Starship Asterisk*

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Please post your images here.

Please see this thread before posting images; posting images demonstrates your agreement with
the possible uses for your image.

If hotlinking to an image, please ensure it is under 500K.
Hotlinks to images over 500K slow down the thread too much and will be disabled.

Thank you!

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

<- Previous submissions

StDr56 is a new potential planetary nebula discovered by the French-German research team by Marcel Drechsler and Xavier Strottner.

The extremely faint PN candidate was discovered in January 2020 and is the only known PN in the constellation Triangulum.
At the centre of the PN candidate is a potential white dwarf with a surface temperature of 35542 Kelvin and a distance of about 1130 light years to Earth.
With an extension of 44x36 arc minutes the candidate is not just enormous, it has also half the size of the Triangulum galaxy M33, which is only a few degrees away.

Coordinates: 02:07:17.41 +30:05:11.90 (J2000)
PN-G: 141.8-29.9
Distance: about 1130 light years

The photo was photographed by the Austrian Robert Pölzl with a total exposure of 59 hours in 21 nights from July to November 2020.
Image processing: Marcel Drechsler

Image data:
58 x 30 min. H-alpha
41 x 30 min [OIII].
28 x 10 min. RGB each
Date: 31.7.2020 - 18.11.2020

Location: Observatory Hirschegg-Austria
Optics: Lacerta Newton 10" f/4
Camera: Moravian G2 8300 at -30° - Baader filter
higher resolution you can find on my website:
https://astrofotos.at/content/Bildergal ... Nebula.jpg

Copyright: Robert Pölzl
Email: robert_lieboch@hotmail.com

Sh2-284 is a HII star forming region of gas and dust located in the constellation Monoceros approximately 15 thousand light years from the Earth. This remarkable nebula resembles the more familiar Rosette Nebula (Caldwell 49). Along the edges of Sh2-284 are several "elephant trunk" formations. These are monstrous pillars of gas and dust that stretch into the central void of the nebula. Perhaps the most prominent of the pillars is located to the left center of the nebula. It resembles the forefinger of a hand pointing to the stars in the center of the nebula. These pillars are formed by intense radiation and stellar winds radiating from the very hot stars of the central open cluster designated Dolidze 25. The radiation and wind from the cluster is responsible for clearing the central void in the surrounding nebula. Dolidze 25 is a very young cluster with an estimated age of approximately 3 to 4 million years.
Full info @: https://www.kinchastro.com/sh2-284.html

WR134 is a variable Wolf-Rayet star of type WN located roughly 6,000 light years from us. Its surface temperature approaches 63,000K and it is 400,000 times as luminous of the Sun. In the image, WR134 is the bright white star in the center of the oxygen bubble. WR134 is surrounded by a faint expanding shell of oxygen ionized gas, powered by the intense radiation and stellar wind from the star.

Equipment:
TS ONTC 10in f4 Newtonian
TeleVue Paracorr Type 2
Astrodon 3nm Ha and OIII filters, RGB filters for the stars
ZWO ASI1600MM Pro
AP1100GTO mount

Data acquired with Sequence Generator Pro, APCC, and PHD2
Data processed with Pixinsight, Photoshop CC, Starnet, Topaz DenoiseAI

Total integration time: 30 hours
Data collected between June and October 2020 in Schenectady, NY.

Full acquisition details: https://astrob.in/tiy8v8/0/

Copyright by Luca Marinelli

Thank you for your consideration,

Luca

The Fish Heart Nebula
I framed the Fish Head Nebula with the heart of the Heart Nebula and I dubbed it the Fish Heart Nebula. I processed this in Pixinsight combining the Ha, SII, and OIII data in the SHO palette. I then used the ColorMask script to make masks in magenta, green, cyan, and yellow to give a tonal mapping similar to the Hubble palette.
Imaging telescopes or lenses: Astro-Tech AT115EDT
Imaging cameras: ZWO ASI1600MM Pro
Mounts: Sky-Watcher EQ6-R Pro
Software: PixInsight, Photoshop
Filters: Baader Ha 1.25" 7nm · Baader SII 1.25" 8nm · Baader OIII 8.5 nm 1.25"
Accessory: ZWO ASIair Pro · ZWO EFW Mini
Dates:Nov. 5, 2020 , Nov. 6, 2020

