IC 1848 - Soul Nebula

The Soul Nebula (a.k.a. IC 1848) can be found in the direction of the constellation Cassiopeia.  According to Greek mythology Cassiopeia is the vain wife of a King who ruled the region around the upper Nile river. Located about 6,500 light years away, the Soul Nebula spans about 100 light years and is a neighbor to the Heart Nebula (IC 1805). The image appears mostly red due to the emission of a specific color of light emitted by excited hydrogen gas (Source APOD Feb 28, 2016).

I imaged the Soul Nebula for three consecutive nights last week.  The first night was excellent seeing conditions but I had autoguiding problems in the beginning of the evening so I used up a lot of imaging time.  Still I was able to use 33 x 180 second exposures.  In addition, I used flats after the imaging session using the light box as described in the previous post.  I had over 3 hrs worth of data on the second night, unfortunately very high thin clouds made all of the data useless.  I collected over an hour of data on the 3rd night after our regular open astronomy session with Boothe Memorial Astronomical Society at Boothe Park.  The conditions were good, for Stratford, however, I was unable to take flats because I forgot the light box controller.  I thought about driving back with the camera attached but decided that was a bad idea.  Oh well!

IC 1848 - The Soul Nebula
Location: Home Monroe, CT and Boothe Park, Stratford, CT
Date: 10-18-17, 10-20-2017
Camera: Canon EOS Rebel T3i(a), Backyard EOS
Telescope: Orion ED80 80mm f/7.5 Apochromatic Refractor Telescope
Barlow: None
Focal Length: 600mm
f/7.5
Focal Reducer: Orion 0.8x Focal Reducer for Refractor Telescopes
Mount: Orion Atlas Pro EQ/AZ Mount
Filter: Astrodon UV/IR, Astronomik UHC
Autoguiding: QHY-5L-II-M attached to an Agena 50mm Guide Scope with Helical Focuser
Exposure: 33 x 180s, 23 x 180
ISO: 1600
Temp: 15 C, 15 C
Post Processing: Deep Sky Stacker, Photoshop, Lightroom, Gradient Exterminator, Astronomy Tools, StarTools.
https://kurtzeppetello.smugmug.com/

Using Flats in Astrophotography

So now I am a believer.  I know most are already using flats so this for those that are not.  They are pretty easy to take if you have a DSLR. After doing astrophotography for a couple years I have finally started using flats.  Not coming from a photography background they were always something of a mystery to of me.  I have read many directions on how to take them and tried them unsuccessfully last year.  For me what was missing was a video of someone actually doing it in the field.  That all changed a couple of weeks ago thanks to Trevor Jones from Astrobackyard.com.  His YouTube tutorial (How to take Flat Frames), as usual, was excellent especially since I was able to follow it.  Setting the DSLR on Av-mode and putting a T-shirt over the objective as he described worked o.k. on the Double Cluster image I took a few week back, however I don't think the sky was optimal.  He suggested getting a light box.  As luck would have it, Scott (https://www.astrobin.com/users/BigScott_27/) a user on Astrobin who happens to live really close to me saw my post and said he had a really nice light box (http://spike-a.com/flatfielders/) that is collecting dust.

The top image of the Soul Nebula is stacked without using flats and the bottom image is stacked with flats (taken using the light box).  I did about 5 minutes of the same processing on each for comparison, thus the only processing that was done after stacking was RGB set to 35, curve stretch, levels (except I used Gradient Exterminator on the image without flats).   The image is not done yet I still have much more processing left, however, it will be a lot easier to get a good image.

M34

And then there was one!  M34 (or NGC 1039) represents the 109th Messier object I have captured with my setup. It  is an open cluster in the constellation Perseus and is about 1,500 light years from Earth.  Viewing conditions were very good and I imaged this right aft after I finished with the Double Cluster.  I have really become a fan of imaging star clusters especially when some star colors show up.

M34
Location: Home Monroe, CT
Date: 10-12-17
Camera: Canon EOS Rebel T3i(a), Backyard EOS
Telescope: Orion ED80 80mm f/7.5 Apochromatic Refractor Telescope
Barlow: None
Focal Length: 600mm
f/7.5
Focal Reducer: Orion 0.8x Focal Reducer for Refractor Telescopes
Mount: Orion Atlas Pro EQ/AZ Mount
Filter: Astrodon UV/IR
Autoguiding: QHY-5L-II-M attached to an Agena 50mm Guide Scope with Helical Focuser
Exposure: 39 x 90s
ISO: 1600
Temp: 16 C
Post Processing: Deep Sky Stacker, Photoshop, Lightroom, Gradient Exterminator, Astronomy Tools, StarTools.
https://kurtzeppetello.smugmug.com/

M76 - Little Dumbbell Nebula

I captured the Little Dumbbell Nebula (M76) the other night which makes this the 108th Messier object I have imaged, just two more to go. This object lives up to its name as being little and is much smaller than the Dumbell Nebula (M27) . The Little Dumbbell is a planetary nebula that is estimated to be 2,500 light years from us and about 1.23 ly across (source: wikipedia).

I have seen some really spectacular images of the Little Dumbbell using very large telescopes. I was using my little ED80 so I was not counting on getting any fine detail so I focused more on getting a pleasant star field.  That being said, the Dumbbell turned out better than I expected and am very happy with the outcome.

M76 - Little Dumbbell Nebula
Location: Home Monroe, CT
Date: 10-12-17
Camera: Canon EOS Rebel T3i(a), Backyard EOS
Telescope: Orion ED80 80mm f/7.5 Apochromatic Refractor Telescope
Barlow: None
Focal Length: 600mm
f/7.5
Focal Reducer: Orion 0.8x Focal Reducer for Refractor Telescopes
Mount: Orion Atlas Pro EQ/AZ Mount
Filter: Astrodon UV/IR
Autoguiding: QHY-5L-II-M attached to an Agena 50mm Guide Scope with Helical Focuser
Exposure: 69 x 90s
ISO: 1600
Temp: 16 C
Post Processing: Deep Sky Stacker, Photoshop, Lightroom, Gradient Exterminator, Astronomy Tools, StarTools.
https://kurtzeppetello.smugmug.com/

NGC 869-884 - Double Cluster Revisited

I was not planning on imaging the Double Cluster but M34, my target, was still behind some trees some I had a little time. I imaged this almost two years ago (link) but I modified my equipment since then so I decided to revisit it.  The Double Cluster (NGC 869 and NGC 884, often designated h Persei and χ Persei, respectively or Caldwell 14) are close together in the constellation Perseus and lie at a distance of 7500 light years.  They are very close to the Heart Nebula (last target) and the Soul Nebula.

This was also the first time I ever used flats in my processing. I took them the following day using a method described by Trevor Jones from Astrobackyard.com (link).  It definitely made a difference and have posted images with and without the flat frames for comparison.  The flats removed some of the vignetting but not all and seemed to have removed some of the smaller stars so I think I need to experiment with taking these.

Autosave

Autosave with Flats

Color Balance

Color Balance with Flats

Final

Final with Flats

NGC 869 and 884 - The Double Cluster
Location: Home Monroe, CT and CSP27, Goshen, CT
Date: 10-12-17
Camera: Canon EOS Rebel T3i(a), Backyard EOS
Telescope: Orion ED80 80mm f/7.5 Apochromatic Refractor Telescope
Barlow: None
Focal Length: 600mm
f/7.5
Focal Reducer: Orion 0.8x Focal Reducer for Refractor Telescopes
Mount: Orion Atlas Pro EQ/AZ Mount
Filter: Astrodon UV/IR
Autoguiding: QHY-5L-II-M attached to an Agena 50mm Guide Scope with Helical Focuser
Exposure: 40 x 90s
ISO: 1600
Temp: 16 C
Post Processing: Deep Sky Stacker, Photoshop, Lightroom, Gradient Exterminator, Astronomy Tools, StarTools.
https://kurtzeppetello.smugmug.com/

IC 1805 - The Heart Nebula

The Heart Nebula IC 1805 or Sharpless 2-190) is approximately 7500 light years away from Earth and is located in the constellation Cassiopeia. This is an emission nebula showing glowing ionized hydrogen gas and darker dust. The very brightest part of this nebula (the knob on the western edge) is separately classified as NGC 896, because it was the first part of this nebula to be discovered. The nebula's intense red output is driven by the radiation emanating from a small group of stars near the nebula's center (source: wikipedia).

This was the last object I imaged at the CSP27 Star Party on 9-27-17 but I started imaging from my yard on the previous night (10 min) and finished on the night after.I would like to say this object was easy to image and easy to process and for some some this may be the case. However, I had crazy self inflicted troubles imaging at the star party.  Prior to imaging the Heart I was not using the UHC filter, however, since I was using it the previous night I wanted to continue using it. Unfortunately, I did not focus properly using on it but did not realize I had a problem until 40 minutes into it.  I then thought the problem was camera or the UHC filter so I decided to image it without the filter. I was then getting good data so continued imaging for another two and half hours.  It was not until I imaged the following evening (when it was not 2 am) that it dawned on me that it was a focusing  problem.

Processing was not any easier as I first had to decide whether to use the unfiltered data or not.  After stacking various sets of data and using different stacking techniques, I it was apparent that using both the filtered and unfiltered data yielded the best result. I also used stacked using the mosaic function in order get most of the nebula. The other difficulty in processing was keeping a decent star field while getting the nebula to show up.  To accomplish this I did one iteration focusing on the nebula and another iteration where I focused on the keeping the star field intact. I then blended images both by copying the nebula image onto the star field image using the following blend 60% opacity, 95% fill.  I do enjoy processing with PS, however, it was a bit tedious this time.

Overall I am very happy how it turned out with my equipment but my image really would benefit from Ha-filter data.  I would recommend looking at image Trevor Jones from Astrobackyard.com (https://astrobackyard.com/ic-1805-the-heart-nebula/) recently did on the Heart Nebula using an Ha-filter.  It is quite impressive and I used it for a model to process my image.

Happy imaging!

Heart

IC 1805 - The Heart Nebula
Location: Home Monroe, CT and CSP27, Goshen, CT
Date: 9-22-17, 9-23-2017, 9-24-17
Camera: Canon EOS Rebel T3i(a), Backyard EOS
Telescope: Orion ED80 80mm f/7.5 Apochromatic Refractor Telescope
Barlow: None
Focal Length: 600mm
f/7.5
Focal Reducer: Orion 0.8x Focal Reducer for Refractor Telescopes
Mount: Orion Atlas Pro EQ/AZ Mount
Filter: Astrodon UV/IR, Astronomik UHC
Autoguiding: QHY-5L-II-M attached to an Agena 50mm Guide Scope with Helical Focuser
Exposure: 3 x 240s, 22 x 210, 39 x 210
ISO: 1600
Temp: 20 C, 22 C, 20 C
Post Processing: Deep Sky Stacker, Photoshop, Lightroom, Gradient Exterminator, Astronomy Tools, StarTools.
https://kurtzeppetello.smugmug.com/