Visiting the Pillars of Creation

This is another “looking at progress” entry.  I guess I do that a lot, but that is much of the fun of astrophotography for me—seeing improvement.  It was a great thrill back when I first tried to image the Eagle Nebula and realized that I could see the “Pillars of Creation,” made famous in Hubble Space Telescope images, in my own humble efforts.  I had not “visited” the Eagle last summer (and I do think of imaging these objects in terms of visiting them; it's the closest I'm ever going to get!) because we didn’t get very many good nights and the few we did get seemed to be marred by smoke from wildfires (plus last summer I was doing a lot of playing with wide-field images taken using my 9x50 guide scope).  Anyway, last night it looked like conditions were going to be excellent and I reasoned the Eagle was about at the right place in the sky that I could image it all night (and I needed my sleep after staying up most of the night before, so the plan was to start the session and just let it run).  

M16 has several common names: Eagle Nebula, Star Queen Nebula, and Pillars of Creation (as noted above).  I like Eagle Nebula, both because the dark structure at the center reminds me of an eagle and because the overall nebula (which you can't see in this image because it is framed too tightly for it) resembles an Eagle with wings spread.  That two-levels-of-meaning thing appeals to me.

I had trouble getting the Cartes du Ciel/PicGoto combination to work correctly.  I tried to start by synchronizing on nu Oph and each time after doing the goto for M16 the chart would jump to some position to the west of where it really was and not find the target.  So I finally switched to alpha Sct (which was just visible), synched there, and did the goto; no problem that time.  Despite looking promising in the forecast, conditions were not great: gusty wind, poor seeing, and some smoke in the air.  So guiding performance was terrible, worse in RA than in DEC.  Nevertheless, after throwing out the worst subframes and some processing, this is the result:

Date: 28 Jun 2014

Subject: M16, Eagle or Star Queen Nebula

Scope: AT8IN

Filter: none

Mount: CG-5 (Synta motors, PicGoto Simplificado)

Guiding: 9x50 Finder/Guider + DSI Ic + PHD 2.2.2 (Win 7 ASCOM)

Camera: DSI IIc chiller at 2.50 A, ~10 °C

Acquisition: Nebulosity 3.2.0, no dither

Exposure: 39x300 s

Stacking: Neb 3, bad pixel map, bias included, normalize first, trans+rot align, 1.5 SD stack.

Processing: StarTools 1.3.5.279 Crop; Wipe:Color & brightness 77%; Develop 82.80%; HDR:Optimize; Color:Scientific, 200%; Life:Moderate; Deconvolute auto mask 2.9 pix; HDR:Equalize; Track RNC 1.72%; Magic:Shrink 1 pix; Color:Scientific, 150%.  CS6 Astronomy Tools Increase star color; Less crunchy more fuzzy (twice); Layer mask to retain detail in the nebula; Astro Frame.

Compare with the image from 2 years ago, here.  The new image is much sharper and I like the colors better.  

Date: 25 Jul 2012

Subject: M16, Eagle Nebula

Scope: AT8IN (no focal reduction!) 

Filter: none

Mount: CG-5 (Synta motors)

Guiding: Orion ST80 + 0.5x Antares telereducer + DSI Ic + PHD

Camera: DSI IIc 

Acquisition: Nebulosity 3.0.9

Exposure: 36 x 300 s 

Stacking: Neb 3, bias included, normalize first, trans+rot align, 1.5 SD stack

Processing: auto color balance, digital development with sharpening, Keller stretch, power stretch, star edge sharpen. In one layer, unsharp mask. In separate layer, GREYCStoration. To the denoised layer in CS5, Astronomy Tools deep space & space noise reduction. Combine with Gaussian blurred layer mask. Saturation boost and levels.

Reprocessed with StarTools.  Tightened the fat stars, healed the star shapes, and finished with Life:Moderate with a 90% saturation boost.

The Fireworks Galaxy: "Eye of Sauron?"

I’m sticking with the Cepheus region for another night.  Started from Eta Cephei and found the galaxy with the PicGoto.  I can't see this galaxy even at 10 s imager exposures, but used asterisms to get it lined up.  It has low surface brightness.  This galaxy is one of the most prolific producers of supernovae, hence the name.  To me, I think "Eye of Sauron" might make a more interesting name.  The breeze bounced my scope all over, so I consider these to be below average conditions. I fiddled with the chiller (which wasn’t working correctly last night); tonight it is working fine: 2.5 A, 10.5 °C down to 1°C.  I think this image is much better than what I got last year.

Date: 19 Jun 2014

Subject: NGC 6946, Fireworks Galaxy

Scope: AT8IN + High Point Scientific Coma Corrector

Filter: none

Mount: CG-5 (Synta motors, PicGoto Simplificado)

Guiding: 9x50 Finder/Guider + DSI Ic + PHD 2.2.2 (Win 7 ASCOM)

Camera: DSI IIc chiller at 2.50 A, 10.5 to 1.0 °C

Acquisition: Nebulosity 3.2.0, no dither

Exposure: 46x300 s

Stacking: Neb 3, bad pixel map, bias included, normalize first, trans+rot align, 1.5 SD stack.

Processing: StarTools 1.3.5.279 Crop; Wipe:Color & brightness 75%; Develop 88.71%; Color:Scientific, 250%; HDR reveal core; Deconvolute auto mask 2.6 pix; Life:Moderate; Track RNC 3.92%; Magic:Shrink 2 pix. Repeated HDR reveal core on another layer.  CS6 Astronomy Tools Layer the double “reveal core” layer on top of the other at 66% transparency; Increase star color; Deep space noise reduction; Less crunchy more fuzzy; Levels; Astro Frame.

Wizard/Flying Horse Nebula

After a spate of cloudy weather and full moon, I’m finally able to get out observing again.  I’ve been having a good time imaging things in Cepheus, so I decided to continue working there.  I used Delta Cephei as my alignment star.  This is the prototypical Cepheid variable.  I don’t know where it was in its cycle last night, but it was bright enough to be easy to find to get me started.  I used the PicGoto to get from there to the nebula, which is not visible except at long exposures (the asterism at the top of the image, a near-equilateral triangle of bright stars with pairs in two of the corners, was easily visible).  I'm not sure what this nebula's popular name is; I've seen both "The Wizard" and "Flying Horse Nebula."  I can't see a wizard, but I can imagine a flying horse (and it's in the sky, after all!).  I ran the chiller at 2.5 A, but it didn’t seem to be doing anything; I'm not sure what's wrong so I’ll have to check it out more fully.  The nebulosity really came out in the processing. Conditions were very good: clear, with no wind. 

This is a big improvement over the last time I tried this object, 2 years ago. Back then, I used a focal reducer and did not correct very well around the margins of the image (I really need a bigger imaging chip to get a larger field of view, but large-chip cameras are outside my budget range at present).  This time, I think the UHC-S filter helped improve the contrast.  My processing techniques have also improved a lot since the 2012 image.  I noticed that my excellent scope balance at the beginning of the session degraded considerably as Cepheus got higher in the sky.

Date: 18 Jun 2014

Subject: NGC 7380/Sh2-142, Wizard/Flying Horse Nebula

Scope: AT8IN + High Point Scientific Coma Corrector

Filter: Baader Planetarium UHC-S

Mount: CG-5 (Synta motors, PicGoto Simplificado)

Guiding: 9x50 Finder/Guider + DSI Ic + PHD 2.2.2 (Win 7 ASCOM)

Camera: DSI IIc chiller at 2.50 A, 12-9 °C

Acquisition: Nebulosity 3.2.0, no dither

Exposure: 53x300 s

Stacking: Neb 3, bad pixel map, bias included, normalize first, trans+rot align, 1.5 SD stack.