Frames:
Baader Ha 1.25" 7nm: 17x300" (gain: 200.00) -20C bin 1x1
Baader OIII 8.5 nm 1.25": 29x180" (gain: 200.00) -20C bin 1x1
Baader OIII 8.5 nm 1.25": 5x300" (gain: 200.00) -20C bin 1x1
Baader SII 1.25" 8nm: 21x300" (gain: 200.00) -20C bin 1x1
Integration: 5.0 hours
Darks: ~30
Flats: ~30
Flat darks: ~30
Bortle Dark-Sky Scale: 4.00

It was a long journey to this video, but it is my own amateur astronomer dream. I would like to explain the electromagnetic wavelengths with an astronomic object.

I have applied this with different astronomical pictures. Images of the galaxy Centaurus A from AUI, ESA, ESO, HESS, JPL-Caltec, NASA, NRAO, NSF to called the main organisations. The visible light image was taken from my astro colleague and me in Namibia. All sources, credits, copyrights and references are being showned at end titles of video and this post.

The challenge was the alignment and correct sizes of all these different images. And I also wanted to show the telescopes and satellites that took all these pictures. As well the positions in the electromagnetic spectrum have to be shown too that the video has also an education impact for schools.

I hope that you enjoy it. Please find here the link to the video:

http://www.astrooptik.ch/video/Centaurus_A_Journey.mp4

Clear skies
Eduard von Bergen
Switzerland

********************************************

SOURCES / REFERENCES / COPYRIGHTS / CREDITS

VLA
https://iopscience.iop.org/0004-637X/80 ... pj507051f6
Figure from The Complex North Transition Region of Centaurus A: Radio Structure
Susan G. Neff et al. 2015 ApJ 802 87 doi:10.1088/0004-637X/802/2/87
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1 ... 2/2/87/pdf
The Astrophysical Journal, 802:87 (21pp), 2015 April 1 doi:10.1088/0004-637X/802/2/87
References and authors: Susan G. Neff, Jean A. Eilek and Frazer N. Owen

HERSCHEL
https://sci.esa.int/sci-images/26/Hersc ... _farIR.jpg
Copyright: ESA/Herschel/PACS/SPIRE/C.D. Wilson, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

SPITZER
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0603/c ... r_full.jpg
Credit: J. Keene (SSC/Caltech) et al., JPL, Caltech, NASA

NTT
https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso0944a/
Credit: ESO/Y. Beletsky

2MASS
https://www.ipac.caltech.edu/2mass/gall ... aatlas.jpg
Credit: Atlas Image courtesy of 2MASS/UMass/IPAC-Caltech/NASA/NSF.

HYPERGRAPH 16" f/8
Processing: Eduard von Bergen
Image Data: Hansjörg Wälchli + Eduard von Bergen

GALEX
http://www.galex.caltech.edu/media/glx2 ... img13.html
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSC

CHANDRA
https://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2014/cena/
Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/U.Birmingham/M.Burke et al.

XMM-NEWTON
https://xmm-tools.cosmos.esa.int/extern ... A_Xray.jpg
Credit: ESA/XMM-Newton, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO and ESA

HESS
https://www.mpi-hd.mpg.de/hfm/HESS/page ... _09_p1.jpg
Reference: "Discovery of very high energy gamma-ray emission from Centaurus A with H.E.S.S",
H.E.S.S. collaboration, F. Aharonian et al., Astrophysical Journal Letters, 695 (2009) L40-L44.


