Recent Submissions: 2012 September

[Emil Ivanov]

Bright and dark nebulae in Cassiopea
VdB 7, VdB 9, LBN 643, LDN 1355, LDN 1357, LDN 1358
http://www.emilivanov.com/CCD%20Images/Vdb_7_9.html
Copyright: Emil Ivanov

Click to view full size image

For details please check the website, bigger size available here

[stephane zoll]

Ann,

Indeed OU4 raises very exciting questions ! In addition to my image, let me show here an animated gif displaying alternatively the Ha and OIII response of this field :

http://www.astrosurf.com/zoll/images/CALMAR_HOanim.gif

The OIII photograph is here more streched than the Ha one for ease to the eye, but what I want to point here is that interestingly, there is a very faint OIII halo around OU4...

Higher resolution OIII image here: http://www.astrosurf.com/zoll/images/CA ... 22x20M.jpg

Regards,
Stephane

[alexhp]

Hubble Space Telescope's Starry Night

A re-imagining of Van Gogh's "The Starry Night" using the "Top 100" Hubble Space Telescope images (collected from http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/archive/top100/).

Full size (4000x3300) version here: http://www.astro.uvic.ca/~alexhp/new/figures/starrynight_HST.001.jpg


Alex H. Parker http://www.astro.uvic.ca/~alexhp/new/

Edited: adding thumbnail version.

[rstevenson]

Great Starry Night image Alex. I hereby dub thee Pixelator Extraordinaire.

Rob (see my rank --> )

[Mila]

A very rare 360 degrees fogbow, solar glory and the Spectre of the Brocken with some shadows of Golden Gate Bridge's cables

Copyright: Mila Zinkova

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8039/7918336472_e6e1dbadf7_h.jpg

[Steed]

Waiting for the dawn

nightsky.jpg

http://imglf0.ph.126.net/fU2e7xbdRPoIYm ... 064980.jpg

Just before the dawn on last August 18th, there were lots of bright stars gathering in the eastern sky. Not only the bright stars in winter constellations, such as Capella, Aldebaran and Betelgeuse, but also the brightest planet Venus and the king of the planets Jupiter, who were dancing with them. Lots of deep-sky objects, such as Pleiades, California Nebula and the Double Cluster, interspersed among those bright morning stars. Even the winter milk way can barely be seen in this picture. My friend stood on hill, waiting for the dawn.

copyright: Yu Jun (Steed)

[jkg]

greenflash.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8180/7898 ... 9dbf_h.jpg

First time I've ever seen it do a double green flash, much less ever getting photos of it before. (multiple exposures comped in Photoshop)
After seeing it for real, I realized its apparently all generated by a "fata morgana" mirage, atmospheric lensing layers etc, although I'm still not sure why it changes color at the top.

I once saw another fata morgana mirage at the coast and was lucky enough to get pics of it too:
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7054/6808 ... 16f4_o.jpg

Not sure if this qualifies as APOD-worthy but I found it fascinating.

Best,

John K. Goodman
Los Angeles

[starsurfer]

I have actually retired from commenting on pictures in the Recent Submissions threads, but I can't resist a particular picture here. Before I comment on that one, however, let me thank everyone else for their splendid contributions here! It's such a joy to look at your great photos! (Rothko, you were on line when I started to write this... what splendid sunsets (sunrises?) you have photographed!)

But I really want to talk about Stephane Zoll's picture of Outters4, a newly discovered faint OIII-emitting nebula inside relatively bright Ha-emitting nebula Sharpless 129. What a fascinating nebula! Is it a planetary nebula? It looks rather like it, but if so, where is the central star? The nebula is centered on a bright blue star, which is, however, not the kind of star you find inside planetary nebulae. The star, HD 202214, is classified alternatively as B0V, B0IV, B0II and O9. My software suggests a V light luminosity of about 8,000 times that of the Sun. The spectral class and V light luminosity makes HD 202214 too cool and bright to be the central star of a planetary nebula. On the other hand, HD 202214 is clearly a remarkable star in itself. Its temperature and V luminosity appears to be comparable to that of great star Alnitak in Orion's Belt, but since Alnitak appears to be farther along in its evolution than HD 202214, the latter star might become a brighter blue star than Alnitak.

