Eta Carinae by Chris Venter
We are pleased to share this image of Eta Carinae, taken in Australia by Chris Venter. He used an STF-8300 camera to capture the image, with one unexpected “assist” from a local possum (at least he suspects so!) His achievement is enhanced when considering his location: Inner-suburban Melbourne, with its attendant light pollution. Well done!
Eta Carinae 2012 by Chris Venter. Used with permission.
Submitted by: Chris Venter
Subject: Eta Carinae in Narrowband (Open the link to his online page for this image as well.)
Equipment used : SBIG STF-8300 Pro Plus Package with OAG-8300 guided with SBIG STi. Mount is Paramount MX, Scope is Takahashi FSQ106.
Location and date: Melbourne Australia on 5th,14th and 15th April 2012
Method (Exposure time, set-up challenges, as appropriate): 15 x 10 min exposures in each channel of Ha, OIII and SII all Bin 1 x 1 ie 450 mins exposure at -20
Software used: Image Capture software was CCDSoft. Processing using CCDStack and Photoshop CS5
Comments : This was my first ever Tri-Color Narrowband Image and 2nd light for my STF-8300 camera. The image was taken from an inner city suburb of Melbourne Australia under bortle 6 sky conditions. I think its a nice example of what you can achieve from inner suburban skies with a camera that is well matched to your telescope.
Object was imaged over multiple nights to gather enough data. This was the biggest challenge really as like many of us balancing work, life and family, fitting in time to image is always difficult. Fortunately having great equipment you can rely on to just work when you need it is half the battle. I am so pleased with the focal reducer built into the OAG-8300. It makes finding guide stars so easy you don’t even need to think about it any more and being in front of the filters makes narrowband imaging very simple. I am now easily getting 10 min exposures with perfectly round stars every time. out of 46 light frames I took for this image. I only discarded 1 and I have a strong suspicion this was caused by an inquisitive Possum, a marsupial species native to Australia that loves to jump on roofs and crawl into small spaces. I have found several of them in my backyard observatory over the past year.
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We thank Chris for giving us permission to share his work.
Would you like to submit an image to share on our blog? Here are the instructions.
A Celebration of Astrophotography in Pasadena California
For those of our readers residing in Southern California, you have just two more weeks to visit the History of Space Photography being put on by the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Ca.
Exhibit Image of Helix Nebula through Spitzer Space Telescope 2007
The show, which runs only through May 6, shares about 150 large prints that range from the earliest of photographs taken before the turn of the 20th Century, to images of Earth from Space vehicles, and distant galaxies from “machines,” as Los Angeles Times reviewer Christopher Knight marveled.
Here is Mr. Knight’s full review.
Here is a slide show of 17 of the show images, posted on the LA Times website.
Robert Hurt, writing on the Spitzer Telescope blog, summed up the beauty of the show:
“I find it to be especially wonderful to see some of the most striking works of astronomical imaging presented in this context (noting how the Art Center chose to display the images). Most of these images have been created by astronauts, astronomers, and data visualization experts, yet some have become as iconic in our day as any piece of photography.”
Tanja Laden, writing in LA Weekly, added this quote from Leonard Nimoy:
“If millions of people will contemplate the images in ‘The History of Space Photography,’ perhaps for a moment, politics can take a rest and compassion, social justice, the dignity of humankind can be advanced an inch.”
Ms. Laden also did a nice job of presenting 10 of the show images with the show organizer’s comments about each. Click through her article link above to see them.
Of special note in both slide shows linked above is one of the very first astronomical images ever taken, of the Great Coment that appeared in 1882, by David Gill at the Royal Observatory, Cape of Good Hope, South Africa!
We Encourage Image Sharing!
SBIG is pleased to offer its social media channels to SBIG camera owners and users as a place to share their images. Here are the basic guidelines for submitting images to share, whether you are uploading them directly to our Facebook page or sending them to us to share on this SBIG.com blog.
When submitting for consideration to be posted on the blog, please include some or all of the following information. An asterisk indicates required information:
- Name of image owner*
- Best way to contact you (e-mail or phone)*
- Statement that the submitter is owner of the image being submitted and gives SBIG permission to share it. (“I own this image, and give SBIG permission to share it.”) We can only accept images from owners. Please do not submit “on behalf of” friends.*
- Image subject*
- Equipment used (Which SBIG camera used, and include telescope, mount and any other accessories as appropriate)*
- Location and date*
- Method (Exposure time, set-up challenges, as appropriate)
- Software used, if applicable
- Comments (Background or back-story: was it part of a trip, issues faced and solved, information about the subject, etc.)
If you upload an image to Facebook, we work on the honor system. Please include a statement that you created the image you are sharing. If any disputes arise about image ownership, SBIG will remove the image in question, regardless of the resolution of the dispute.
If you wish to have us consider your image for sharing on the SBIG blog, send your submission in an e-mail to images@sbig.com
- We will select a handful each month that are stellar images, or have an interesting “back story.”