Processing: StarTools 1.3.5.279 Crop; Wipe:Color & brightness 75%; Develop 90.05%; Color:Scientific, 225%; HDR Optimize soft; Deconvolute auto mask 2.6 pix; Life:Moderate; Track RNC 2.7%; Magic:Shrink 1 pix; Life:Heavy. CS6 Astronomy Tools Increase star color; Levels; Astro Frame.

I've rotated the old image to approximately the same orientation

Date: 17 Aug 2012

Subject: NGC 7380 / Sh2-142, Flying Horse Nebula

Scope: AT8IN + 0.5x Antares telereducer

Filter: none

Mount: CG-5 (Synta motors)

Guiding: Orion ST80 + 0.5x Antares telereducer + DSI Ic + PHD

Camera: DSI IIc 

Acquisition: Nebulosity 3.1.0

Exposure: 60 x240 s

Stacking: Neb 3, bias included, normalize first, trans+rot align, 1.5 SD stack

Processing: crop, color balance, digital development, levels & curves, one layer GreyCStoration, unsharp mask another in N3.  Astronomy Tools horizontal band, color blotch, deep space noise reduction in the denoise layer.  Layer mask combine the layers, AT enhance DSO/reduce stars, star color enhance, GradientXTerminator, star size reduction, saturation boost all in CS6.

Elephant's Trunk Nebula

Last night I decided to give the Elephant’s Trunk Nebula a try before the Moon gets too full.  Where the Elephant's Trunk is in the sky right now, I can image all night up to the meridian.  The last time I took a shot at it was two years ago.  This time I thought I’d go with the UHC-S filter in the hope that it would improve the contrast in the nebula and cut down on light pollution a bit; my biggest light dome is to the north, and so is this object.  

I found the Elephant’s Trunk with the PicGoto starting from alpha Cephii.  This was sure a pleasure compared to the last time I was here and had to star hop visually to an asterism; I can’t see the nebula even with the camera unless the exposures are long. It took me a while to find the asterisms I wanted, but using the PicGoto was far easier. I had worse wind tonight than the prior two sessions; a dry cold front is apparently going through. I chose to use a focal reducer primarily to improve the framing for this image.  In addition to increasing the field of view / decreasing the image scale, this makes the optical train faster, which might be important for a dimmer object like this one.  Guiding was terrible this session, but I made little effort to improve it because at this imaging scale it was good enough. I tried 600 s subframes and got round stars but they were overexposed, so I backed off.  There were lots of dark speckles in the nebulosity when I post-processed; I took them for noise and processed them out.  

Date: 6 Jun 2014

Subject: IC 1396, Elephant’s Trunk Nebula

Scope: AT8IN + Antares 0.5x Telereducer

Filter: Baader Planetarium UHC-S

Mount: CG-5 (Synta motors, PicGoto Simplificado)

Guiding: 9x50 Finder/Guider + DSI Ic + PHD 2.2.2 (Win 7 ASCOM)

Camera: DSI IIc chiller at 2.50 A, 6 to -2.0 °C

Acquisition: Nebulosity 3.2.0, no dither

Exposure: 49x300 s

Stacking: Neb 3, bad pixel map, bias included, normalize first, trans+rot align, 1.5 SD stack.

Processing: StarTools 1.3.5.279 Crop; Wipe:Color & brightness 75%; Develop 87.49%; HDR Optimize soft; Color:Scientific, 200% sat.; Deconvolute auto mask 1.6 pix; Life:Moderate; Track RNC 3.43%; Magic:Shrink 1 pix. CS6 Astronomy Tools Increase star color; Deep space noise reduction; Less crunchy more fuzzy (twice); Levels; Astro Frame.