My point is that a hot massive star like HD 202214 might possibly have some sort of outburst or its own, just because it is so massive. Particularly if it is at the end of its main sequence lifetime, which seems likely. But HD 202214 also has a companion. My software seems to contradict itself as to how bright the companion is compared with HD 202214 itself. But if the companion is faint, isn't it possible that the companion is in fact a small hot star which has produced a planetary nebula?

Ann

It is a really strange nebula, in fact no one knows what it is exactly at the moment but it is being studied right now! It is likely to be something other than a planetary nebula, there has been some professional speculation that it might be the first known Milky Way analogue of a giant stellar jet from a symbiotic star in the LMC (which was discovered last year: http://arxiv.org/abs/1111.0848). It might be a completely new class of object! One thing is certain, it will continue to be studied for years to come! I wonder what else is out there that's waiting to be discovered!

[gianni]

Perseus Constellation

Copyright: Gianni Fardelli
http://www.facebook.com/gianni.fardelli

Click to view full size image

[owlice]

Milky Way Galaxy above the ruins of the ancient Templars
http://astroarte.astrosurf.com/ViaLacte ... os-net.jpg
Copyright: Miguel Claro

ViaLactea-Vertical-Hospitalarios-net.jpg

Faint Auroras and Waning Gibbeous Blue Moon
http://www.helios-photos.com
Copyright: Francis Audet

Waning Blue and Aurora Green.jpg

Moon Mosaic with the Lunar X
The lunar X will be visible again through small telescopes on September 22, International Observe the Moon Night 2012
http://www.flickr.com/photos/inomnbrasi ... otostream/
Copyright: N-Astro IFCE Campus Juazeiro do Norte / FUNCAP

lunar X_ July 25, 2012_JPG.jpg

Ancient Arches: The Milky Way over the Bungle Bungles
http://www.mikesalway.com.au
Copyright: Mike Salway

bungles-milkyway-pano2.jpg

M16: Eagle Nebula in Serpens
http://stern-fan.de/Seiten/galerie_Bild ... nebel.html
Copyright: Rolf Geissinger

M16-850.jpg

Milky Way above Gahar Lake
Copyright: Saber Karimi

IMG_9317 Panorama-croped-noiseware-1000px.jpg

[owlice]

M81 and M82
Copyright: Josh Hufford

M81-82 Final.jpg

Solar analemma from Spain
Copyright: Jesús Peláez

analemma solar.jpg

Airglow over Tre Cime
http://www.astrophoto.hu
Copyright: Tamas Ladanyi

airglow_ladanyi_1200px.jpg

Omega Centauri
Copyright: Jeanette Dunphy

-repro-crop-AF-2012-Omega-Centauri-1hr-15min-550d.jpg

[htrottier]

NGC6914: In the heart of the Swan

Click to view full size image

Hi: I shot this image of NGC6914, a tangle of nebulae and stars in the heart of Cygnus, between July 24 and August 25. A brilliant blanket of red emission nebulae encompasses an intricate web of reflection nebulae of varying shades of blue, with the field shot through by stars of many vivid colours. Towards the middle of the frame the blue nebula fades gradually in colour and intensity, giving way to very dark clouds in an apparent transition that seems almost unique in the sky!

This image is the result of 15 hours of exposure in a PlaneWave Instruments CDK17, using an Apogee U16M camera equipped with Astrodon filters, riding atop a Paramount ME, guided by a Starlight Xpress Lodestar camera together with an Astrodon MOAG, and housed in the roll-off roof Cabin in the Sky Observatory, which is located under the deep, dark, and dry skies of the south Okanagan region of British Columbia. Exposures were: 200 minutes in luminance (unbinned); 170 mins in narrowband Ha (unbinned); and 130 mins red, 140 mins green, and 260 minutes blue (all colours binned 2x2). Image capture was done with ACP, TheSky X, MaxIm DL, and Focusmax. Processing was done with PixInsight and CCDInspector.
The image above is downsampled X2 from the (slightly cropped) original 16 Megapixel version.

