This shot of the aptly named North America Nebula (also known as NGC7000) shows detail in the 'wall' section - a very active Hydrogen Alpha emission portion of the nebula that glows in a reddish-salmon color in this natural color image. Additionally, a portion of the dimmer Pelican nebula (the 'beak' section) is visible protruding into the upper right portion of this image. Equipment: Canon 550D (astro-modified, clear glass filter) Software Bisque MyT Mount Stellarvue SVQ100 Astrograph Refractor, 580mm @ f/5.8 Software: Pixinsight Commercial Version 1.8 Lightroom CC Photoshop CC Light Frames: 14 x 360 secs 2 x 300 secs (1 hr 34 mins) Dark Frames: 15 x 360 secs (1 hr 30 mins) Other Frames: 30 Bias No Flats More details from Wikipedia: The North America Nebula (NGC 7000 or Caldwell 20) is an emission nebula in the constellation Cygnus, close to Deneb (the tail of the swan and its brightest star). The remarkable shape of the nebula resembles that of the continent of North America, complete with a prominent Gulf of Mexico. It is sometimes incorrectly called the "North American Nebula".[3]
A close up view of the center area of the Rosette Nebula, shot from the shores of Abiquiu Lake in NM. Equipment: SBIG STF-8300c Software Bisque MyT Mount Stellarvue SVQ100 Astrograph Refractor, 580mm @ f/5.8 Software: Pixinsight Commercial Version 1.8 Lightroom 4.3 Photoshop CS2 Light Frames: 15 x 720 secs (3 hrs) Dark Frames: 4 x 720 secs (48 mins) Details about The Rosette Nebula From Wikipedia: The Rosette Nebula (also known as Caldwell 49) is a large, circular H II region located near one end of a giant molecular cloud in the Monoceros region of the Milky Way Galaxy. The open cluster NGC 2244 (Caldwell 50) is closely associated with the nebulosity, the stars of the cluster having been formed from the nebula's matter. Additional information at the wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosette_Nebula
So getting a presentable image of this object was a real learning experience, both in the data collection and certainly in the data processing. I was constrained to using a mono camera, usually an advantage for deep sky imaging, but in the case of 'fast' moving and visually changing objects like a comet probably not the best choice. This image is made from about an hour's worth of total data, split up into 5 frames of 180 seconds each from 4 filters (LRGB). The frames were then dark subtracted and registered, and then the stars were batch removed and the star data and comet data processed separately, with the comet aligned using the newly improved Comet Alignment module in PixInsight. Finally, the 2 images were recombined to produce a composite with aligned comet data and pinpoint stars. This comet is currently rising close to 2200 MST, and is visible via binoculars in the night sky most of the night, although the moon will start to affect it's visibility. it may even be approaching naked eye visibility from extremely dark skies as it gets closer to the earth into the month of February on its journey now outbound from the Sun. It has an orbital period of ~50,000 years, so this is our only chance to experience its rare green glow. Equipment: QHY268M Camera @ -10C and Gain:56 Offset:25 Software Bisque MyT Mount Stellarvue SVQ100 Astrograph Refractor, 580mm @ f/5.8 Antlia Pro Filters (LRGB) Askar FMA180 Guidescope/ASI290MM Software: Pixinsight Commercial Version 1.8 Lightroom CC Photoshop CC N.I.N.A. Control Software Star XTerminator (Russell Croman) Noise XTerminator (Russell Croman) Light Frames: Luminance: 5 x 180 secs ( 15 mins) Red: 5 x 180 secs ( 15 mins) Green: 5 x 180 secs ( 15 mins) Blue: 5 x 180 secs ( 15 mins) 1 hr total Dark Frames: 10 x 180 secs (30 mins) No Bias Frames No Flat Frames
