Moon Shots from March 25, 2018

The image below shows the waxing gibbous moon in between three bright stars.  The two north of the moon (near the top) are Pollux and Caster and belong to Gemini while the star south of the moon (near the bottom) is Procyon, the brightest star in Canis Minor.  I was looking for something to image and saw a post in Earthsky of something neat to look at and decided this was it.  The image is a composite of a short 1/1800 second image to get the lunar detail and a long 30 second exposure to get the star field. 

Image 1

Waxing Gibbous Moon
Location: Home Monroe, CT
Date: 3-25-18
Camera: Canon EOS Rebel T3i(a), Backyard EOS
Lens: Canon 18-55 mm
Barlow: None
Focal Length: 35mm
f/7.1
Focal Reducer: None
Mount: Orion Sirius EQ
Filter: Astrodon UV/IR
Autoguiding: none
Exposure: 1 x 1/1800s, 1 x 30
ISO: 400, 800
Temp: -3 C
Post Processing: Photoshop, Astronomy Tools

https://kurtzeppetello.smugmug.com/


Image 2
This is the second image I took on March 25. It still shows Pollux, Caster, and Procyon but clouds partially blocked it and produced the halo.  I rotated the image to better frame it.

Waxing Gibbous Moon
Location: Home Monroe, CT
Date: 3-25-18
Camera: Canon EOS Rebel T3i(a), Backyard EOS
Lens: Canon 18-55 mm
Barlow: None
Focal Length: 35mm
f/7.1
Focal Reducer: None
Mount: Orion Sirius EQ
Filter: Astrodon UV/IR
Autoguiding: none
Exposure: 1 x 1/15s
ISO: 1600
Temp: -3 C
Post Processing: Photoshop, Astronomy Tools

https://kurtzeppetello.smugmug.com/


Image 3
This is the third and last image I took on March 25 and is only picture I took through the ED80.  The terminus shows up pretty well and many craters such as Plato near the top just above Mare Imbrium and Tycho on the bottom.

Waxing Gibbous Moon
Location: Home Monroe, CT
Date: 3-25-18
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 Sirius EQ
Filter: Astrodon UV/IR
Autoguiding: none
Exposure: 1 x 1/1000s
ISO: 400
Temp: -3 C
Post Processing: Photoshop, Astronomy Tools

https://kurtzeppetello.smugmug.com/

Monoceros Region - Wide Field

The Monoceros constellation lies in the northern sky, on the celestial equator right after Orion. Its name means “the unicorn” in Latin which represents the mythical single-horned, horse-like creature. It also happens to contain several interesting deep sky objects that I have imaged recently: the open cluster Messier 50 (NGC 2323), the Rosette Nebula, the Christmas Tree Cluster, the Cone Nebula, and Hubble’s Variable Nebula, among others (source: constellation-guide).

I wanted to do a wide field image of something less commonly imaged before galaxy season is in full bloom so I decided to do this since I have been focused on this area recently. I would like to do more wide field images and my plan is to get a dedicated a monochrome astrophotography camera while collecting wide field images with the Canon T3i. The image was heavily graded especially in the south portion. I had to use Gradient Exterminator a record four times and run it through Lightroom's vignetting function in order to make it tolerable. My image of the Cassiopeia region was much easier to process as it was almost directly overhead. Oh well, that's the night life under skies of southern Connecticut.

The image shows the front end of the unicorn where the base of the head is the Christmas Tree cluster and Cone Nebula, the Rosette Nebula is the nose, Hagrid's Dragon is where the legs meet the body, and the unicorn seems to jumping over the Seagull Nebula.

Monoceros Region
Location: Home Monroe, CT
Date: 3-17-18
Camera: Canon EOS Rebel T3i(a), Backyard EOS
Lens: Canon 50mm f/1.8 (Nifty Fifty)
Barlow: None
Focal Length: 50mm
f/2.8
Focal Reducer: None
Mount: Orion Sirius EQ
Filter: Astrodon UV/IR, Baader Neodymium Skyglow 2"
Autoguiding: QHY-5L-II-M attached to an Agena 50mm Guide Scope with Helical Focuser
Exposure: 45 x 90s
ISO: 1600
Temp: -3 C
Post Processing: Deep Sky Stacker, Photoshop, Gradient Exterminator, Astronomy Tools, Lightroom.
https://kurtzeppetello.smugmug.com/

IC2177 - Seagull Nebula

This is a new on for me and probably the last of the colorful nebulae for a while as we are moving into galaxy season.  I wish the weather would be more in line with galaxy season as well.  As this is nebula gives off a strong Ha signal, I collected some Ha data over two nights in addition to collecting the color data.  Both nights were good although the first night was an almost full moon.  As usual with these Ha-images I stacked it with DSS in super pixel mode and processed it with PS.  I did a little noise reduction but not a lot at this point as I want to keep it as sharp and detailed as possible to use when I combine it with the RGB image.