SOURCES / COPYRIGHTS / CREDITS of INSETS from TELESCOPES + SATELLITES

VLA (NRAO + AUI + NSF)
https://public.nrao.edu/gallery/sunrise-at-the-vla/
Credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF

HERSCHEL (ESA + NASA + JPL-Caltec)
https://sci.esa.int/web/herschel/-/5958 ... bservatory
Copyright: ESA/Herschel/NASA/JPL-Caltech; acknowledgement T. Pyle & R. Hurt (JPL-Caltech)

SPITZER (NASA + JPL-Caltec)
http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/images/6 ... zer-Beyond
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle (IPAC)

NTT (ESO)
https://www.hq.eso.org/public/images/uh ... 51p_bt_cc/
Credit: ESO/B. Tafreshi (twanight.org)

2MASS (Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory + University of Massachusetts + JPL-Caltech)
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File ... vatory.jpg
Credit: Ekx64 Hernán Stockebrand

HYPERGRAPH 16" f/8 (Astro Optik Ph. Keller)
OBSERVATORY on Tivoli in Namibia
Copyright: Eduard von Bergen

GALEX (NASA + JPL-Caltec)
http://www.galex.caltech.edu/media/glx2 ... img01.html
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

CHANDRA (NASA)
https://chandra.harvard.edu/20th/images ... ration.png
Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO & J. Vaughan

XMM-NEWTON (ESA)
https://xmm-tools.cosmos.esa.int/extern ... E_deco.jpg
Credit: ESA/XMM-Newton and ESA ESAC

HESS (H.E.S.S.)
https://www.mpi-hd.mpg.de/hfm/HESS/page ... SS_CT5.png
Credit: MPIK / Christian Föhr

Video produced by ASTRO OPTIK GmbH
Music from MAGIX Software DVD MX Deluxe
Directed and (c) 2020 by Eduard von Bergen

Robert-Austria wrote: ↑Wed Dec 02, 2020 5:09 pm StDr56 is a new potential planetary nebula discovered by the French-German research team by Marcel Drechsler and Xavier Strottner.

The extremely faint PN candidate was discovered in January 2020 and is the only known PN in the constellation Triangulum.
At the centre of the PN candidate is a potential white dwarf with a surface temperature of 35542 Kelvin and a distance of about 1130 light years to Earth.
With an extension of 44x36 arc minutes the candidate is not just enormous, it has also half the size of the Triangulum galaxy M33, which is only a few degrees away.

Coordinates: 02:07:17.41 +30:05:11.90 (J2000)
PN-G: 141.8-29.9
Distance: about 1130 light years

The photo was photographed by the Austrian Robert Pölzl with a total exposure of 59 hours in 21 nights from July to November 2020.
Image processing: Marcel Drechsler

Image data:
58 x 30 min. H-alpha
41 x 30 min [OIII].
28 x 10 min. RGB each
Date: 31.7.2020 - 18.11.2020

Location: Observatory Hirschegg-Austria
Optics: Lacerta Newton 10" f/4
Camera: Moravian G2 8300 at -30° - Baader filter

Click to view full size image

higher resolution you can find on my website:
https://astrofotos.at/content/Bildergal ... Nebula.jpg

Copyright: Robert Pölzl
Email: robert_lieboch@hotmail.com

Fascinating! There is a tiny very blue star off-center inside the nebula, to the left. Could that be a PN central star, which is ionizing a planetary nebula?

Ann

Ann wrote: ↑Wed Dec 02, 2020 8:07 pm Fascinating! There is a tiny very blue star off-center inside the nebula, to the left. Could that be a PN central star, which is ionizing a planetary nebula?

Ann

Hi Ann, that' right!
This star fulfills all requirements to be the central white dwarf.
We could determine the following relevant data:

- Name: WDJ020717.41+300511.64
- Temperature: 35,542 Kelvin
- Magnitude: 15.017649
- Parallax: 2.8783
- pmra 15.130 / pmdec -6.718
- Probability to be a WD: 78.302%
- good blue color
- very good FUV/NUV ratio
- Mass (sun): 0.234688%
- Distance (average): 347 Pc (1130 ly)

Cheers,
Marcel Drechsler (Co-discoverer of StDr56)

Marcel_Drechsler wrote: ↑Wed Dec 02, 2020 9:01 pm

Ann wrote: ↑Wed Dec 02, 2020 8:07 pm Fascinating! There is a tiny very blue star off-center inside the nebula, to the left. Could that be a PN central star, which is ionizing a planetary nebula?

