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Charlie Hein
Postmaster
Reged: 11/02/03
Posts: 7965
Loc: 26.06.08N, +80.23.08W
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I am pleased to announce the winner of the December 2008 Cloudy Nights Imaging and Sketching Contest - dsnope!
Supernova Remnant Sh2-240 in the constellation Taurus. Also called Semeis 147. There is a rapidly pulsating neutron star inside of it that is thought to be the remnant of the star that caused the catastrophe.
One of the dimmest objects in the night sky, this supernova remnant requires long exposures to capture it's wispy filaments. It is over 3 degrees wide, or about the width of 6 full moons. I used a 300mm camera lens to cover that wide field of view. With my best background levels getting within 10 ADU of the dimmest signal, imaging this object led to an education in the minutiae that degrade images. Nearby lights and lower altitude subframes led to slightly higher background levels and tossed frames, imperfect focus and wind gusts caused reduced S/N and FWHM and some more tossed frames. I used the best 9 out of 18 subframes.
STL11000 Camera w/ 6nm Ha filter
Canon 300mm F/4L lens
Mach1GTO Mount
9 x 30 minute exposures
December 28-29, 2008
To all of you who took the time to stop by and vote for your favorite submission - thank you so much! Your participation really makes the contest!
To all the contestants - almost every comment entered in the poll thread this month says it - every one of your submissions is worthy of winning. Congratulations to all of you on a job done very well indeed!
dsnope, congratulations on your win! Please contact me via PM with your t-shirt size and also the address where you want us to send it!
Charlie
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"He's dead, Jim - I'll get his wallet, you get his tricorder." - Leonard "Bones" McCoy
Weston CSC:
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PhotonJohn
sage
Reged: 12/11/07
Posts: 462
Loc: Satellite Beach Fla
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Congratulations dsnope on your win! Also congrats to zAmboni RBA and marksiebold for making the finals, all your entries deserved to win!
*****John
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John
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Vixen ED 103S refractor
Celestron C8 SCT
Takahashi EM 11 Temma II Jr
Astro-Tech AT66ED
SBIG ST-10E CFW-8
Meade DSI Pro II monochrome CCD
Atik filter wheel
Moonlite CFL focuser
Philips PCVC 740K ToUcam
Registax 4.0
Photoshop CS3
MaxIm DL4
The Sky 6
Astro-Lab Roxy
Member Brevard Astronomical Society
"Starin' at the stars in a distant galaxy; wonderin' if there's someone out there starin' back at me!"
Fountains of Wayne
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dsnope
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 04/28/06
Posts: 1011
Loc: OC California
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Thanks for the votes! The entries were all very different styles and all deserved to win.
--Dave
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markseibold
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 01/19/08
Posts: 1084
Loc: Portland Oregon
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Dave
Congratulations on winning with your spectacular photograph.
I look forward to seeing your next work,
Mark
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Tim A.
sage
Reged: 09/19/07
Posts: 239
Loc: 40 30'N 105 3'W
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Stunning object. Stunning image. Bravo!
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F/5 12.5" Dob (Starbucket)
Celestron CPC800
Celestron CR-150 HD on CG5-GT
Galileoscope
Oberwerk Deluxe II 20x80 & Ultra 10x50
Celestron Regal LX 8x42 (gone AWOL)
Bio-binoculars 1x6
"Me? Crazy? Oh, yeah. Crazy like an ox!"
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oddog
member
Reged: 11/11/08
Posts: 72
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Dave,
Often in the course of getting into an activity there are signposts to indicate a bright, positive, and active future with said activity. Some epiphany that tells you "this is going to be good". Kind of like the first time you met your wife or husband.
Seeing your photo of Semeis 147 is one of those moments for me.
As a newbie in astronomy I am developing what I want to see and experience and your photo solidified my interest in nebulae and its kin, in this case a supernova remnant. When I saw how big it is (6 moons wide!) I shivered. To think that HUGE thing is hanging out there in the cosmos, along with everything else, is very exciting (and humbling) to me. You may also have changed my mind about imaging, I may have to get into it in order to see for myself these strange and wonderful things in the sky.
I now use your photo as my desktop image for my computer.
Thanks
Tom D./Oddog2
Edited by oddog (02/02/09 01:11 AM)
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