a love afair with mosaics I think.  Initial Ha
channel using about a 2.5 panel mosaic and crop of
the California Nebula.  Will be doing a Narrowband
redition soon.  Below is the 'gas only' image
generated by the action I wrote for PS4.
couple of nights.  Below the image is one without a frame as well as
an HaRGB+HaLum rendition.