Ann

Hi Ann, that' right!
This star fulfills all requirements to be the central white dwarf.
We could determine the following relevant data:

- Name: WDJ020717.41+300511.64
- Temperature: 35,542 Kelvin
- Magnitude: 15.017649
- Parallax: 2.8783
- pmra 15.130 / pmdec -6.718
- Probability to be a WD: 78.302%
- good blue color
- very good FUV/NUV ratio
- Mass (sun): 0.234688%
- Distance (average): 347 Pc (1130 ly)

Cheers,
Marcel Drechsler (Co-discoverer of StDr56)

This is an amazing and wonderful discovery! I think a few professional astronomers have predicted the existence of really large superfaint planetary nebulae, which are apparently really difficult to discover by professionals.

If you know the distance of it, what could the size in light years be? It could be the third biggest PN in the Milky Way!

Also were the exposures taken with 3nm filters?

Ann wrote: ↑Wed Dec 02, 2020 8:07 pm

Robert-Austria wrote: ↑Wed Dec 02, 2020 5:09 pm StDr56 is a new potential planetary nebula discovered by the French-German research team by Marcel Drechsler and Xavier Strottner.

The extremely faint PN candidate was discovered in January 2020 and is the only known PN in the constellation Triangulum.
At the centre of the PN candidate is a potential white dwarf with a surface temperature of 35542 Kelvin and a distance of about 1130 light years to Earth.
With an extension of 44x36 arc minutes the candidate is not just enormous, it has also half the size of the Triangulum galaxy M33, which is only a few degrees away.

Coordinates: 02:07:17.41 +30:05:11.90 (J2000)
PN-G: 141.8-29.9
Distance: about 1130 light years

The photo was photographed by the Austrian Robert Pölzl with a total exposure of 59 hours in 21 nights from July to November 2020.
Image processing: Marcel Drechsler

Image data:
58 x 30 min. H-alpha
41 x 30 min [OIII].
28 x 10 min. RGB each
Date: 31.7.2020 - 18.11.2020

Location: Observatory Hirschegg-Austria
Optics: Lacerta Newton 10" f/4
Camera: Moravian G2 8300 at -30° - Baader filter

Click to view full size image

higher resolution you can find on my website:
https://astrofotos.at/content/Bildergal ... Nebula.jpg

Copyright: Robert Pölzl
Email: robert_lieboch@hotmail.com

Fascinating! There is a tiny very blue star off-center inside the nebula, to the left. Could that be a PN central star, which is ionizing a planetary nebula?

Ann

You can also see it in Marcel's gallery here.

starsurfer wrote: ↑Wed Dec 02, 2020 10:51 pm
This is an amazing and wonderful discovery! I think a few professional astronomers have predicted the existence of really large superfaint planetary nebulae, which are apparently really difficult to discover by professionals.

If you know the distance of it, what could the size in light years be? It could be the third biggest PN in the Milky Way!

Also were the exposures taken with 3nm filters?

We determined the real diameter of StDr56 of 14.4 light years.
So it's one of the largest known planetary nebulae (assuming that a spectrum confirms the true nature of a PN).
This would also explain why the nebula is so extremely faint.

Cheers,
Marcel

Marcel_Drechsler wrote: ↑Thu Dec 03, 2020 12:13 pm

starsurfer wrote: ↑Wed Dec 02, 2020 10:51 pm
This is an amazing and wonderful discovery! I think a few professional astronomers have predicted the existence of really large superfaint planetary nebulae, which are apparently really difficult to discover by professionals.

If you know the distance of it, what could the size in light years be? It could be the third biggest PN in the Milky Way!

Also were the exposures taken with 3nm filters?