M101, Pinwheel Galaxy, Last Year and This Year

The Pinwheel Galaxy is great to image with my gear because it is just the right size to fill the field of view of my small chip camera at the longest focal length I normally use.  I have a bit of a history with this galaxy in that it is one of the galaxies I tried to image with my old point-and-shoot camera via "afocal" eyepiece projection back when I was first starting.  It looked terrible, but I was thrilled to get the image.  The surface brightness of this galaxy seems a bit low compared to many of the Messiers; maybe that is why it has such a high number.  I imaged it last year with the same gear as this year and was very happy with the result, but now I look at the older image and feel it is overprocessed (too much sharpening, primarily, which brings out detail that is not real).  Both this year's image and last year's are shown below for comparison.  The new image is "deeper," with almost 3 times as much exposure (last year I tried to take multiple images in a night; now, I generally don't try for more than one per session).  In my opinion the colors in the 2014 image are also much better; that's mostly due to improvements in StarTools' color algorithm, I think.

Observing notes:  Light wind gusts again.  Had some trouble getting the mount to settle down and track after doing the goto.  This may be because I started with the scope on the east side of the meridian; I almost always start with it on the west.  I'm using the "lowpass" DEC guiding algorithm again.  Guiding looks like it might be quite good if the wind would settle down.  Hopefully what I'm seeing now is the evening canyon breeze and it will diminish as the night progresses.  After 8 or so subframes, I noticed the connection through the USB-Serial port to the PicGoto had dropped.  I've never seen that happen before without also losing the cameras (because of a loose USB connection), so I got to see what it looks like when you are not guiding at all.  It looks pretty bad with my mount!  Chiller running at 2.5 A, 6 °C on the CCD; it dropped to -2 °C by morning and I had ice all over the outside of the camera.  All in all, despite the wind gusts I was able to keep most of my subframes.  This is significantly better than last year's image, so I'm satisfied, although I'd always love for the image to be sharper.

20.9 ± 1.8 million LY away

From the shape of this galaxy and the streams of stars (particularly along the bottom of the image) I’d guess this guy has undergone at least one collision with another galaxy of significant mass.

Date: 5 Jun 2014
Subject: M101, Pinwheel Galaxy
Scope: AT8IN + HPS Coma Corrector
Filter: None
Mount: CG-5 (Synta motors, PicGoto Simplificado)
Guiding: 9x50 Finder/Guider + DSI Ic + PHD 2.2.2 (Win 7 ASCOM)
Camera: DSI IIc chiller at 2.50 A, 6 to -2.0 °C
Acquisition: Nebulosity 3.2.0, no dither
Exposure: 60x300 s
Stacking: Neb 3, bad pixel map, bias included, normalize first, trans+rot align, 1.5 SD stack.
Processing: StarTools 1.3.5.279 Crop; Wipe:Color & brightness 76%; Develop 90.05%; HDR:Reveal core (for one layer); HDR Optimize soft (for another layer); Color:Scientific, 300% sat.; Deconvolute auto mask 2.5 pix; Track RNC 40.69%; Magic:Shrink 1 pix. CS6 Astronomy Tools layer the “core reveal” layer at 50% transparency on top of the “optimize soft” layer; Healing brush; increase star color; Deep space noise reduction; Less crunchy more fuzzy; Make stars smaller; Astro Frame.

Date: 3 May 2013

Subject: M101, The Pinwheel Galaxy

Scope: AT8IN + HPS Coma Corrector

Filter: None

Mount: CG-5 (Synta motors)

Guiding: 9x50 Finder/Guider + DSI Ic + PHD 1.14.2

Camera: DSI IIc (chiller at ~1.5 A, T = 1.5 °C)

Acquisition: Nebulosity 3.1.5, no dither

Exposure: 21x300 s

Stacking: Neb 3, bad pixel map, bias included, normalize first, trans+rot align, 1.5 SD stack.

Processing: StarTools 1.3 Crop; Wipe:Color & Brightness; Develop 95.70%; HDR:Reveal core; Sharpen; Deconvolute: 3.0 pix; Track; Color:Bottom 2.5, Top Full, Sat 650%; Magic:Shrink 1; Life:Moderate.  CS6+Astronomy Tools increase star color; layer mask deep space & space noise reduction; layer mask unsharp mask on dust lanes; less crunchy more fuzzy; make stars smaller; AstroFrame.

The Iris Nebula

Ever since I first observed it, I have felt the Iris Nebula is one of the most beautiful deep sky objects.  To me it looks like a bright beacon star shining through a blue-golden tunnel.  A couple of years ago, not long after I started posting images to Astrobin, my Iris Nebula image was selected as "image of the day."  I don't know how that happened; maybe it was the only image posted that day, but nevertheless that was a great encouragement to a relatively inexperienced astrophotographer using cheap equipment.  I've been a little reluctant to go back to this target because I thought I couldn't improve on it.  Now I think my skills are better so I decided to try it again.

It was quite gusty when this was imaged but also quite clear.  I had some difficulty focusing because the scope was blowing around so much. Seeing was relatively poor too.  So conditions for this image were not very good.  I used the PicGoto starting from alpha Ceph and easily found the Iris Nebula.  I ran the chiller at 2.5 A; starting temperature was 8.5 °C on the CCD.  It was a warm night, so I consider that level of cooling pretty good. I used the low pass Dec guiding algorithm instead of "resist switching," which is what I usually use.  I can't tell whether the algorithm really helped (because I think the wind was the biggest factor), but things did seem to settle down after I started using it (and went to bed).  Overall, I was happy with the number of subs I was able to keep and feel this is a much better image than my one and only "picture of the day" image from two years ago.  

Date: 3 Jun 2014

Subject: NGC 7023, Iris Nebula

Scope: AT8IN + HPS Coma Corrector

Filter: None

Mount: CG-5 (Synta motors, PicGoto Simplificado)

Guiding: 9x50 Finder/Guider + DSI Ic + PHD 2.2.2 (Win 7 ASCOM)

Camera: DSI IIc chiller at 2.50 A, 8.5-3.5 °C

Acquisition: Nebulosity 3.2.0, no dither

Exposure: 46x300 s

Stacking: Neb 3, bad pixel map, bias included, normalize first, trans+rot align, 1.5 SD stack.

Processing: StarTools 1.3.5.279 Crop; Wipe:Color & brightness; Develop 87.49%; Color:Scientific, 250% sat.; HDR:Reveal core; Deconvolute auto mask 2.2 pix; Life:Heavy; Track RNC 17.40%. CS6 Astronomy Tools increase star color; Healing brush; Deep space noise reduction (twice); Levels; Astro Frame.

Just for comparison, and in the spirit of "look how far I've come," here's the image from two years ago.  I now think it is sharpened way too much, but at the time it represented a huge improvement over what I had been doing.  I used a focal reducer, so the field of view is wider than in the new image, in which I went the other direction by using a coma corrector.  One of the things I like about this older image is that it picked up the dark dusty "petals" that give the nebula its name; in my newer image, I'm framed tighter and you can't see them.

Date: 10 Jul 2012
Subject: NGC 7023, Iris Nebula
Scope: AT8IN + 0.5x Antares telereducer
Filter: none
Mount: CG-5 (Synta motors)
Guiding: Orion ST80 + 0.5x Antares telereducer + DSI Ic + PHD
Camera: DSI IIc
Acquisition: Nebulosity 3.0.8
Exposure: 60x180 s
Stacking: Neb 3, bias included, normalize first, auto quality screen, trans+rot align, 1.5 SD stackProcessing: Digital development with sharpening, power stretch, curves, star reduction in N3, separate layer with GREYCStoration, CS5 color blotch, deep space, & space noise reduction in the GREYCStoration layer, then layer mask with a Gaussian blur to preserve enhancement in the center and remove noise from periphery; saturation boost the flattened image.

Peltier Chip-cooled Deep Sky Imager

It's taken a few days, but I'm finally posting a picture of the current version of my Peltier-cooled Meade DSI IIc camera.  I'm looking forward to trying this out as soon as I get a clear night (maybe tonight?).  The weather is pretty warm now, so I'd like to get this functioning.