- The owners of the selected will be notified before their image appears in our social communities.
- Everyone selected for the blog will be sent an official SBIG tee-shirt.
The format on the blog will present the photo at the top of the post, and an information table underneath:
| Image Owner | |
| Image Subject | |
| SBIG Camera used | |
| Location and Date | |
| Exposure | |
| Software & Processing | |
| Comments/Background/Backstory |
If you have any questions about submitting images to SBIG for social sharing, send a note to Kern Lewis at kern@aplegen.com
SBIG Image Sharing: Howard Trottier and the Horsehead Nebula
Howard's Horsehead Image is Prominently Featured in the 2012 SkyNews Calendar.
SBIG is pleased to present this image of IC-434, the famous Horsehead Nebula, by Howard Trottier using his trusty STL-4020m. His image has been getting great response, and it was selected for the 2012 SkyNews calendar.
“I own an STL-4020M, and for about the last 18 months I’ve had a thrilling time learning how to use it with a PlaneWave CDK17, in a roll-off roof observatory, under the deep and dark skies of rural British Columbia, Canada. I’m really excited about beginning a new chapter of imaging this spring with the STX-16803, and figured this was a good time to submit to the SBIG gallery a few of the images taken with the STL-4020M.”
Howard wrote up the backstory for this image (always an important aspect of astroimaging) for his own website blog, in which he explained why he focused on the oft-imaged Horsehead Nebula. The short summary is that he had been attracted to astronomical images since he was a boy in Montreal in the 1970s. He wasn’t an astronomer then, but collected postcards of astroimages, and had a special place in his heart for postcards of IC-434. Continue reading
SBIG Image Sharing: A wonderful mosaic by Alistair Symon
We are pleased to share this Widefield Mosaic of Flaming Star, Tadpole, SH2-234 and M38 submitted by Alistair Symon, the owner of Woodlands Observatory in Tuscon, Arizona. Click on the link to his site to find a whole gallery of images like this.
Image by Alistair Symon - Used with permission
Here are the details of the work that led to this image:
- It is a 10-image mosaic of the Flaming Star, Tadpole, SH-234 and M38.
- The images were a results of over 100 hours of imaging, with 79 hours of h-alpha and 28 hours of RGB.
- All images were taken with a Takahashi TOA-130 at f/6 and an SBIG STL-11000M.
- Processing was done with CCDStack, Registar and Photoshop CS5.
- The Flaming Star and Tadpole were taken in February 2011. The rest of the Mosaic was captured in November 2011.
This is wonderful work that we are very pleased to share! Thank you Alistair.
Here again is the link to Alistair’s web page: www.woodlandsobservatory.com
If other SBIG astrophotographers wish to have an image posted to this blog, click here for instructions.
You may also post images to share in our Facebook Community any time. Please only post your own images!
Galactic Hit-and-Run found in NGC4449 by UCLAn Michael Rich and the STL-11000
We are very excited to learn that SBIG had a role in a recent astronomical discovery by UCLA research astronomer Michael Rich and a team of fellow Southern California astronomers.
Find the report here: A Tidally Distorted Dwarf Galaxy near NGC 4449
Rich and his team used a telescope with a very wide field called a Centurion 28 (the diameter of the mirror is 28 inches) to discover a previously unknown companion to the nearby galaxy NGC 4449, located about 12.5 million light years from Earth. Attached to the telescope capturing the images was an SBIG STL-11000m!
NGC 4449 (Left) positive image of the NGC 4449 and NGC 4449B; 3.2 hr luminance filter image using an STL 11000m camera obtained using the Saturn Lodge 0.7 m Centurion10 telescope.(Right) ELLIPSE within IRAF was used to subtract a model halo that shows detail of NGC 4449B, including a plume extended NW toward the nucleus of NGC 4449.
They discovered the companion dwarf galaxy, which has “evidently experienced a close encounter with the nucleus of NGC 4449,” Rich said. Dubbed NGC 4449B, the dwarf galaxy has been stretched into a comet-like shape by the gravitational forces of the larger galaxy.
Rich collaborated with Francis Longstaff, an amateur astronomer (and, by day, professor of finance at the UCLA Anderson School of Management) in acquiring and using a specialized telescope designed to take images of wide fields of the sky at the Polaris Observatory Association site near Frazier Park, Calif, just north of Los Angeles.
The C28 telescope has a wide field which, combined with special image processing conducted by Christine Black, a UCLA research assistant, and David Reitzel of the Griffith Observatory, let astronomers subtract the light of the sky and that of the outer parts of NGC 4449 to reveal the new galaxy. NGC 4449B had never been detected because it is more than 10 times fainter than the natural brightness of the night sky and some 1,000 times fainter than our own Milky Way galaxy.
Rich and his team produced a rigorous report on their discovery, which was accepted to run in the February issue of Nature. (If you subscribe to Nature, open the article here.) We are glad to have been able to help this team make this wonderful discovery.
