IC 348

The central portion of the image shows IC 348, a 2-million year old open star cluster associated with two small reflection nebula LBN 758 and LBN 601 (LBN refers to Lynds catalog of Bright Nebula). It is estimated to be 970 light-years away and resides in the Perseus Molecular Cloud which accounts for the cloudy appearance of the background.  The larger nebula, LBN 758, is located in the center of the open cluster the while the smaller LBN 601 is just to the left of the bright blue giant star Atik (38-Per).

The image also contains some dark nebulae, in particular, the barely visible LDN 1471 in the upper left portion.   In addition, the more visible LDN 1468, LDN 1470, and LDN 1472 (LDN refers to Lynds catalog of Dark Nebula) appear on the right portion of the image.  One of my favorite areas in this view is the illuminated gas and dust of the molecular cloud on the bottom left and is one of the reasons I did not crop this image.

I thought it would be easy to process but it was surprisingly tough as I wanted to highlight the faint gas & dust from the molecular cloud while keeping the noise low.  I also had horrible gradients that ABE nor DBE in PI could not remove.  Getting frustrated after an hour I switched to Gradient Exterminator in PS and it fixed it with one simple click and then went back to PI.  I am sure there many PI experts who could have done it but I could figure it out.

The weather was no help, even on clear nights clouds came in for a visit.  I started in early December thinking I would be done in a couple of days and this would be my last object with the ED80 as my main scope.  I only managed to get about five hours of usable exposures and you think I would have been able to get more like 15 hrs with the amount of time passing since I started this project.  Oh well, my telescope has not arrived yet either.

If you do this object I would recommend getting as much luminosity data as you possible as that had the greatest effect on the outcome.  I collected a little over an hour of Ha one of the nights before the clouds moved in but when I stacked it, there was barely anything there so I decided not to pursue this course when the LRGB was much more useful.

Lastly, I have been putting together an APT video tutorial series and made a new video while imaging the IC 348 of having APT  do an Automatic Meridian Flip [https://youtu.be/r0jhx_Jf_3s] and it worked! I don't know if I will use it that often as I like to make sure my wires don't get tangled and to do it manually only takes five minutes anyway.  However, I gotta give credit to Ivo and the rest of the APT team it stopped imaging, turned off the autoguider, flipped the scope, zeroed in on the object with plate-solving, started PHD2 guiding, and then started imaging again.  Worked like a charm.

IC 348

IC 348
Location: Home Monroe, CT
Date: 12-10-18, 12-11-18, 12-12-18, 12-18-18, 12-29-18
Camera: ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro
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 Wheel: ZWO EFW 8x 1.25"
Filter: ZWO R, G, B, L
Autoguiding: QHY-5L-II-M attached to an Agena 50mm Guide Scope with Helical Focuser
Exposure: R 41 x 90, G 34 x 90, B 38 x 90, L 81 x 90 (4.85 hr total)
Gain: 139
Offset 21
Temp: -5 C
Post Processing: PixInsight and Photoshop
https://kurtzeppetello.smugmug.com/

Using Astrophotography Tool - Automatic Meridian Flip

Colorful Festive Array! - Wirtanen, Pleiades, & California Nebula

So I finally had a bit of clearing on a night where I was able to image stuff.  One of the things I wanted to try was Comet 46P(Wirtanen) with Pleiades (M45) and the California Nebula (NGC 1499) in the same field of view.  So I went to my nifty fifty (50mm) lens attached to my trusty Hap Griffin modified Canon T3i/600D.  I wanted to get 45 minutes on this but had to settle for 30 minutes due to the usual clouds which appear in CT even on supposedly clear nights.  The moon was high and bright but I wanted to try it anyway so I did a 30s test shot at ISO 1600 and saw Pleiades and the Comet with lots of noise and no California Nebula .  I then did a 30s test shot with the Baader Moon and SkyGlow Neodymium Filter and it actually worked really well.  The California Nebula was well defined but there was still lots of camera noise.  I then lowered the ISO to 800 and increased the exposure to 60s and the noise was much less.  Thanks to Shannon Calvert for recommending ISO 800 for better a backgrounds.

There is a large molecular cloud between Pleiades and the California Nebula which I would love to get but you need much more exposure and a dark moonless night to pick it up really well.  You can see the darkened region in the middle of the image. Some of the noise I was picking up was the cloud but with a bright moon and limited exposure it was not optimal.  Anyway, the objects do make for a festive holiday array!

Also, I was trying to stack this with PI but was getting the following error: 
- Cannot execute instance in the global context.
- Reason: No master calibration frames or overscan regions have been specified.  
I ended up stacking it in DSS and then transferring it in PI.  I did not take any support frames and though I programmed so it would not to bother with flats and etc.

Wirtanen, Pleiades, & California Nebula

Location: Home Monroe, CT
Date: 12-18-18
Camera: Canon T3i/600D Modified
Telescope: Canon 50mm (Ninfty Fifty)

Barlow: None
Focal Length: 50mm
f/1.8
Focal Reducer: Orion 

Mount: Orion Sirius EQ Goto
Filter Wheel: None
Filter: Baader Moon and SkyGlow Neodymium Filter
Autoguiding: None
Exposure: 31 x 60
ISO: 800
Offset
Temp: -5 C
Post Processing: PixInsight and Photoshop
https://kurtzeppetello.smugmug.com/

Using Astrophotography Tool - Creating Flats

NGC 7635 - Bubble Nebula & Vicinity

I have an image of the Bubble Nebula from three years ago when I imaged the globular cluster M52 for my Messier Catalog.  Needles to to say, this HOO image blows it away.  NGC 7635, the Bubble Nebula, is being pushed out by the stellar wind of massive star inside the nebula. Also in this region is a cloud of gas and dust in this region which is able to contain the expansion of the bubble gas.  However, the gas gets heated by the hot radiation from the bubble's central star causing it to glow. The Bubble is about 10 light-years across.  Also located in this image is M52 - Cassiopeia Salt and Pepper Cluster off to the right and the even more impressive NGC 7538 - Northern Lagoon Nebula to the left.  I was going to crop the Bubble like many other imagers do but I saw the Northern Lagoon and decided to keep the large field.  Besides there are many other great close ups of the Bubble with larger aperture scopes so I decided to keep the large field.  The upper left portion of the image contains even more nebulosity and and not just hydrogen, the gas also had a strong oxygen signal as well.

I was not planning to image this object this year or at least with the ED80 as I thought my new telescope (ordered three months ago) would have arrived by now, oh well - I hear it is in California waiting to go through customs. I imaged this in Ha and OIII and did capture a little SII but chose not to add it as it was less than an hour and I was not happy with the focus.  I am being more picky with focusing these days.  In fact I through out a nights worth of oxygen as it was way out of focus.  I thought my filters were par focal before learning the hard way that par focal is a bunch of hogwash.  Unfortunately I did not have time to add any RGB for a star field either so this will have to do for now. I am looking forward to the new winter constellations most of which are visible from my astronomy shed which makes setup much easier.

Processing took a little while as always as I was trying new things in PI and PS.  I took a short course on processing with PixInsight and Photoshop offered by fellow AB imager Shannon Calvert of the Westport Astronomical Society (WAS) the other night and picked up some new tricks especially with noise reduction.  Of course it was on one of the few perfectly clear nights we have in Connecticut.

HOO

Ha

OIII

NGC 7635 - Bubble Nebula

Location: Home Monroe, CT
Date: 11-11-18, 11-29-18
Camera: ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro
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 Wheel: ZWO EFW 8x 1.25"
Filter: ZWO Ha, OIII
Autoguiding: QHY-5L-II-M attached to an Agena 50mm Guide Scope with Helical Focuser
Exposure: Ha 41 x 180, OIII 50 x 180 (4.55 hr total)
Gain: 139
Offset 21
Temp: -10 C
Post Processing: PixInsight and Photoshop
https://kurtzeppetello.smugmug.com/