Astronomy shots

We are truly standing on the shoulders of giants.

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Giant elephants on the back of a giant turtle, right?

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Yeah, that too. :smile:

Last night’s capture… IC1848 a.k.a the Soul Nebula. Even with my new refractor telescope and its focal reducer, I had a hard time getting the nebula completely in frame. I probably should have rotated the camera counter/anti-clockwise a bit more.

This nebula is found in the constellation Cassiopeia. Estimated to be approximately 7500 Light years away.

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The Rosette Nebula (NGC2244) found in the constellation Monoceros. This was a quick and dirty image of just 40 x 3 minute exposures that I added to the end of my main imaging sequence (The Pacman Nebula, which I will post when I have processed it).

The Rosette Nebula is a little bit too large to completely fit into the field of view of my imaging rig. I think it would fit nicely onto a two panel mosaic though, and so I will have a crack at doing that over the next couple of months if the weather allows.

Darkened up to look a little better on my iPad screen.

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Last night I went back to the Rosette Nebula to start what I hope is a 3 night project to create a 3 panel mosaic. I shot the center panel first, just in case the weather doesn’t co-operate tonight or tomorrow evening. Compared to the shot above, this is more than twice the image data (100 x 3 minutes = 5 hours. I’ll try to get the same amount of time for each panel and with any luck it will come out nicely.

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First run at the mosaic. If the weather holds, I will get the third panel tonight.

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Patience is a virtue, and I love the results! :star_struck:

Three panels… the resulting image is 5571 x 3638 pixels. I think that is the largest image I have ever done!

Darker version that looks a little better on an iPad screen. I really need to look into calibrating my laptop’s display.

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I just wish I had a monitor that could do it justice - stunning nevertheless.

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I signed up for an Astrobin account, which lets me upload full size images… so here is the Rosette (again) but this time you can see it at native resolution…

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just great!

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OMG!

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Am…I…the only one who sees a baby Alien head…? :wink:

Incredible pic!

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Well I didn’t see it until just now and suddenly the Rosette Nebula will forever be known the Baby Alien Head Nebula. Some things you just can’t unsee (like the Xenomorph in the Eastern Veil Nebula.

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Awesome!

That such a thing is possible with amateur equipment is mind blowing. But that’s a perk of living in the future I guess.

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