The deep images captured by the STL-11000 of the larger NGC 4449 revealed other surprises too:
- A strange arc of stars that might be an ingested galaxy
- A “remarkable halo” of old stars that appears to consist of two parts; the outermost part of this “halo” population was unexpected, and makes NGC 4449 equivalent in size to the Milky Way.
The origin of these old stars is not known, but they may have been acquired when galaxies similar to NGC 4449B fell into NGC 4449 and were shredded, postulated Rich.
“The larger, host galaxy, NGC 4449, may be “something of a living fossil,” representing what most galaxies probably looked like shortly after the Big Bang,” Rich said. “The galaxy is forming stars so furiously that it has giant clusters of young stars and even appears bluish — a sign of a young galaxy — to the eye in large amateur telescopes, he said.”
This discovery got a lot of coverage, in addition to the honor of being accepted as a scholarly report in the February issue of Nature. Below are some links. Our favorite headline was “Hit-and-Run” because in galactic terms, what the Rich team found is but a moment in time and will ‘rapidly’ disappear!
Perpetrator of Galactic Hit-and-Run Found!
The Astronomy Page on Activeboard.com
We are always looking for more images taken by SBIG cameras by astronomers around the world. Send them to images@sbig.com whenever you create or find one! Find our guidelines for submission here.
Namibia offers clear Southern Skies for Imaging – Here is some Proof
We have been touting the benefits of a visit to Chile, in past articles on this blog, as a place to sample the joys of sky viewing in the Southern Hemisphere. Amateur astronomy is well established there, and European astronomical initiatives have established quite a footprint in the incredibly clear skies of the Atacama.
But we do not want to give the impression that it trumps other great locations south of the equator. So, we trolled the internet looking for another example. Our search had just one caveat: As this is an SBIG blog, we had to find an SBIG angle.
The Tivoli Southern Sky Guest House in the deserts of Namibia was happy to provide that angle! They had two images in their slide show taken with an STL -11000M. The first is of M83, taken by Eduard von Bergen. The second, of Centaurus A, is by von Bergen and Hansjörg Wälchli. Both men hail from Switzerland, and it is clear from Eduard’s site that he has led expeditions to Namibia multiple times.
Click on the image below to open a new window and start the show.
When you have a chance, if you live south of the equator, recommend to our community where excellent viewing can be found. Many of us travel, and make sky viewing opportunities a key factor in deciding where to go. Thank you!
Have you been to this guest farm? Would you be willing to share a few images that you took there? Let us know!
A selection of images taken at Namibia's Tivoli Southern Sky Guest Farm
Remember, we are happy to share an image of yours here on this blog. Click here for instructions.
SBIG Image Sharing: Kevin Marcus and a “Quick Snap” of the Horsehead in Hydrogen Alpha
SBIG is happy to share images that have interesting stories behind them, because many times how an astrophotographer captured the image in question is as interesting as (dare we say “more interesting than?”) the image itself.
In this case, we see a nice combination of image and story, notably with the short imaging time Kevin reports. (See details below image.)
See and judge for yourself. We hope you share your thoughts here in the comments section! Kevin and we look forward to seeing what you have to say.
ic434-driz. Image by Kevin Marcus. Used with permission.
Adding Rogelio Andreo to our Website Hall of Fame
2011 SBIG Hall of Fame Member Rogelio Andreo
We have been remiss in posting the news that Rogelio Andreo now has his own page within our Hall of Fame on the SBIG website.
Please visit it to see all the amazing accolades Rogelio has received for his work in astrophotography.
And in case you missed it, one of his images appears in the 2011 Astronomer of the Year competition run by the UK’s Royal Observatory at Greenwich, although not as the top winner. Scroll down the page to find Rogelio’s image of Orion, and his description of the project.
The BBC made a video slide show of the winning entries, with a narrative by the judges that is worth viewing. You will have to be attentive to see Rogelio’s image as it goes by. Click to open the “Captions” text boxes in the lower right corner of the presentation.
To view Rogelio’s own image catalogue, visit his Deep Sky Colors site.
Andreo prefers taking his equipment on the road to a fixed observatory. This image is from his own site.
Australia Hogs Transits and Eclipses in 2012
Will you capture an image like this in June?
For those that chase solar eclipses or want to catch a great view of the Venus Transit, you will have to head to Eastern and Northern Australia this year:
- A full view of the Venus Transit will occur June 5-6 in Eastern Asia and Eastern Australia (and various islands states in the Pacific.) The rest of us get partial views or none at all (don’t head to the Atacama, for instance!)
- A total solar eclipse will pass over Northern Australia November 3. This makes three years in a row that the Pacific region got to view solar eclipses. (And in 2013 it will happens again!)
Those in other parts of the world who like to view and images these events will have to settle for annular solar eclipses and lunar eclipses.
For details, check into articles on Sky & Telescope, which will direct you on to further resources: