gorann

Maybe this is sacrilege, but why do they spend billions on showing what Newton's second law tells us about momentum and that it is just speed x mass. We all know what will happen, and we do not need an experiment to tell us what we have known for 400 years. Checking Wikipedia would have been much cheaper for NASA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Momentum

Like it all a lot, and you really managed to capture that rather elusive planetary nebula next to it!

While I am waiting for clear skies and data from my own scopes, I decided to have another go at data from James Webb Space Telescope (https://mast.stsci.edu/portal/Mashup/Clients/Mast/Portal.html). Exciting data of course but It was not totally straightforward. Many filters to chose from and a lot of star artifacts to handle. In any case, here is my version of the Tarantula Nebula in IR (from about 900 to 4500 nm). I found a useful overview of the JWST filters here (https://jwst-docs.stsci.edu/jwst-near-infrared-camera/nircam-instrumentation/nircam-filters). I used what to me would be the most straightforward palette, i.e. to include the filter(s) with the shortest wavelengths in the blue channel, the mid ones in the green, and the longest wavelengths in the red channel, essentially shifting the spectrum towards visible light. Cheers, Göran

Obviously this shows that Olly has a particularly young and open mind, which does not listen to outdated advice from old and grumpy men😄

That is a truly great M31, you finally got the stars to collaborate👍

Yes, a great opportunity when the clouds settled in, like here right now, but it is really never as satisfying as processing your own hard earned data

Thanks for the post, I followed the instructions and after a bit of trouble I managed to log into a ftp server to get my files. So here is my version of the NGC3324 data. Easy to process (no noise at all) except for terrible star artifacts as is often the case with data form large professional scopes, so I think I prefer the starless version. Five filters that can be combined in many ways, all outside our visual specturm, so a lot of freedom and possibilities.

Yes, I noticed that and I have to check that it is not an artifact from the oil I just noticed were creeping up on the sensor on one of the cameras. It is the second time it happened to that camera and I will have to send it to TS again🥴. So I will have to have a closer look on the data from the camera that is ok.

Here are two crops of the galaxies found by Wim. So not entirely boring. And clearly there are even more galaxies there:

Thanks a lot Mr Spock! In this case you are much too kind😉

Thanks and Yes, I think the same - could have been quite an image without the NBZ filters. So I wonder if I should give it a go whenever the sky clears again - but no prospects of that in the current weather report for the next week......

Thanks so much Wim for finding something interesting here! I am off to bed now but I will follow your leads tomorrow👍

Unfortunately this turned out to be a rather boring image. I saw some structure in this area when surfing in Aladin Sky Atlas and hoped for some interesting Ha and Oiii signals there so I used the NBZ filter. However, it ended up to be rather colourless. The dust structures may not have any designations and the plate-solve on Astrobin only found stars to designate. I assume what we are looking at is IFN (Integrated Flux Nebulosity) and I am a bit impressed that it was picked up by the NBZ filter, but then the RASA8-ASI2600MC is a very effective combo. Imaged with a dual-RASA8 rig with ASI2600MC and IDAS NBZ filter. All on a Mesu 200. 122 x 5 min, so 10.2 hours. Processed in PI and PS (Starless of course before bringing the stars back). Cheers, Göran

In PS you update StarXTerminator by clicking on "Download AI" when the Star XTerminator dialog box comes up. I assume clicking that button would update to v11 but I have no idea how to reverse that back to an earlier version. Maybe some PS user here knows more about this. Cheers, Göran

Has anyone tried v11 on PS (if it is available)? Can one revert back to v10 if v11 is too slow or gives a poorer result?

Thanks Steve! And yes, a lot of both, which is what the NBZ gave me to work with and I tried to keep some balance.

Thank you guys, very much appreciated!

Thanks and the very best of luck with the filter and sky Alan!

Thanks, and well the red in the image is primarily hydrogen alpha (Ha) emission since it was captured through a dual band Ha Oiii filter, and Ha is a specific deep-red with a wavelength of 656.28 nm. So why not be slightly true to nature?

Thanks a lot Ian, you are too kind!

This image is from the second night that I aimed at the Wolf-Rayet object WR 134 (first night in the link below). This time with a different framing to include the Crescent nebula, the elusive Soap Bubble (although apparently not elusive for a RASA), and the strong Ha emitting nebula Sh2-104 (near the upper edge of the image). I actually forgot about this Sharpless object so it was cheer luck that it just about ended up within the frame. As I mentioned in my previous post, WR 134 is a variable Wolf-Rayet star at a distance of about 6000 ly. Its intense wind of radiation pushes out a bubble like structure emitting faint but distinctive Oiii light. Also the Crescent nebula is a Wolf-Rayet object. It is formed by the fast stellar wind from WR 136 (HD 192163) colliding with and energizing the slower moving wind ejected by the star when it became a red giant around 250,000 to 400,000 years ago. The result of the collision is a shell and two shock waves, one moving outward and one moving inward. The inward moving shock wave heats the stellar wind to X-ray-emitting temperatures (all according to Wikipedia). The Soap Bubble nebula (aka PN G75.5+1.7) is a planetary nebula discovered as late as 2007 by amateur astronomer Dave Jurasevich using a 6" refractor. Acquired with two RASA8 with ASI2600MC and IDAS NBZ filter on a Mesu 200 mount. 126 x 5 min = 10.5 hours. Processed in PI and PS (starless processing of course - I used a 50-50 mix of StarNet2 and StarXTerminator). Cheers, Göran

Great details there Rodd!

I am Bortle 2-3 but being in such a dark site is less important with a dual band NB filter like the NBZ on a OSC. There are others here at SGL with more urban skies that do well with this OSC and dual band combo.

Thanks Pieter! Yes, a very busy part of the sky and very rewarding including surprises.

Thanks a lot Carol! Much appreciated.