Dawn at Seymour High School

Dawn at Seymour High School this morning. From my parking spot with an iPhone Pic.

Fleming's Triangle (Pickering's Triangle)

This is the third part of the Cygnus Loop that I have imaged.  The wispy clouds of hot gas and dust that make up this emission nebula are the result of a massive supernova explosion that occurred 5000 to 8000 years ago approximately 1500 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus.  I have imaged Eastern Veil and Western Veil (Witches Broom), brightest and most popular parts of the Cygnus Loop, already and decided to try my luck with Fleming's Triangle (a.k.a. Pickering's Triangle) this time.  It was discovered photographically in 1904 by Williamina Fleming at Harvard Observatory and originally named after Edward Charles Pickering who was director at the time.

I really love the wispy fibrous appearance of this whole area.  I spent some pre-imaging time planning to frame it as I did not want to overlap with the Western Veil (Witches Broom) or Eastern Veil.  It helped that this was the same orientation that I used when I was imaging the Pelican.  I also wanted to get the luminous knots NGC 6979 and NGC 6974 located on the lower part of the image discovered by Lord Rosse (6974) and by William Herschel (6979). The designation NGC 6979 is often used to refer to Fleming’s Triangle.  I managed to get over 11 hrs of total exposure over 11 nights imaging after the Pelican went behind some trees.  Some more productive than others - one night invisible wispy clouds and another night the equipment gods abandoned me so nothing worked - fortunately they returned the next night. I enjoyed processing this image and I did have to get rid of a couple blown out star halos which I will post a video on in the near future.  On that same line, the nebula was done with Hydrogen and Oxygen filters but the stars were composed of RGB data.  I used a simple method of combining the star data in PixInsight - thanks Gary Imm!

Lastly, the first image is a typical HOO where Ha is in the red channel, OIII is in the green and blue channels.  Just for giggles I did a second image where Ha is in the red channel, Ha and OIII are split 50-50 in the green channel, and OIII is in the blue channel.  It gave a pretty neat looking color cast and I like the golden hue but I don't think it added any additional detail.

HOO

H(HO)O

Fleming's Triangle
Home Monroe, CT
Date: 9-16-19, 9-18-19, 9-21-19, 9-24-19, 9-25-19, 9-26-19, 9-27-19, 10-8-19, 10-14-19, 10-18-19
Camera: ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro
Telescope: Astro-Tech AT115EDT 115mm Refractor Telescope
Barlow: None
Focal Length: 805mm
f/7
Focal Reducer: Astro-Tech 0.8x Focal Reducer/Field Flattener for Refractor Telescopes
Mount: Orion Sirius EQ
Filter Wheel: ZWO EFW 8x 1.25"
Filter: ZWO Ha, OIII, R, G, B
Focuser: ZWO EAF
Autoguiding: QHY-5L-II-M attached to an Agena 50mm Guide Scope with Helical Focuser
Exposure: Ha 99 x 180s, OIII 100 x 180s, R 49 x 60s, G 29 x 60s, B 43 x 60s
Gain: 139
Offset 21
Temp: 13 C
Post Processing: PixInsight, Photoshop, APT
https://kurtzeppetello.smugmug.com/
http://astroquest1.blogspot.com/
http://youtube.com/c/AstroQuest1

The Moon from Boothe Park!

Blast from the past!  This was a single shot taken from my modified Canon T3i/600d through my old imaging telescope, the Orion ED80 F7.5 refractor.    The Astronomy Club (BMAS) just finished doing an outreach and I decided to take the advice of Van H. McComas, if the Moon is out, image it. I normally take lunar images without filters, however, this time I used the Baader Moon & Skyglow filter in order increase the contrast.  It seemed to have worked as I the shock waves coming off the crater in Tycho are much more visible than any other one-shot image during the full moon phase than I have imaged previously.

The Moon

Boothe Park, CT
Date: 10-12-19
Camera: Canon T3i/600d
Telescope: Orion ED80 Refractor Telescope
Barlow: None
Focal Length: 600mm
f/7.5
Focal Reducer: None
Mount: Sky-Watcher Twilight I Alt/Az Mount
Filter Wheel: None
Filter: Baader Moon & SkyGlow
Focuser: Moonlite
Autoguiding:None
Exposure: 1 x 1/400s
ISO: 200
Temp: 15 C
Post Processing: Photoshop, Lightroom

https://kurtzeppetello.smugmug.com/
http://astroquest1.blogspot.com/
http://youtube.com/c/AstroQuest1

IC 5070 - Pelican Nebula

This is my first image of the Pelican which I decided to do in narrowband (SHO) since it would take many nights to acquire the data including when the moon was out.  Located in constellation Cygnus and approximately 2000 light-years away the Pelican Nebula is separated from the more popular North American Nebula by a dark molecular cloud.  In astronomy it seems your either a well studied object or hardly studied at all, the Pelican is one of those well studied objects as light from newly formed stars is energizing the surrounding gas clouds of hydrogen and oxygen.

I especially like the gold front located on the lower right of the image. In this region Herbig-Haro objects have been detected as jets of gas are seen to be emanating from a protostar.  I imaged this over eleven nights but do to my situation I was only able to image for 2.5 hours each night.  I moved on to another object when this went out out of my FOV.  I managed to get a little over 5 hours on Ha, OIII, and SII for fifteen total hours.  I did have a couple of "Aargg" moments as one night I was not focused properly and another night it looked clear but very faint clouds moved in.  On third night my camera was making this very load noise but was cooling so I pretended it it was not making any noise (the fan was replaced six months ago).  The next day I decided to take the back cover off myself and discovered a bug decided to make a home there.  On the positive side, I purchased a Pegasus EQMOD direct cable from Highpoint Scientific and got it working.

Processing was the usual for me, no rhyme or reason just stumbling along. I am happy with how it turned out overall but I am not totally happy with the stars.  I tried many things to fix them but you adjust one thing at the expense of another.  I actually made a starless version with StarNet and may come back with another version when I get some time.

IC 5070 - Pelican Nebula

Home Monroe, CT
Date: 9-13-19, 9-15-19, 9-16-19, 9-17-19, 9-18-19, 9-19-19, 9-21-19, 9-22-19, 9-25-19, 9-26-19, 9-27-19
Camera: ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro
Telescope: Astro-Tech AT115EDT 115mm Refractor Telescope
Barlow: None
Focal Length: 805mm
f/7
Focal Reducer: Astro-Tech 0.8x Focal Reducer/Field Flattener for Refractor Telescopes
Mount: Orion Sirius EQ
Filter Wheel: ZWO EFW 8x 1.25"
Filter: ZWO Ha, OIII, SII
Focuser: ZWO EAF
Autoguiding: QHY-5L-II-M attached to an Agena 50mm Guide Scope with Helical Focuser
Exposure: Ha 102 x 180s, OIII 100 x 180s, SII 107 x 180s
Gain: 139
Offset 21
Temp: 13 C
Post Processing: PixInsight, Photoshop, Lightroom, APT
https://kurtzeppetello.smugmug.com/
http://astroquest1.blogspot.com/