COPYRIGHT, PLEASE NOTE

All the material on this website is copyrighted to J-P Metsavainio, if not otherwise stated. Any content on this website may not be reproduced without the author’s permission.

Have a visit in my portfolio

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Black Lace, a detail of IC 1805, the Heart Nebula




This have been one of the worst winters for astrophotographing up here 65N. Somehow I managed to shoot six hours of H-alpha light for this target under a bad transparency, seeing was kind of good though. 

Generally I'll like to shoot two or three times more exposures per target but if I'll do so, I might get only four new images per year... For the same reasons I have used my older, wide field, images as a source of color data. Naturally it's better to shoot all the color channel at same focal length but ones again, weather up here is too volatile for that. 
OK, enough whining here. I proudly present the new image of IC 1805 from 5. January, 


Black Lace, a detail of IC 1805, the Heart nebula

A closeup of IC 1805 in mapped colors. Edges of the triangle shape, at middle right, looks like a black lace.
Buy a photographic print from HERE



A mosaic with Melotte 15

Since this new image of mine was overlapping with the Melotte 15 image, I made a two frame mosaic out of them.

A mapped color mosaic image shows the Melotte 15 at upper right corner.

Buy a photographic print from HERE



Black Lace in natural colors

Natural color composition from the emission of ionized elements.
R=80%Hydrogen+20%Sulfur, G=100%Oxygen and B=85%Oxygen+15% Hydrogen to compensate otherwise missing H-beta emission. This composition is very close to a visual spectrum.
Buy a photographic print from HERE


Orientation in the Heart Nebula

The area of interest is marked with a white rectangle.
Buy a photographic print from HERE

INFO

The "Heart Nebula", IC1805 locates about 7500 light years away in constellation Cassiopeia. This is an emission nebula showing glow of ionized elements in a gas cloud and some darker dust lanes.
In a very center of the nebula, lays Melotte 15, it contains few very bright stars, nearly 50 times mass of our Sun, and many dim ones. The solar wind, a radiation pressure, from massive stars makes the gas twist to a various shapes.

Technical details

Processing work flow:
Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07.
Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack2.
Levels, curves and color combine in PS CS3.

Optics, Meade LX200 GPS 12" @ f5
Camera, QHY9
Guiding, SXV-AO, an active optics unit, and Lodestar guide camera 8Hz
Image Scale, ~0,8 arc-seconds/pixel
18 x 1200s exposures for the H-alpha, emission of ionized Hydrogen = 6h
Narrowband cahnnels for ionized Oxygen and Sulfur are taken from an older wide field images.


A single unprocessed 1200 second frame of H-a emission

single 20 min. frame, just calibrated and stretched. Imaged with the QHY9 camera, Baader 7nm H-alpha filter and Meade LX200 12" telescope.


Wednesday, February 6, 2013

3D-study of Messier 27, the Dumbbell nebula



This is an experimental test with a 3D-conversion of my astronomical images. Only real elements from my image are used, there is nothing added but the volumetric information!
(In this image, two of the stars are enhanced  for a visual reasons)

NOTE. This is a personal vision about shapes and volumes, based on some scientific data and an artistic impression.


Dumbbell Nebula, M27, 3D-model


This is a looped video, click to start and stop. Original movie is in HD1080p resolution.

Large movie in Vimeo service
(HD720p)
https://vimeo.com/59052389
NOTE. Right click the video to turn HD and Loop on!



Original 2D-image of the Messier 27


More images and technical details in this blog post:
Buy a photographic print from HERE


Info about the technique used


Due to huge distances, real parallax can't be imaged in most of the astronomical objects.
I have developed an experimental technique to convert my astropics to a artificial volumetric models.

My 3-D experiments are a mixture of science and an artistic impression. I collect distance and other information before I do my 3-D conversion. Usually there are known stars, coursing the ionization, so I can place them at right relative distance. If I know a distance to the nebula, I can fine tune distances of the stars so, that right amount of stars are front and behind of the object.

I use a “rule of thumb” method for stars: brighter is closer, but if a real distance is known, I'm using that. Many 3-D shapes can be figured out just by looking carefully the structures in nebula, such as dark nebulae must be at front of the emission nebulae in order to show up etc...

