SGL 2022 Challenge 2 - Dust!

[MartinB]

Our galaxy and universe is full of dust.  So this challenge is about capturing it photographically.  Now for members with pristine dark skies this is an opportunity to capture beautiful images of faint integrated flux, however, those under less favourable skies shouldn't lose heart, we are also interested in images showing the impact of dust such as reflection and dark nebulosity along with galactic dust lanes.  The muckier the better!

A personalised mug for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places featuring your entry kindly provided by our sponsors FLO  and a virtual trophy for your signature.

Starts 1st February 2022 

Ends 30th April 2022

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RULES

All data must be captured and processed by you (no collaborative entries). 
Data must be captured during the challenge start & end dates. 
Multiple entries are allowed.
Multiple submissions of the same image, processed differently, will not be accepted.

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To enter please post within this topic, do not start a new topic. Please post as much information as possible - when it was taken, how it was captured and processed, etc. The info won't necessarily be used for judging but will help fellow SGLers looking to learn and improve their knowledge and technique.

The thread is for image submissions only, please do not respond to entries other than by using emojies.  

[Ian McCallum]

Can I do house dust, because I have astronomical amounts of it?🤔🤣

[tomato]

Here is 113 x 2 mins of LDN 1532 in Taurus, framed by three 6th, 7th and 8th magnitude stars. Captured with the Esprit 150/IMX571c sensor dual rig. Calibrated and stacked in APP, processed in PI and AP.

 

[Fegato]

Here's the area around NGC 2264 (Cone Nebula) across to reflection nebula IC 447, with open cluster Trumpler 5 in between.  Lots of dark stuff all around.

RASA 11 v2, CEM120, ZWO ASI2400MC Pro. 2 panel mosaic totalling 190 x 30s (broadband).  Shot last Thursday from home in Llanfynydd, Bortle 3 / 4 borders.

[The_Bluester]

My "dusty thing"

This is broadly part of the Chamaeleon Molecular Cloud complex, near the south celestial pole, with reflection nebulae CED110, 111 and 112 in the frame. There seemd to be very little information out there on these three, in Stellarium for instance, CED112 is simply described as a reflection nebula, and the other two as "Interstellar matter".

This was shot with my Stellarvue SVX80T scope with 0.8 reducer and my ZWO ASI2600MC Pro camera on an Orion Atlas (AZEQ6 clone) mount, capture managed with Voyager. The best 100 of approximately 120 X 300 second subs were integrated in Astro Pixel Processor with post in Photoshop CC. The subs were shot on 05-06 February. I was thinking about shooting something dusty and this challenge gave me a push to get out and do it.

 

Edited February 8, 2022 by The_Bluester

[gorann]

This is a two-panel panoramic view of a whole bunch of Sharpless nebulae and unnamed ones in Auriga. It includes Sharpless 232, 233, 234, 235, and 237. The big open star cluster is M38. I wonder why Lynds and Sharpless in their catalogues left out some of the more striking nebulosity in this area, including the filametous nebulosity just above the Spider nebula (Sh2-234) and the big blob at the bottom of the image.

Captured during the first days in February with my dual-RASA8 rig and ASI2600MC on a Mesu 200 mount. IDAS NBZ filter (dual band Ha and Oiii). Gain 100, offset 30, -15°C. 334 x 5 min, so about 28 hours. Processed in PI and PS. I include an annotated frame grab from Astrobin.

[gorann]

In November Andreas Zirke posted an image on Astrobin of what he called "EGB 10 - a mysterious image in Draco". It is a very very faint object and it got me excited and over two nights I aimed my dual-RASA rig at it, catching more data than ever before with this rig on a single object. The long integration time picked up a lot of Integrated Flux Nebulosity (IFN) in the area and this largely dominates the image. But still EGB10 stands out centrally as something rather special and "mysterious".

Imaged 6-7 February with two RASA 8 with ASI2600MC with NBZ filter on a Mesu 200 mount. 439 x 5 min = 36.5 hours. Processed in PI and mainly PS.

Edited February 11, 2022 by gorann

[Fegato]

This is my first attempt at capturing integrated flux nebula, and I chose the area around M81 and M82. There are other galaxies in the frame too, notably NGC 3077 towards the top left, and I think the blue smudges are the two irregular galaxies UGC 5336 (just above M81) and UGC 5139 (bottom right). The broadband data was captured early morning on 5th Feb. I got some narrowband data last night (10th Feb) to enhance the Ha in M81 and M82 - a fair bit of faff to add just a few splodges of extra colour!

RASA 11, CEM120, ZWO ASI2400MC Pro.  131 x 60s, 54 x 20s (for stars, but also added to main integration), 70 x 60s with NBZ filter (for enhancing Ha data in the galaxies).

 

[Hawksmoor]

Well this my widefield go covering a bit of Perseus,  Auriga, Gemini and Taurus. Still getting to grips with Affinity Photo and what all the buttons do. Think I've imaged clouds of dust but I may have just smeared out a lot of very faint stars.  Not sure how to best render dust so used the Prof Ian Morison's recommended method for processing the Milky Way. Plenty of splodges of Hydrogen Alpha and the California Nebula stands out quite well.

The data was collected before the LED street lights went out, on the 4th of February. Over one hour of 5minute subs at ISO 1600 and ISO800 plus a set of BIAS files. Aligned in AF and processed with AF, APS and Fitswork4.  Unmodded Canon 600d camera  - with Altair Triband filter and a Sigma EX  10-20mm zoom lens  at  F13 and F6.3 and f=13 mm . The camera was mounted on a Star Adventurer mount.

 

[Sterrenland]

My first attempt to actually catch one of the LDN objects...keen to try out my mount that I had just upgraded with a belt conversion I chose a night with the moon at about 70% 🙄

I picked LDN1251 as it was almost opposite the moon. Using an L-Pro filter to help with a bit of contrast I managed just short of 4 hours of subs (180 second exposures). I always tend to take 'fresh' flats every time I have a night out, but the darks I tend to re-use. The procesing was a challenge...having removed the stars I made numerous adjustments in Curves and Histogram Transformation before re-combining the adjusted stars (just a bit of colour adjustment and Morphological Transformation to reduce their size). I did a final bit of tweeking in Photoshop. It's not easy processing 'dark' dust that doesn't present much contrast to the background!

Anyway, here's my first go at LDN1251.

[Hawksmoor]

Go number two  !  I find it very difficult processing these images to look other than unreal - probably need a lot more data and a lot more skill.

Had some additional lights at f=14mm and F/6.3. Canon 600d DSLR with Altair Triband Filter. ISO800  focal length =14mm. F/6.3. 7x5min lights. Captured on the 4^th of February 2022.  Sigma EX10-20 zoom lens. at f=14mm. Camera mounted on a Star Adventurer equatorial mount. RAW images stacked using the HDR merge tool rather than the astrophotography stacking tool in Affinity Photo. Image processed using Affinity Photo and James Ritson’s actions, APS , Topaz Denoise AI and Fitswork 4.  

Edited February 15, 2022 by Hawksmoor
Typo

[gorann]

Here are  reflection, emission and absorption dust. The two refelction nebulae (vdB 14 & 15) and the large Ha-emission nebula Sh2-202, containing the dark nebula LDN 1384, lie close to the more commonly imaged Heart and Soul nebulae.

114 x 5 min (9.5 hours) collected with my dual-RASA8 rig and ASI2600MC (gain 100, offset 30, -15°C). Processed in PI and mainly PS. As usual, I gave the nebulosity an extra stretch on a starless version (Star Xterminator) before I brought the stars back.

Last image for a while since clouds, rain and snow moved in.

Cheers, Göran

Edited February 14, 2022 by gorann

[Snoani]

Here is my first entry of dust around and obscuring the M78 reflection nebula.  

It is made up of just over 10 hours of data, taken using a ASI 533MC Pro, William Optics GT81, HEQ5 and Asiair Pro.  

Edited to say that all subs were captured between 21st - 24st February 2022.

 

Edited February 28, 2022 by Snoani

[gorann]

VdB 10 and LBN 679 in Perseus are some rather faint and very rarely imaged nebulae south of the Soul Nebula. I found them surfing Aladin Sky Atlas (DSS2 data) and on Astrobin I can only find one image of the blue reflection nebula VdB 10 (aka LBN680) and none of the red nebulae, so the LBN 679 (the long nebulae of Ha emitting dust) may never have been properly imaged before. In both cases this may be because they are quite faint and best suited for a very fast wide field telescope like the RASA. The large nebula on the bottom left does not occur in Lynds' catalogues but is part of Sh2-202.

I find again that the NBZ filter is quite good at picking up blue reflection in addition to Oiii.

I collected 188 subs duing the whole night but decided to only use the first 88 before the moon came up, as it clearly made the subs a bit washed out.

Data collected 21 Feb 2022 with my dual-RASA8 rig with ASI2600MC and IDAS NBZ filter (Ha and Oiii) sitting on a Mesu 200. 88 x 5 min, so 7.3 hours (gain 100, offset 30, -15°C). Processed in PI and PS.

Cheers

Göran

[Bluemoonjim]

I am such a noob to AP that I thought I was imaging Ghost Nebula (vdb141) . Must have had one vino too many when using C du C.
This was around 3hrs worth of 3 minute subs. Hardly any processing, because I don't really know how yet, using Deep Sky Stacker and Photoshop.
Shot with Altair Astro 269c tec pro OSC camera, Starwave 102mm, on Exos2 PMC8 mount.
I've seen some really incredible images of the Iris Nebula, so I'm not getting too carried away with this attempt...but, it is dusty!

[Sterrenland]

Here is my first attempt at the Shark Nebula (LDN1235)...plenty of dust to capture! This is three hours of three minute exposures. The Shark was quite low towards the North so the air probably wasn't great, but I'm pleased with what I got.

Processing was my usual colour calibration, DBE and noise reduction before removing the stars and spending a long time playing with curves to bring out the dust...before adding the stars back in and some final noise reduction. I tend to do the final tweaks in Photoshop.

[Sterrenland]

Here's NGC7822...not a nebula I'd heard of before. I found it in Stellarium and thought I'd give it a go. Just under three hours of 180 second lights and using an L-Enhance filter.

On the processing side I created a new blue channel from an adjusted green channel and produced a variant of a 'Hubblesque' palette which seemed to bring out the dark banks of dust. Lots of curves/colour adjustments.

[Snoani]

This is my second and probably final entry for this category showing the Dark Shark Nebula.  

It is made up of just over 10 hours of data luminance and 3 hours of each RGB taken using a ASI 1600MM Pro, Baader Filters, William Optics GT81, HEQ5 and Asiair Pro.   All data was taken on the 25th and 26th February 2022.   Despite what is a lot of luminance data for me to capture, I still had trouble processing it and had to rely on StarNet to keep the stars under control.  

[carastro]

Taken over 3 nights towards the end of February.  Using a Samyang lens and an Atik460EX mono camera and Ha, Oiii, and Sii filters.

Taken from the Suburbs of London Bortle 8.

Approx 10 hours data.  SHO

Samyang Lens and Atik460EX on HEQ5

Edited April 4, 2022 by carastro

[clarkpm4242]

Zodiacal Light over Swaledale

Storms on Mars are now thought to be the source of the dust visible along the ecliptic.  Visible as a diffuse light slanting up from the right towards the moon.  The central dust lanes of the Milky Way arc overhead.  Sunday 6th March about 20:00.

2 rows of 5 panes, each 4 subs of 8s, f3.5, iso2500.  Preprocessed in Lightroom, stacked in Sequator, then MS Image Composite Editor, finished in Photoshop.  Canon 6D MkII and Sigma 24mm on Nodal Ninja pano mount.

Cheers, Paul.

 

 

 

 

Edited March 13, 2022 by clarkpm4242

[gorann]

I was a bit unsure if an SNR can be considered dust, so I checked what Wikipedia says, and it states that: "The supernova remnant is bounded by an expanding shock wave, and consists of ejected material expanding from the explosion, and the interstellar material it sweeps up and shocks along the way." My conclusion is that "material" can be considered dust. In any case there is a lot of more ordinary Ha emitting dust in the image.

So here is my recent (3-6 March 2022) image of the almost never imaged and mostly unheard of very large SNR next to the Heart Nebula: HB3 (SNR G132.7+1.3). I imaged it with my dual-RASA8 rig (ASI2600MC cameras and Mesu200 mount). Totally 20 hours at f/2 of RGB (no filter) and HaOiii (taken with IDAS NBZ filter). Processed in PI and PS (including Star Xterminator to boost the faint stuff). The first image is a two-panel HaOiiiRGB image while the second one is an inverted 1-panel HaOiii image that more clearly shows the SNR.

I post them in a single post although that may be bending the rules🥴

Cheers, Göran

[Grant93]

Two entrys! Both caught under a good bortle 4 in the Lake District UK, hoping to capture IFN. Both with an EOS 800D Iso 800 and Samyang 135mm mounted on an iOptron Skyguider.

3 hours data on each 120 second subs.

Flats and Bias applied.

M45 stacked and processed in Siril. F3.2

Bodes and Cigar stacked in DSS and processed in StarTools. F2.0

 

[carastro]

Taken from my LP home in SE London.
Taken over 2 sessions, the second using my dual rig.

ED80 & Atik460EX on HEQ5 Mount & AtikEFW2
Ha 21 x 600 (3h 30m)
Oiii 15 x 300 binned (1 hour 15mins)
Sii 14 x 300 binned (1 hour 10mins)

WOZS71 and Atik428EX
Ha 14 x 600 (2 hours 20 mins

Total imaging time 8 hours 15mins

[DrMike]

Incredible!

[gorann]

Since I posted my two-frame image of the SNR next to the Heart Nebula, HB3 (SNR G132.7+1.3), I collected data for a third frame, making a panorama of it with more of the Heart Nebula and now totally 33 hours of data from 3-12 March caught with my dual-RASA8 rig and ASI2600MC on a Mesu 200 mount.

Cheers, Göran