Rosette Nebula

Hello everybody,

Coming back with what i think is the best proper image so far (except for the "hidden" amp glow on lower right) of Rosette Nebula (also classified as Caldwell 49).
The images were taken last night with an QHY8L with an IR/UV filter, on a clear sky with low wind and medium pollution. Guiding went pretty smooth with the DBK21 and PHD Guiding software.
Exposure time was 240 seconds and i managed to get 20 exposures. Also 20 darks, 20 flats and 20 bias were used in calibration/stacking with DeepSkyStacker.

WIKI: "The Rosette Nebula (also known as Caldwell 49) is a large, circular H II region located near one end of a giant molecular cloud in the Monoceros region of the Milky Way Galaxy. The open cluster NGC 2244 (Caldwell 50) is closely associated with the nebulosity, the stars of the cluster having been formed from the nebula's matter.

The complex has the following NGC designations:

NGC 2237 – Part of the nebulous region (Also used to denote whole nebula) NGC 2238 – Part of the nebulous region NGC 2239 – Part of the nebulous region (Discovered by John Herschel) NGC 2244 – The open cluster within the nebula (Discovered by John Flamsteed in 1690) NGC 2246 – Part of the nebulous region

The cluster and nebula lie at a distance of some 5,200 light-years from Earth (although estimates of the distance vary considerably, down to 4,900 light-years.[3]) and measure roughly 130 light years in diameter. The radiation from the young stars excite the atoms in the nebula, causing them to emit radiation themselves producing the emission nebula we see. The mass of the nebula is estimated to be around 10,000 solar masses.

It is believed that stellar winds from a group of O and B stars are exerting pressure on interstellar clouds to cause compression, followed by star formation in the nebula. This star formation is currently still ongoing.

A survey of the nebula with the Chandra X-ray Observatory in 2001 has revealed the presence of very hot, young stars at the core of the Rosette Nebula."

So, can't wait to comeback with more images !

Clear skies,
Andrei

Saturn 29.03.2014

Saturn taken with C6-NGT and DBK21.

Supernova in M82

"On January 21st a group of astronomy students spotted Supernova 2014J in M82, the famous nearby irregular galaxy in Ursa Major. It peaked at V magnitude 10.5 during the first week of February, and as of March 5th it was still visible in amateur scopes about magnitude 12."

I took the image below on the 16th of February, with no darks or bias and guiding was pretty poor due to some wind.
Also M81 can be seen but not enough detail unfortunately.

"Spectra showed it to be a Type Ia supernova — an exploded white dwarf — with debris originally expanding at up to 20,000 kilometers per second.

M82 is a near neighbor as galaxies go, at a distance of 11 or 12 million light-years. It's a favorite for amateur astronomers and researchers alike with its thick dust bands, sprays of hydrogen gas, and bright center undergoing massive star formation. The supernova is not in the central star-forming region but off to one side, 58 arcseconds to the west-southwest."

Clear skies,
Andrei

ISON Updated news

Good morning,

It would seem that ISON hasn't survived its encounter with our Sun, although a fragment has emerged it is slowly fading. Below the animated image from LASCO C3, the coronagraph on the SOHO Satellite:

Here is also an excerpt from NBC News (latest):

"Previous reports of Comet ISON's death may have been somewhat exaggerated, but this time it looks like the real thing.
Remnants of the object once touted as the "comet of the century" passed through the viewing field of the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory in the wake of Thursday's close encounter with the sun — and as it passed, the bright spot that survived grew dimmer and dimmer.

"I do think that something emerged from the sun, but probably a very small nucleus or 'rubble pile.' and I fear that may have now dissolved," Karl Battams, an astrophysicist at the Naval Research Laboratory who has been studying ISON for months, wrote Saturday in a Twitter update."
See the entire article here

M42 Orion nebula

First image of the Orion Nebula with the new QHY8L camera; it consists of 10 subexposures of 360 seconds and for the center another 5x40 seconds. Also 5 darks, 10 flats and 10 bias frames. All stacked in DSS, Fits Liberator and finally PS.

ISON Perihelion

Comet ISON is approaching perihelion, stay tuned around 17:00 GMT time (UTC now) to watch live images at http://cometison.gsfc.nasa.gov/#.

Very nice site to follow, which i have been doing for a couple of months now is: http://www.brucegary.net/ISON/
It looks like ISON will hold during its journey around the Sun and we are in for quite a show in the days to come!

Clear skies!

Betelgeuse - the red supergiant

[WIKI]:

Betelgeuse, also known by its Bayer designation Alpha Orionis (α Orionis, α Ori), is the ninth-brightest star in the night sky and second-brightest in the constellation of Orion.
The star is classified as a red supergiant of spectral type M2Iab and is one of the largest and most luminous observable stars. If Betelgeuse were at the center of the Solar System, its surface would extend past the asteroid belt, possibly to the orbit of Jupiter and beyond, wholly engulfing Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars.

Betelgeuse is roughly 1180 times the radius of the Sun — able to contain over 2 quadrillion Earths (2.15 × 10^15) or more than 1.6 billion (1.65 × 10^9) Suns. That is the equivalent of Betelgeuse being a football stadium like Wembley Stadium in London with the Earth a tiny pearl, 1 millimeter in diameter, orbiting a Sun the size of a mango.

M13 - Globular Cluster in Hercules (NGC 6205)

M13 was discovered by Edmond Halley in 1714, and catalogued by Charles Messier on June 1, 1764.
It is a globular cluster of aprox. 300.000 stars in the constellation Hercules at 25.100 light-years away from Earth.
M13 is about 145 light-years in diameter, the brightest star is the variable star V11 with an apparent magnitude of 11.95.

Here is my first try at M13 taken from the city: