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#201 Jeff Morgan

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Posted 21 November 2020 - 11:02 AM

Many people know about open cluster NGC 6823 in Vulpecula. Fewer know of Sharpless 2-86 (aka NGC 6820), which happens to be co-located with the cluster.

 

The SkySafari hydrogen alpha Milky Way layer shows a pitchfork shaped cloud at this location, and much of it can be teased out over 2 degrees in the NV eyepiece, one of the more challenging nebula.

 

My best view of this was in the Takahashi Epsilon e180, which had a more favorable mix of aperture and speed than the 130mm refractor. My notes from a 2019 observation in the SQM 20.5 back yard:

 

Sep 29, 2018 Epsilon, Home: A fairly small cluster that would perhaps be better in a larger scope. A dozen stars perhaps visible in the Epsilon. The real treat is popping in 12nm filter in seeing the nebular there. It’s even easier to see with the 7nm.

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#202 Jeff Morgan

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Posted 23 November 2020 - 03:59 PM

I tried to get a good image of that pitch-forked shaped cloud in Vulpecula mentioned in my last post, but it is rather diffuse and ill-defined. Realistically, I would need a scope with a larger true field to capture this one well.

 

However, Sharpless 2-88 is easily visible above and to the left center.

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  • IMG_5788.jpeg

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#203 Jeff Morgan

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Posted 25 November 2020 - 11:52 AM

And finishing out the "nebula void" between Serpens and Cygnus is Sharpless 2-92, in northern Vulpecula near the border with Cygnus.

 

Dark nebula LDN 810 is very sharp here, as opaque as the B86 (the Ink Spot) in Sagittarius. Sky Safari plots several others in the immediate vicinity, though I think wider true field would be required to show them well.

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#204 Jeff Morgan

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Posted 27 November 2020 - 05:03 PM

One of my Favorites, Sharpless 2-119. It is not as bright and splashy as many nebula, but has personal significance to me.

 

Like most new NV owners, the first thing I did was turn my new eyepiece on familiar targets. And as good as they were with the intensifier (from my light polluted backyard no less!) I did not fully understand the power of the device. That story is told here:

 

https://www.cloudyni...very/?p=7550775

 

So I always enjoy returning to Sh 2-119. The TMB 130 just lacks the true-field capability to frame it properly, looking forward to coming back to this one with a NP101is I recently acquired.

 

Unfortunately, that will not not happen until early spring 2021. By that time I should have an upgraded iPhone too.

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#205 Astrojedi

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Posted 30 November 2020 - 11:52 AM

Excellent captures Jeff. What camera / imaging SW on the iPhone do you use? 



#206 Jeff Morgan

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Posted 30 November 2020 - 12:45 PM

Excellent captures Jeff. What camera / imaging SW on the iPhone do you use? 

Thanks. Using a 2018 iPhone X.

 

The camera is the 4mm back camera, 12 megapixel 3024 x 4032. File sizes (TIFF) usually run 5-6 megabytes.

 

I think the Photos app might be compressing those a bit, when I export as TIFF the file sizes jump up to around 36mb. Of course, CN file format and size limitations have a devastating effect on the original image. I'm not enough of an imaging geek to figure out how to keep the quality up.

 

NightCap allows averaging multiple exposures. Not true stacking, but the averaging does smooth out the noise a bit. This allows the gain to be turned up pretty high, though I have found that best results are obtained going a bit less than this. Unfortunately, the gain knob is analog and has no graduations on it, so a bit of a guessing game.

 

NightCap is very handy app to allow the user manual control of the cell phone camera. IIRC the author asks a princely sum of $4 for it.


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#207 Jeff Morgan

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Posted 30 November 2020 - 11:11 PM

Sharpless 2-119 in Cygnus.

 

This image captures a concentrated wisp near the 10 o'clock position. I don't think this is a discrete object, more like a brighter concentration of the nebula that pervades the constellation. Nevertheless, I will give it a more detailed detailed look next season.

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#208 Jeff Morgan

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Posted 04 December 2020 - 04:55 PM

Another view of IC 1396, showcasing how bright the views are with the Tele Vue 67 Plossl.

 

The field is aglow in nebulosity and picking up all of the small dark nebula is trivially easy. Where one dark nebula begins and the previous one ends is somewhat arbitrary, but there are (besides the famous Elephant Trunk) at least a dozen visible here, perhaps as many as 15 or 16.

 

This object screams out for more true field, and I hope to accomplish that tonight with the Tele Vue NP101is.

 

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#209 Jeff Morgan

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Posted 07 December 2020 - 01:01 PM

Here is one you don't see every night: Sharpless 2-129 in Cepheus.

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#210 gatorengineer

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Posted 09 December 2020 - 11:19 AM

First ever nv shot and it very much shows.  Hand held cell phone no idea of speed single frame 65mm Russell plossl 20" f8 Apo, 3nm baader fast, very poor seeing, was still best view ever, due to the extremely dark 21.7 skies.  Photo does no justice to what was in the ep. 

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  • IMG_20201208_233441_600x800.jpg


#211 Jeff Morgan

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Posted 16 December 2020 - 04:57 PM

Here is a series of photos to compare long pass filters. I took them from a fairly dark sky (SQM 21.5), so a better test would have been from home (SQM 20.3 and getting worse by the day). I'll put it on my To-Do list.

 

All shot at ISO 200, which was just a bit much for the unfiltered exposure. Of course, my preferred ISO 100 setting would have been just a touch dark for the filtered shots.

 

Photographically, the 685 looks best to my eye. That could have been a one-off result though (exposure, focus, etc.). When observing visually, I prefer no filter, only using the long pass when going after a target in the light dome.

 

I don't have a filter slide on my set up, so I had to remove camera and eyepiece to change filters, there are inevitably small camera angle differences between the shots.

Attached Thumbnails

  • B86 TMB130 Prime.jpeg
  • B86 TMB130 Prime 640LP.jpeg
  • B86 TMB130 Prime 685LP.jpeg

Edited by Jeff Morgan, 16 December 2020 - 05:01 PM.


#212 gatorengineer

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Posted 17 December 2020 - 09:11 PM

So light pollution filters with no light pollution dont do much.....



#213 Jeff Morgan

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Posted 20 December 2020 - 11:36 AM

In the quest to frame larger targets, I picked up a Tele Vue NP101is. This flat-field scope can pull nearly five degrees of sky, and the form factor is only slightly larger than 80mm refractor.

 

Unfortunately, the one I bought (used) had a slight miscollimation so it went back to Tele Vue for cleaning and collimation. But even so, it took nice photos.

 

Finally, IC 1396 properly framed with dark sky all around! It makes for a very nice Milky Way scope. I shot this one at ISO 800, just a bit darker than the visual impression.

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  • TV 101NPis 67P.jpeg

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#214 Jeff Morgan

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Posted 25 December 2020 - 11:04 AM

Once you acquire that scope that frames your favorites just perfectly, human nature is such that you push the limits and start finding things that frame ... imperfectly. Time to look into the next scope!

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#215 Kathi

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Posted 27 December 2020 - 07:59 AM

 Hi!
It is only a OVNI-O with FOM 1000, but I took a foto last night with it through a 16'' dobsonian telescope and a 12nm H-Alpha filter. Foto with my smartphone Samsung Galaxy J6.

Here is M42 from a Bortle 5 area.

Merry Christmas,
Kathi (from Austria)

 

xlab6aea.jpg


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#216 Mazerski

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Posted 27 December 2020 - 10:32 AM

Hello Kathi from Austria, 

 

Nice photo of M42... continue to post your phone images.



#217 Jeff Morgan

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Posted 28 December 2020 - 06:05 PM

Another wide-field capability demonstration of the NP101. This is still pre-collimation.

 

At this moment I do not have Bracken's Astrophotography Sky Atlas available to me, I am using SkySafari and there may be some errors in identification, but here goes:

 

Easily visible and dominating the image is Sh 2-157.

 

Down and the the left, the large diffuse glow is Sh 2-161.

 

The bright knot in Sh 2-161 (that looks like a large fuzzy star) is cataloged as Sh 2-158.

 

The larger brighter area of nebulosity below center is Sh 2-162, aka the Bubble Nebula (even the guys with old-fashioned eyepieces know about this one wink.gif )

 

Slightly below the Bubble is M52. At this image scale, it does not show particularly well (even in the full-res TIFF file).

 

The 4" aperture apparently is not enough to capture Sh 2-156, which should be just above center, left of Sh 2-157. Still a delightful field though. I'll have to come back with a larger scope for that one. 

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#218 a__l

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Posted 29 December 2020 - 06:06 AM

Hello Kathi from Austria, 

 

Nice photo of M42... continue to post your phone images.

Photo is not available for viewing. I would like to look it because of the last posts of the author (FOM1000).


Edited by a__l, 29 December 2020 - 06:07 AM.


#219 Kathi

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Posted 29 December 2020 - 08:50 AM

Photo is not available for viewing. I would like to look it because of the last posts of the author (FOM1000).

