Astrophotography - The Rosette Nebula

[AZ Maverick]

Astrophotography is another one of my hobbies.

The Rosette Nebula is located about 5200 Light Years from Earth and is about 130 Light Years in diameter.

I took this data back in January of 2022 but I just got around to spending some time processing the data and pulling it all together.
I used my Explore Scientific ED127 FCD-100 Carbon Fiber telescope with a .7 focal reducer for a focal length of 666mm @f5.25.
The mount is a Sky Watcher EQ6-R Pro, and the camera is a ZWO ASI1600MM Pro.

Total image time is 15.05 hours:
Combined in the SHO (Hubble Palette).
Sll (Sulfur 2) filter, 70 five-minute frames
Ha (Hydrogen Alpha) filter, 60 five-minute frames
Olll (Oxygen 3) filter, 51 five-minute frames

The final image is un-cropped except for removing the edge stacking artifacts.

 

[day_trippr]

Very impressive! On all counts!

Cheers!

 

[SonomaBrewer]

Wow!

 

[JoshuaWhite5522]

Very cool

 

[AZ Maverick]

I thought I'd just toss another one of my pics in the thread just for the heck of it...
This is the Flaming Star Nebula, it's about 1500 Light Years from Earth.

 

[JoshuaWhite5522]

I thought I'd just toss another one of my pics in the thread just for the heck of it...
This is the Flaming Star Nebula, it's about 1500 Light Years from Earth.

View attachment 832388

Dude these shots are

 

[bailey mountain brewer]

Absolutely incredible images, my daughter, age 11, is really getting into astronomy, I got her a 5 inch newtonian and we've been getting some great views with it recently, nothing near this caliber obviously. I showed her your first picture and she was amazed, I'm sure she'll enjoy this one as well. Part of me wants really badly to go down the astrophotography rabbit hole, and I might, but part of me says, yeah that's exactly what I need, another expensive hobby hahaha. Awesome photos man!

 

[ehall]

Prescott is a great location to shoot that stuff at night

 

[Red over White]

This so boss! Good show ol' boy!

 

[sibelman]

Gorgeous!

 

[AZ Maverick]

OK - glad you all like the images!
Here's another one of my images.
IC1871 it's part of the Soul Nebula and is located about 7500 light years from Earth.
This image took about 30 hours of individual 5 minute exposures through 3 different wavelength filters.

 

[AZ Maverick]

It has been a while - how about IC1396, The Elephants Trunk - it is about 2400 light years from Earth.
This is a total of 18 hours of 3-minute exposures through 3 different narrow band filters, then combined into the single image.

 

[day_trippr]

I feel...reduced to quectoscopic size

Also, that shot is epic. Just spectacular

 

[AZ Maverick]

I got my telescope out again...

My previous furthest image was ~9000 light years away.
This time, I reached WAY out to 25 million light years away...
And this isn't one of my typical nebula images it's a galaxy image.

This is M51 also known as the Whirlpool Galaxy.
This was very hard to image, this image needs more data (which I will acquire) but the Moon is too bright now for me to take any more images.
And unlike most of my other images, this is not a false color image it is a true color image.

 

[D the Catastrophist]

If you have a chance- City of Rocks State Park in New Mexico does 'Star Parties'. They have a permanently mounted telescope with a retractable roof that they let people look through, and a local group will bring additional telescopes. I got to see the Orion Nebula through 3 different size scopes and it was amazing how much the difference was. Very fun(but very cold- nighttime temps in the fall in the desert are no joke).

Cosmic Campground in NM, located on 180 North of Silver City is a free NF Campground and is a certified dark sky site. They have concrete pads set up for telescopes.

 

[sibelman]

btw, for one week only, 300 I-Max theaters are screening Deep Sky, a 40 minute documentary about the JWST.

 

[passedpawn]

I got my telescope out again...


And unlike most of my other images, this is not a false color image it is a true color image.

Does that mean no filters, or no post/processing of colors, or both?

 

[AZ Maverick]

Does that mean no filters, or no post/processing of colors, or both?

Actually, it means that I did not process the image in false color mapping such as the 'Hubble Pallette', but I did process the image as true color RGB (Red/Green/Blue) with a little Ha (Hydrogen Alpha) to boost the detail in the luminance channel.

My astro camera is a mono (black and white) camera so yes, I did use Red/Green/Blue filters to get a 'true color' RGB image.
The R/G/B filters are broadband filters which cover the entire 300nm wide visible spectrum in the three filters, when I process false color images, I use narrow band filters that only have a bandwidth of 7nm each - the three narrow band filters are Ha (Hydrogen Alpha, S2 (Sulpher 2), and O3 (Oxygen 3) - as a result when imaging narrow band you can map emission line filters in whatever color scheme you want.

As an example - here are two images that I took of IC1396 (the Elephants Trunk), the first image is more or less a true color RGB image, and the second image is one I did in narrow band false color.

True color image:

False color image:

 

[passedpawn]

Ah, I see! Thanks for that explanation. If you have a narrow band filter for Ha in the second photo, I would think there would be more red? Ha is solid in the middle of the red spectrum. I guess not much emission of Ha then? Green is S2 and blue is O3?

 

[AZ Maverick]

Ah, I see! Thanks for that explanation. If you have a narrow band filter for Ha in the second photo, I would think there would be more red? Ha is solid in the middle of the red spectrum. I guess not much emission of Ha then? Green is S2 and blue is O3?

Actually, there is a ton of Ha in most nebula images, it's the most prevalent gas.
That false color image is mapped as what is called the 'Hubble Palette' as that is how most Hubble pics are color mapped, also called SHO mapping.
The S2 emission is mapped to the Red channel, the Ha is mapped to the Green channel, and the O3 is mapped to the Blue channel.

 

[passedpawn]

Actually, there is a ton of Ha in most nebula images, it's the most prevalent gas.
That false color image is mapped as what is called the 'Hubble Palette' as that is how most Hubble pics are color mapped, also called SHO mapping.
The S2 emission is mapped to the Red channel, the Ha is mapped to the Green channel, and the O3 is mapped to the Blue channel.

haha, I guess making them look cool is more important than mapping them to their actual emission wavelengths. They do look cool - what I don't need is to even THINK about another hobby right now, geez.

 

[balrog]

haha, I guess making them look cool is more important than mapping them to their actual emission wavelengths. They do look cool - what I don't need is to even THINK about another hobby right now, geez.

I really have to say "ditto" even tho I've dabbled briefly, and to a much les$$ extent, in this hobby