This is the continuation of the Seagull Nebula, I imaged the Ha portion a couple of weeks ago. Again, this probably the last of the colorful nebulae I will be imaging for a while as we are moving into galaxy season. As usual, it takes me forever to process images as I go back and forth with what looks good and what is the object supposed to look like.

The Seagull Nebula or IC 2177 lies along the border between the constellations Monoceros and Canis Major. It lies approximately 3650 ly from Earth and does resemble a bird, at least to me.
The nebula also includes the open clusters NGC 2335 and NGC 2343.
HaRGB Image

RGB Image

Ha Image

IC2177 - Seagull Nebula
Location: Home Monroe, CT
Date: 2-26-18(Ha), 3-11-18 (Ha), 3-5-18 (RGB), 3-11-18 (RGB)
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 Sirius EQ
Filter: Astrodon UV/IR, Astronomik Ha Clip-filter
Autoguiding: QHY-5L-II-M attached to an Agena 50mm Guide Scope with Helical Focuser
Exposure: 31 x 180s (Ha), 24 x 180 (Ha), 24 x 180s (RGB), 24 x 180 (RGB)
ISO: 1600
Temp: -2 C, 0 C, -2, -6
Post Processing: Deep Sky Stacker, Photoshop, Astronomy Tools, GE, Lightroom.
https://kurtzeppetello.smugmug.com/

NGC 2301 - Hagrid's Dragon Cluster

I imaged the open cluster NGC 2301 the same night I did the Poor Man's Cluster.  I was looking for something other than a Ha-nebula since that seems to be what I have been focusing on (The Jellyfish, Monkey Head, Cone, and currently the Seagull Nebula) recently.  It will end soon though as galaxy season is just beginning.

Being a science fiction buff I chose NGC 2301 because of the nickname, Hagrids's Dragon Cluster, which was coined by Stephen James O'Meara in his book, Deep-Sky Companions: Hidden Treasures. I am glad I did as it turned out surprisingly well. It is situated in Monoceros at a distance of 2,450-2,840 light-years away (depending on the source), and is estimated to be 160 million years old. The cluster is made up of approximately 100 stars spanning. It is detached from the background sky due to a number of bright member stars running vertically (source: astronomy).

It is no secret that like colorful stars, maybe vibrance a little too much, but I did very little saturation with this image. The colors really came out like this after stacking.  For some reason my camera only saved the jpeg flats (could not use) so vignetting gradients were really bad. To remove them I created a new image and blurred it with dust & scratches. Next, I subtracted it from the original layer and wound up with a flat image. This method works really well with small galaxies and clusters, for large objects and nebulae, I use gradient exterminator (method description: http://kurt-zeppetello.blogspot.com/2017/04/gradient-test-with-m94.html).

Crop

Wide Field

NGC 2301 - Hagrid's Dragon Cluster
Location: Happy Frog Observatory, Monroe, CT
Date: 02-18-18
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
Filter: Astrodon UV/IR
Autoguiding: QHY-5L-II-M attached to an Agena 50mm Guide Scope with Helical Focuser
Exposure: 51 x 60s
ISO: 1600
Temp: 4 C
Post Processing: Deep Sky Stacker, Photoshop, Gradient Exterminator, Astronomy Tools.
https://kurtzeppetello.smugmug.com/

NGC2264 - The Cone Nebula and Others - HaRGB

The Cone Nebula and Christmas Tree Cluster are located about 2,700 light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Monoceros. The Cone is at the top of the tree and the star cluster makes the base of the tree. The diffuse Cone Nebula, so named because of its apparent shape, lies in the southern part of NGC 2264, the northern part being the magnitude-3.9 Christmas Tree Cluster. The cone's shape comes from a dark absorption nebula consisting of cold molecular hydrogen and dust in front the emission nebula containing hydrogen ionized by S Monocerotis, the brightest star of NGC 2264. The faint nebula is approximately seven light-years long (source: wikipedia).

What I found interesting was the dark dust clouds which appear throughout the area, especially in the lower left of the image. I managed to get a little over an hour of Ha-exposures but it was enough to add some detail to the RGB image.  I chose to keep this as a wide field shot as I like the look and also I my equipment would not resolve this to my liking.

Ha-Image

RGB-Image

HaRGB-Image

NGC 2264 - Cone Nebula and Christmas Tree Cluster
Location: Home Monroe, CT
Date: 2-18-18(Ha), 2-12-18 (RGB), 2-16-18 (RGB)
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 Sirius EQ
Filter: Astrodon UV/IR, Astronomik Ha Clip-filter, Astronomik UHC Clip-filter
Autoguiding: QHY-5L-II-M attached to an Agena 50mm Guide Scope with Helical Focuser
Exposure: 23 x 180s (Ha), 74 x 120 (RGB), 26 x 180 (RGB)
ISO: 1600
Temp: -8 C, -4 C
Post Processing: Deep Sky Stacker, Photoshop, Astronomy Tools, Lightroom, GE.
https://kurtzeppetello.smugmug.com/