We determined the real diameter of StDr56 of 14.4 light years.
So it's one of the largest known planetary nebulae (assuming that a spectrum confirms the true nature of a PN).
This would also explain why the nebula is so extremely faint.

Cheers,
Marcel

Wow you worked it out! It must be in the top 10 largest known PN! It must be really difficult to obtain spectra for something so faint.

A really good idea is photographing blue stars to see if there is a faint nebula around them. Maybe 10-20 amateurs in the world could combine together for such a project?

Great blue heron admiring Comet Neowise by Tom Yin, on Flickr

Polar-Ring Galaxy NGC660
HaLRGB

Nick Pavelchak
https://www.astrobin.com/2afd91/

The Arecibo radio dish is sadly being decommissioned following the failure of two support cables in August and November 2020. At a diameter of 305 meters, the spherical dish was the largest single aperture telescope in the world for 53 years until the construction in 2016 of the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) in China. During its illustrious 57-year history, the Arecibo Observatory has been at the forefront of numerous scientific endeavors and discoveries.

In January 2013, researchers using the Arecibo telescope in a multi-year study of molecules in nearby galaxies reported an unexpected and dramatic outburst of energy in the polar-ring galaxy NGC660. The magnitude of this outburst was reported as about ten times brighter than a supernova explosion and possibly resulting from a tremendous jet emanating from the galaxy's central black hole. A subsequent study using a combination of archival radio and Chandra X-ray data, together with new radio observations made using e-MERLIN in mid-2013 showed a new compact and extremely bright continuum source at the center of the galaxy. The authors concluded “that we are seeing a period of new active galactic nuclei (AGN) activity in the core of this polar ring galaxy.”

NGC660 has an apparent size of 2.7 x 0.8 arc-minutes and magnitude of 12.0.

The description from Wikipedia states: “NGC 660 is a peculiar and unique polar-ring galaxy located approximately 45 million light years from Earth in the Pisces constellation.[3] It is the only such galaxy having, as its host, a "late-type lenticular galaxy".[4] It was probably formed when two galaxies collided a billion years ago.[5] However, it may have first started as a disk galaxy that captured matter from a passing galaxy. This material could have, over time, become "strung out" to form a rotating ring.
The ring is not actually polar, but rather has an inclination from the plane of the host disk of approximately 45 degrees.[4] The extreme number of pinkish star-forming areas that occurs along the galaxy's ring could be the result of the gravitation interaction caused by this collision. The ring is 50,000 light-years across - much broader than the disk itself - and has a greater amount of gas and star formation than the host ring. This likely indicates a very violent formation.”

Online references used for this narrative:

https://en.wikipedia...ibo_Observatory
https://skyandtelesc...-has-collapsed/
https://ui.adsabs.ha...45412A/abstract
https://ui.adsabs.ha......88S/abstract
https://www.research..._core_of_NGC660
https://www.spacetel...ages/potw1348a/
https://phys.org/new...stronomers.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_660


I hope you enjoy the image!

starsurfer wrote: ↑Thu Dec 03, 2020 9:25 pm Wow you worked it out! It must be in the top 10 largest known PN! It must be really difficult to obtain spectra for something so faint.

A really good idea is photographing blue stars to see if there is a faint nebula around them. Maybe 10-20 amateurs in the world could combine together for such a project?

The first spectrum that we tried a few weeks ago unfortunately failed.
There was too little signal and we could not separate the ionised gases from the background noise.
But we will try again soon by increasing the exposure time.
I really hope that the result will be better next time!

The idea of photographing hot blue stars is unfortunately somewhat impractical. If you look at the long life span of a white dwarf, but the very short life span of a planetary nebula, you will see millions of white dwarfs and only a few thousand planetary nebulae.
This would be like the proverbial search for a needle in a haystack.

But what would help us a lot in our search would be a large-scale OIII survey of the night sky!
If you know someone at NASA or ESO, please do not hesitate to make this suggestion.


Cheers,
Marcel

So long for the beautiful display Sunspots AR2785,6 now approaching the limb on December 3rd. (ED80 APO, Moded Lunt 50THa, ASI290mm, Cemax 2x Barlows.)

The Ring Nebula (M57) in the Constellation Lyra

M57, the ring nebula, is found in the constellation Lyra. M57 is a planetary nebula, which is an expanding shell of gas ejected from a star in the later stages of its evolution. The image captured the outer halo structure of M57 as well as the galaxy IC 1296. This cropped image is a total of 9 hr 20 min exposure taken through a 12.5” RCOS f/9 astrograph at f/6 (Astro-Physics CCDT67 reducer) with a SBIG STF8300m CCD camera on a Paramount ME on the nights of 18, 19, 22 May 17, 19 June 2020 in Mayhill, NM (13 x 1200 s lights, 5 x 1200 s blue, 5 x 1200 s red, 5 x 1200 s green all at -15 degrees C). Processed in PixInsight 1.8.8-6 Ripley (x64).

Our neighboring galaxy Andromeda in tilt-shift

www.astrophotographie-lorraine.com
Copyright: Thomas LELU


The Tilt-Shift, more commonly known as the mock-up effect. In practice, it suffices to apply a blur around the main subject. With the right angle and sufficient distance, it looks like a model! We accentuate this effect by modifying the saturation of the colors to have a nice Lego effect. The blur can be straight, radial, or in any shape you want.
Here it is the effect recreated by Photoshop. There are tilting lenses in order to achieve this effect.

Novembre 2020
Total exposure 22hrs.
Newton ASA10", Paramount MyT, Canon Ra at 800ISO.
254*300s
38*60s
Softwares : AstroPixelProcessor, PixInsight and Photoshop.

The Star forming region GUM15

Full version on Astrobin

Copyrights
Data acquisition: Telescope.Live
Processing: Nicolas ROLLAND

Total acquisition time of 18.6 hours.
Optics: Planewave 24“ CDK @ F5.6
CCD: FLI PL 9000
Pre Processing: CCDstack & Pixinsight
Post Processing: Photoshop CC


The Star forming region GUM 15 by Nicolas Rolland, sur Flickr

[img3]Omega Centauri NGC 5139 LRGB by maicon germiniani, no Flickr[/img3]

[img3]NGC 6334 - Cats Paw Nebula by maicon germiniani, no Flickr[/img3]

Attached is a wider field image of IC 410, narrow band SHO
From Mayhill, New Mexico
Full resolution version is here:https://www.flickr.com/photos/astrodoc7 ... ed-public/
Thanks for looking!
Dave Doctor

Hi,

My submission:
The Heart of IC 410 and the Tadpoles



Imaging telescope: Explore Scientific 80mm ED APO triplet.
Imaging camera: ZWO ASI1600MM Pro-Cool.
Mount: iOptron CEM60.

Frames:
Chroma 3nm Ha: 20x300" (gain: 139.00) -20C bin 1x1.
Chroma 3nm OIII: 20x300" (gain: 139.00) -20C bin 1x1.
Chroma 3nm SII: 20x300" (gain: 139.00) -20C bin 1x1.

Total integration: 5.0 hours.
Imaging date: Jan. 15, 2020.
Re-processed on Dec 4 & 5, 2020.

Location: Abu Dhabi desert, United Arab Emirates.
Bortle Sky Scale: 4.00.

https://flic.kr/p/2kdFBYe

Copyright: Wissam Ayoub.

Thank you,

The Running Chicken Nebula SHO by Blake Estes, on Flickr

Just dust in the wind--NGC1333 / Vdb16-13-12

This FOV shows 3 constellations, Peresus, Taurus, and Aries. NGC1333, low left of center and Vdb12, just above-left of 1333 are in Peresus, Vdb16, right of center, and Vdb13, just above-left of center are in Aries, Taurus shows just dust, bottom center and bottom right corner. This FOV also shows many of the dark Barnard nebulas.
http://www.mynightsky.net/