Hmmm ... I can see it.
Try here: https://s12.directup...27/xlab6aea.jpg

 

Kathi



#220 Subspacetransmitter

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Posted 01 January 2021 - 10:12 AM

Hello,

 

since spring 2020 we have an OVNI-M (FOM 2100) available at our small public observatory in Radebeul (Germany). I have observed a lot with the instrument since then, especially in the H-alpha range (6nm Astronomik filter) as we have a lot of light pollution here. With telescopes (24" f/3.8, 14" f/4.5, 4" f/3) I observe almost only focally, I find this somehow more comfortable and easier to handle than afocally. Since I have been doing astrophotography for many years, I have also tried to take pictures through the night vision device. But I was never completely satisfied with the results, my smartphone is not the best. Since I still had an old uncooled ASI174MM camera, I wanted to try it with it. It worked with a 35mm C-mount lens and the removal of the night vision eyepiece. Of course, this allows a whole new level of post-processing possibilities. I have attached a picture of the setup and also a picture of the Horsehead Nebula as a result.  For this 250 images with 2s exposure time each were averaged at a 24" f/3.8 dobsonian telescope.

 

Here are some more guided images with the same technique but different focal lengths. The focal length is always in Millimeters in the filename as well as the object. Mostly 100-200 images with exposure times of 1-5 seconds were averaged. In this folder there is also the raw video of the Horsehead Nebula for comparison.

 

https://www.dropbox....Yt9zs8IuWa?dl=0

 

Best
Martin

 

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  • setup_.jpg
  • B33_3_2277mm_2.jpg

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#221 Mazerski

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Posted 01 January 2021 - 10:28 AM

SubSpace,

 

That is a great image of the a Horse... looks very much like a chess piece. Well done.


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#222 a__l

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Posted 02 January 2021 - 12:08 AM

Hmmm ... I can see it.
Try here: https://s12.directup...27/xlab6aea.jpg

 

Kathi

This site is blocking my IP. I looked through VPN.


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#223 Jeff Morgan

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Posted 02 January 2021 - 01:12 AM

Hello,

 

since spring 2020 we have an OVNI-M (FOM 2100) available at our small public observatory in Radebeul (Germany). I have observed a lot with the instrument since then, especially in the H-alpha range (6nm Astronomik filter) as we have a lot of light pollution here. With telescopes (24" f/3.8, 14" f/4.5, 4" f/3) I observe almost only focally, I find this somehow more comfortable and easier to handle than afocally. Since I have been doing astrophotography for many years, I have also tried to take pictures through the night vision device. But I was never completely satisfied with the results, my smartphone is not the best. Since I still had an old uncooled ASI174MM camera, I wanted to try it with it. It worked with a 35mm C-mount lens and the removal of the night vision eyepiece. Of course, this allows a whole new level of post-processing possibilities. I have attached a picture of the setup and also a picture of the Horsehead Nebula as a result.  For this 250 images with 2s exposure time each were averaged at a 24" f/3.8 dobsonian telescope.

 

Here are some more guided images with the same technique but different focal lengths. The focal length is always in Millimeters in the filename as well as the object. Mostly 100-200 images with exposure times of 1-5 seconds were averaged. In this folder there is also the raw video of the Horsehead Nebula for comparison.

 

https://www.dropbox....Yt9zs8IuWa?dl=0

 

Best
Martin

 

Wow, wow, wow!

 

Those are amazing images. You are right, cell phone cameras are not really suited to astronomy. Their appeal has been the ease of use.

 

But rethinking that a bit - mounting a cell phone has been problematic. Always seems to be some residual alignment or tilt issue. So while "easy", the results are both noisy (due to the phone) and prone to errors (due to the attachment).

 

You seem to have a way forward that solves both issues. 


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#224 Jeff Morgan

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Posted 08 January 2021 - 11:32 PM

An overlooked yet very enjoyable area is the northwest portion of Cygnus (more precisely, the Northern Cross asterism). It is filed with nebulous wisps that resemble clouds known as Mares Tails (cirrus uncinus).

 

These are fairly large formations and quite easy to see with NV. I'm surprised none of them have common or even catalog names. The only named items in this image I am aware of are the Gamma Cygni nebula (LBN 251, upper left) and the Propeller Nebula (Simeis 57, just below center).

 

Attached are two cell phone images taken through a Tele Vue NP101is. The only difference was the ISO setting - 1600 and 800. Visually, I find the brightness between these two images. As I said, very easy to see.

 

 

 

 

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  • IMG_6698.jpeg
  • IMG_6699.jpeg

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#225 Kathi

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Posted 09 January 2021 - 08:20 PM

Hi!

 

We were able to take our first photo of the horsehead nebula today.

What the Smartphone couldn't do, was now possible with the ZWO ASI 178 MC camera adapted to the night vision device.

 

OVNI-O with 12nm H-Alpha filter

60/330 TS Photoline telescope

100 frames of 1 second each, stacked with Deep Sky Stacker.

 

3xn4n2uw.jpg

 

CS, Kathi


Edited by Kathi, 09 January 2021 - 08:21 PM.

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