The general structure of many star forming regions is very same, there is a group of  young stars, as an open cluster inside of the nebula. The stellar wind from the stars is then blowing the gas away around the cluster and forming a kind of cavitation – or a hole — around it. The pillar-like formations in the nebula must point to a source of stellar wind, for the same reason.

How accurate the final model is, depends how much I have known and guessed right. The motivation to make those 3-D-studies is just to show, that objects in the images are not like paintings on the canvas but really three dimensional objects floating in the three dimensional space. This generally adds a new dimension to my hobby as an astronomical imager. (Pun intended)







Monday, February 4, 2013

3D-study of the Rosette Nebula


This is an experimental test with a 3D-conversion of my astronomical images. Only real elements from my image are used, there is nothing added but the volumetric information!

NOTE. This is a personal vision about shapes and volumes, based on some scientific data and an artistic impression.


Rosette Nebula 3D-model I




Original 2D-image of the Rosetta Nebula
More images and technical details can be seen in this blog post:
http://astroanarchy.blogspot.fi/2012/12/caldwell-49-rosette-nebula-reprocessed.html



Rosette Nebula 3D-model II



Info about the technique used


Due to huge distances, real parallax can't be imaged in most of the astronomical objects.
I have developed an experimental technique to convert my astropics to a artificial volumetric models.

My 3-D experiments are a mixture of science and an artistic impression. I collect distance and other information before I do my 3-D conversion. Usually there are known stars, coursing the ionization, so I can place them at right relative distance. If I know a distance to the nebula, I can fine tune distances of the stars so, that right amount of stars are front and behind of the object.

I use a “rule of thumb” method for stars: brighter is closer, but if a real distance is known, I'm using that. Many 3-D shapes can be figured out just by looking carefully the structures in nebula, such as dark nebulae must be at front of the emission nebulae in order to show up etc...

The general structure of many star forming regions is very same, there is a group of  young stars, as an open cluster inside of the nebula. The stellar wind from the stars is then blowing the gas away around the cluster and forming a kind of cavitation – or a hole — around it. The pillar-like formations in the nebula must point to a source of stellar wind, for the same reason.

How accurate the final model is, depends how much I have known and guessed right. The motivation to make those 3-D-studies is just to show, that objects in the images are not like paintings on the canvas but really three dimensional objects floating in the three dimensional space. This generally adds a new dimension to my hobby as an astronomical imager. (Pun intended)






A 3D-study of the Simeis 147 supernova remnant



This is an experimental test with a 3D-conversion of my astronomical images. Only real elements from my image are used, there is nothing added but the volumetric information!

NOTE. This is a personal vision about shapes and volumes, based on some scientific data and an artistic impression.


Simeis 147 3D-model as a"fast fly trough"




Original 2D-image of Simeis 147

More images and technical details can be seen in this blog post:
http://astroanarchy.blogspot.fi/2012/02/siemis-147-new-data-added.html



Simeis 147 3D-model as a looped rotation



Info about the technique used


Due to huge distances, real parallax can't be imaged in most of the astronomical objects.
I have developed an experimental technique to convert my astropics to a artificial volumetric models.

My 3-D experiments are a mixture of science and an artistic impression. I collect distance and other information before I do my 3-D conversion. Usually there are known stars, coursing the ionization, so I can place them at right relative distance. If I know a distance to the nebula, I can fine tune distances of the stars so, that right amount of stars are front and behind of the object.

I use a “rule of thumb” method for stars: brighter is closer, but if a real distance is known, I'm using that. Many 3-D shapes can be figured out just by looking carefully the structures in nebula, such as dark nebulae must be at front of the emission nebulae in order to show up etc...

The general structure of many star forming regions is very same, there is a group of  young stars, as an open cluster inside of the nebula. The stellar wind from the stars is then blowing the gas away around the cluster and forming a kind of cavitation – or a hole — around it. The pillar-like formations in the nebula must point to a source of stellar wind, for the same reason.

How accurate the final model is, depends how much I have known and guessed right. The motivation to make those 3-D-studies is just to show, that objects in the images are not like paintings on the canvas but really three dimensional objects floating in the three dimensional space. This generally adds a new dimension to my hobby as an astronomical imager. (Pun intended)