Sam's Astrophtography Thread

[YosemiteSam]

Okay, I figured I will make this it's own thread.

Today's AP picture of the day, a twelve panel mosaic of the Heart and Soul Nebula in narrow-band (Ha, OIII, and SII) by Juan I. Jimenez.

https://lh6.***BROKEN***/--wfJDMY3MhA/VoD1jAuFIpI/AAAAAAAADqM/O1jMphg0hd8/w1243-h709-no/Soul_Heart_nebula.jpg

 

[YosemiteSam]

Today's image is actually one of my very own Astrophotography images. (easily the best one I've ever taken)

This is the Andromeda Galaxy. Our sister galaxy. Our galaxy (The Milky Way) will collide with the Andromeda Galaxy in the future, but don't worry. It will be at least 4.5 billion years before it happens and in all likely hood. Our solar system may not even be affected as space is so vast we may just pass right through Andromeda without hitting anything. The Andromeda Galaxy is approximately 150,000 light years across.

Andromeda is estimated to be 1.5x the size of the Milky Way. So, Andromeda is the bigger sibling to the Milky Way.

I took this image from New Mexico. (can't get this good of skies new New York City) The two fuzzy smaller balls near the center are also galaxies (M32 and M110), but they are much much further away than Andromeda. Andromeda is approximately 2.5 million light years away from us.

 

[JoeKing]

Today's image is actually one of my very own Astrophotography images. (easily the best one I've ever taken)

This is the Andromeda Galaxy. Our sister galaxy. Our galaxy (The Milky Way) will collide with the Andromeda Galaxy in the future, but don't worry. It will be at least 4.5 billion years before it happens and in all likely hood. Our solar system may not even be affected as space is so vast we may just pass right through Andromeda without hitting anything. The Andromeda Galaxy is approximately 150,000 light years across.

Andromeda is estimated to be 1.5x the size of the Milky Way. So, Andromeda is the bigger sibling to the Milky Way.

I took this image from New Mexico. (can't get this good of skies new New York City) The two fuzzy smaller balls near the center are also galaxies (M32 and M110), but they are much much further away than Andromeda. Andromeda is approximately 2.5 million light years away from us.

Awesome pic and love the narrative you added. Thanks.

 

[maxdallasfan]

I saw a UFO in one of those photos.

 

[YosemiteSam]

The Orion Nebula

What surrounds a hotbed of star formation? In the case of the Orion Nebula -- dust. The entire Orion field, located about 1600 light years away, is inundated with intricate and picturesque filaments of dust. Opaque to visible light, dust is created in the outer atmosphere of massive cool stars and expelled by a strong outer wind of particles. The Trapezium and other forming star clusters are embedded in the nebula. The intricate filaments of dust surrounding M42 and M43 appear brown in the featured image, while central glowing gas is highlighted in red. Over the next few million years much of Orion's dust will be slowly destroyed by the very stars now being formed, or dispersed into the Galaxy.

https://lh6.***BROKEN***/-5mRVvBjtmL8/VoIZLIio2KI/AAAAAAABQx8/byAgEsj3TGo/w934-h864-no/OrionDust_Fraile_1037.jpg

 

[YosemiteSam]

Eta Carinae may be about to explode. But no one knows when - it may be next year, it may be one million years from now. Eta Carinae's mass - about 100 times greater than our Sun - makes it an excellent candidate for a full blown supernova. Historical records do show that about 150 years ago Eta Carinae underwent an unusual outburst that made it one of the brightest stars in the southern sky. Eta Carinae, in the Keyhole Nebula, is the only star currently thought to emit natural LASER light. This featured image, taken in 1996, brought out new details in the unusual nebula that surrounds this rogue star. Now clearly visible are two distinct lobes, a hot central region, and strange radial streaks. The lobes are filled with lanes of gas and dust which absorb the blue and ultraviolet light emitted near the center. The streaks remain unexplained.

https://lh5.***BROKEN***/-lRCgtJWa2eY/Vn94AyvYdoI/AAAAAAABQuY/gOXOF6pmMLo/s709-no/etacarinae_hubble_900.jpg

 

[sureletsrace]

@Sam I Am I had no idea you were into astrophotography. That's a beautiful shot of Andromeda up there. Over the past year I've become somewhat obsessed with the universe. Particularly the whole idea of spacetime, black holes, spacetime warping, etc. I'd love to see some more of your shots!

 

[CyberB0b]

@Sam I Am what kind of setup do you need to take those?

 

[YosemiteSam]

@Sam I Am what kind of setup do you need to take those?

The only one I took was the Andromeda image. That was taken with a Takahashi FSQ 106ED refractor telescope, the camera was an SBIG STL-11000M monochrome camera, and the mount was a Paramount ME.

These weren't mine though. I rented these. (In New Mexico)

I have two telescopes. A Celestron 8" Schmidt-Cassegrain, and a 80mm Explore Scientific triplet refractor. My mount is a Celestron AVX mount, and my camera is a QHY-9M monochrome CCD camera with a five slot filter wheel. I have L, R, G, B and a Hydrogen Alpha filter.

It's funny, I feel weird giving all the names of the equiptment. It's kind of esoteric. The only person here I know will know what these are is probably @jobberone as I know he was into Astronomy at one point.

The other images are other peoples images and/or Hubble Telescope images. You can find all my images here: Astrobin.com (the site is painfully slow right now though)

 

[YosemiteSam]

The Crab Nebula (catalogue designations M1, NGC 1952, Taurus A) is a supernova remnant and pulsar wind nebula in the constellation of Taurus. It is not, as its name might suggest, in Cancer. The now-current name is due to William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse, who observed the object in 1840 using a 36-inch telescope and produced a drawing that looked somewhat like a crab. Corresponding to a bright supernova recorded by Chinese astronomers in 1054, the nebula was observed later by English astronomer John Bevis in 1731. The nebula was the first astronomical object identified with a historical supernova explosion.

At an apparent magnitude of 8.4, comparable to that of Saturn's moon Titan, it is not visible to the naked eye but can be made out using binoculars under favourable conditions. The nebula lies in the Perseus Arm of the Milky Way galaxy, at a distance of about 2.0 kiloparsecs (6,500 ly) from Earth. It has a diameter of 3.4 parsecs (11 ly), corresponding to an apparent diameter of some 7 arcminutes, and is expanding at a rate of about 1,500 kilometres per second (930 mi/s), or 0.5% c.

At the center of the nebula lies the Crab Pulsar, a neutron star 28–30 kilometres (17–19 mi) across with a spin rate of 30.2 times per second, which emits pulses of radiation from gamma rays to radio waves. At X-ray and gamma ray energies above 30 keV, the Crab is generally the strongest persistent source in the sky, with measured flux extending to above 10 TeV. The nebula's radiation allows for the detailed studying of celestial bodies that occult it. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Sun's corona was mapped from observations of the Crab's radio waves passing through it, and in 2003, the thickness of the atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan was measured as it blocked out X-rays from the nebula.


https://lh6.***BROKEN***/-NBaW83t74r0/VdAMQ1U2pjI/AAAAAAABM-g/4AsS83i4tzs/s898-no/crab_hubble_3864.jpg

 

[YosemiteSam]

@Sam I Am I had no idea you were into astrophotography. That's a beautiful shot of Andromeda up there. Over the past year I've become somewhat obsessed with the universe. Particularly the whole idea of spacetime, black holes, spacetime warping, etc. I'd love to see some more of your shots!

That is the best one I've ever made. The rest of my shots aren't quite that good. You can find them on Astrobin.com. I haven't taken a shot in over a year I believe. I really need to get back out there again.

 

[sureletsrace]

That is the best one I've ever made. The rest of my shots aren't quite that good. You can find them on Astrobin.com. I haven't taken a shot in over a year I believe. I really need to get back out there again.

Awesome. I'll definitely be checking those out. What kind of camera and lens do you use?

 

[YosemiteSam]

Awesome. I'll definitely be checking those out. What kind of camera and lens do you use?

My lenses are my telescopes. My camera is a QHY9M monochromatic CCD camera with a five slot filter wheel. My filters are Red, Green, Blue, Luminance (clear filter), and an Hydrogen Alpha (narrow-band red) fitler.

 

[sureletsrace]

My lenses are my telescopes. My camera is a QHY9M monochromatic CCD camera with a five slot filter wheel. My filters are Red, Green, Blue, Luminance (clear filter), and an Hydrogen Alpha (narrow-band red) fitler.

Ahh, yeah. Should've known it was telescope. That's awesome man. Someday, after I get my PhD, I'll be able to have expensive hobbies.

 

[YosemiteSam]

Ahh, yeah. Should've known it was telescope. That's awesome man. Someday, after I get my PhD, I'll be able to have expensive hobbies.

Astrophotography is best done with friends. Or you had better be able to entertain yourself for long periods of time at night! (I read or watch Netflix if possible haha)

 

[sureletsrace]

Astrophotography is best done with friends. Or you had better be able to entertain yourself for long periods of time at night! (I read or watch Netflix if possible haha)

Mind telling me what kind of telescope(s) you use?

 

[YosemiteSam]

Mind telling me what kind of telescope(s) you use?

I have two. I have a Celestron 8" Schmidt-Cassegrain on the same AVX mount(though, my scope is orange rather than black like that picture as I didn't buy them as a set), and a Explore Scientific 80mm Triplet Refractor. (for wide field AP)

 

[YosemiteSam]

This is Messier 104 (or M104) ~ The Sombrero Galaxy

The Sombrero Galaxy is one of my absolute favorites. It just has such a majestic look to it.

The Sombrero Galaxy (also known as Messier Object 104, M104 or NGC 4594) is an unbarred spiral galaxy in the constellation Virgo located 28 million light-years (8.6 Mpc) from Earth. The galaxy has a diameter of approximately 50,000 light-years, 30% the size of the Milky Way. It has a bright nucleus, an unusually large central bulge, and a prominent dust lane in its inclined disk. The dark dust lane and the bulge give this galaxy the appearance of a sombrero. Astronomers initially thought that the halo was small and light, indicative of a spiral galaxy, but Spitzer found that the halo around the Sombrero Galaxy is larger and more massive than previously thought, indicative of a giant elliptical galaxy. The galaxy has an apparent magnitude of +9.0, making it easily visible with amateur telescopes, and it's considered by some authors to be the brightest galaxy within a radius of 10 megaparsecs of the Milky Way. The large bulge, the central supermassive black hole, and the dust lane all attract the attention of professional astronomers.

Central supermassive black hole
In the 1990s, a research group led by John Kormendy demonstrated that a supermassive black hole is present within the Sombrero Galaxy. Using spectroscopy data from both the CFHT and the Hubble Space Telescope, the group showed that the speed of revolution of the stars within the center of the galaxy could not be maintained unless a mass 1 billion times the mass of the Sun, is present in the center. This is among the most massive black holes measured in any nearby galaxies.

If you look around the large galaxy, you can see a bunch of other similar galaxies that appear small cigar shapes, fuzzy dots, or spiral shaped. (only the pinpoint dots (or ones with difraction spikes) are stars) They aren't small. They are just much further away.

https://lh4.***BROKEN***/-0QnZ7rrzRY4/VbWpBjt2OOI/AAAAAAABMm0/aFaMeeT6xo8/w1602-h898-no/sombrero_hubble_11472.jpg

 

[Seven]

Today's image is actually one of my very own Astrophotography images. (easily the best one I've ever taken)

This is the Andromeda Galaxy. Our sister galaxy. Our galaxy (The Milky Way) will collide with the Andromeda Galaxy in the future, but don't worry. It will be at least 4.5 billion years before it happens and in all likely hood. Our solar system may not even be affected as space is so vast we may just pass right through Andromeda without hitting anything. The Andromeda Galaxy is approximately 150,000 light years across.

Andromeda is estimated to be 1.5x the size of the Milky Way. So, Andromeda is the bigger sibling to the Milky Way.

I took this image from New Mexico. (can't get this good of skies new New York City) The two fuzzy smaller balls near the center are also galaxies (M32 and M110), but they are much much further away than Andromeda. Andromeda is approximately 2.5 million light years away from us.

1000 likes. Rack 'em up!!
How do you do that? I really appreciate your knowledge share.....awesome topic.

 

[YosemiteSam]

1000 likes. Rack 'em up!!
How do you do that? I really appreciate your knowledge share.....awesome topic.

Patience. Lots of patience. hah That's what Astrophotography is. The practice of patiences.