M82 Nova Wide field.

For 2 nights in a row we have been treated to clear skies. I have treated my camera again to the amazing supernova in the nearby galaxy of M82. I wanted a wide field shot of the area. Here is the result of 2 hours of exposure in 10 minute sub frames.

 

I am very happy with the dust lanes in M81. Dark dust visible circling the galaxy core.

 

Unfortunatly astronomy for the next week will take a back seat. I am working a set of nights from Monday bad timing with the moon out of the way.

 

 

Supernova 2014J

Sometimes the luck just holds. Well this time anyway. If you wander back through my blog or find my post on M95 april 2012. The avid nova watchers will remember the eruption in M95 sn2012aw. This happened just as I started at work a set of nights. We only do 2 sets a year and could not believe my misfortune in having to work when the skies were clear. Now go back a little futher to sept 2011 and sn 2011fe in M101. We were about to move and I had dismantled the observatory in preparation.

But not this time fellow bloggers. I had imaged m82 back in Oct testing out my new kit (left pic) and the wow amazing sn 2014J captured just last night 1 day after it's discovery. I am sure at this moment they are searching through Hubble archives to find the progenitor. We know already it is a type 1a and a few theories exist as to the fate of this white dwarf star.

Anyway here is my pic.

I am trying to do a blink comparison aswell. I will post it if I manage it. Any advice would be appreciated.

The Horsehead Nebula.

With a magnitude -11.8 moon causing a little concern. I thought I would have a play. I have imaged the Horsehead a few times before so I was not banking on a perfect image. I must admit though I am again impressed with the sensitivity of the camera and scope. I captured 3 hours in 20 minute sub frames.

 Processed in photoshop only using levels & curves. An unsharp mask & high pass filter has done wonders on the dusty stuff & blended using layer masks. A subtle saturationboost and noise filter applied to complete.

Imaging the Califoria Nebula @f7

Whilst waiting for the Rosette to be clear of a tree the other night I had a play and took 3x 20 minute exposures of the California nebula. I have imaged this object before with the old set up imaging at @4.96 focal length of 446mm I was achieving a lovely wide field image encompassing the whole of the nebula. The new system is not as fast with the FLT110. Even with the dedicated TMB field flattener there is no reduction in the focal lenth so I now image at f7 at 770mm. So I just wanted to post 2 pics from the old system to the new. I had initial concerns over exposure length with the increase in focal ratio but my concerns were soon dissipated with the sensitivity of the new camera. I will of course need to mosaic a few of the larger targets. I cant wait to post some results.

 

Addendum

I have been learning a few new processing techniques Below is an update to the above to include a selective unsharp mask anda high pass filter. An amazing difference for 1 hours worth of exposure.

Rosette 8 Hours

Rosette Nebula

 

The skies were surprisingly clear last night allowing me to take another 3 hours of 20 minute sub exposures. Totalling now 8 hours, Work is still progressing. I still want to play with some layer masking to highlight those dust lanes and outer edges of the nebula. There is no way my DSLR would have ever been capable of this level of detail.