Thanks for looking!
Howard.

[JimLafferty]

RED SUN

Solar Disk in Ha on September 2, 2012. Imaged wtih a Lunt 100 Ha telescope, doublestacked with a Coronado 90 filter.

Click to view full size image

Jim Lafferty
Redlands, Califronia
http://scopetrader.com/jimlafferty

[Emil Ivanov]

Bright and dark nebulae in Cepheus
LBN 468, LDN 1148, LDN 1155, LDN 1158, HH 215
http://www.emilivanov.com/CCD%20Images/LBN468.htm
Copyright: Emil Ivanov

Click to view full size image

For details please check the website, bigger size available here.

[Marco Angelini]

VdB 142 in IC 1396 - The Elephant Trunk Nebula in Cepheus

Authors: M. Angelini - F. Antonucci - F. Tagliani

http://www.astrobrallo.com

Click to view full size image

Full resolution image: http://www.astrobrallo.com/gallery/inde ... -1396-LRGB

[eafrica]

Venus Transit 2012
http://www.skiesbyafrica.com
Copyright: Josephine and Eric Africa

Click to view full size image

My wife and I travelled to our remote observatory in New Mexico to view and image the Venus transit. I imaged the Venus transit using my Hydrogen-Alpha setup, but in the meantime my wife imaged the event using a hand-held Canon DSLR shooting afocally through the eyepiece of a small white-light-filtered telescope. Unbeknownst to me, as I was busily gathering data for my H-alpha images (sample shot in the inset at the lower of this composite image), she composed this killer (to me!) shot: she was able to capture the transit afocally (the white disk with the little black dot) at the lower right of the frame, while also capturing me as I was busily gathering data.

She likes to think of this shot as a time capsule of the technology used to capture the transit: visible in the image is my iPhone at my lap, as I was using its countdown timer to remind me when to shoot the next exposure in my sequence. Also visible in the image is the laptop I used to capture the data from the webcam used for data grabbing. We wonder what this snapshot of history might look like to those viewing the next transit 105 years from now. We're hoping that by then, there may be people living on Mars, either already having see or looking forward to a transit of the Earth and Moon of the sun!

My wife takes top billing for this composite, though I added my own image so I can take some credit <G>

Eric

[IanP]

City of Perth at night + full MOON ..

Click to view full size image

[ViliMax]

NGC 5907 - The Splinter Galaxy, type Sb+, in Draco

http://www.elateobservatory.com

Copyright: Velimir Popov

Click to view full size image

Large scale is avaliable here ...

Thank you for looking

[pablo22]

Sagittarius Treasuries (M20, M8, NGC6559, IC4685) Ha
http://blog.astrofotky.cz/pavelpech/
Copyright: Pavel Pech

[pablo22]

Sagittarius Treasuries (M20, M8, NGC6559, IC4685) sLRGBHa
http://blog.astrofotky.cz/pavelpech/
Copyright: Pavel Pech

[pablo22]

Barnard 111, 104, 113, 119, NGC6704, M11, Sh2-65
http://blog.astrofotky.cz/pavelpech/
Copyright: Pavel Pech

[Pieter Vandevelde]

van den Bergh 7, 8 and 9
http://www.astronomie.be/pieter.vandevelde/home.htm
Copyright: Pieter Vandevelde

Click to view full size image

med size: http://www.astronomie.be/pieter.vandeve ... 7&9med.jpg

[atamanti]

IC 417 and surroundings nebulae
http://www.tamanti.it/astronomy.htm
Copyright: Andrea Tamanti

Click to view full size image

[f.lorand]

Ghost shark (2.0) - (LdN 1235, VdB 149, 150 )
http://www.pleiades.hu/en/galeria-kozmosz-01.php
Copyright: Lóránd Fényes

Click to view full size image

http://www.pleiades.hu/galeria/kozmosz2/kepek_normal/38.jpg

[Rothkko]

119.jpg

viewtopic.php?f=29&t=29452#p182750