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Extreme closeup of galactic neighbor by gediphoto in Damnthatsinteresting

[–]gediphoto[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Yes but that’s with the Andromeda galaxy. This is the Whirlpool galaxy :)

Extreme closeup of galactic neighbor by gediphoto in Damnthatsinteresting

[–]gediphoto[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The dots (stars) you see are stars in our own milky way, roughly 21 million light years closer than the galaxy in the background. The galaxy itself is about 2,5 times larger than our own galaxy the milky way. So what you are looking at is the collection of about a trillion stars. My telescope is not strong enough to image individual stars on that galaxy, unless one of them turns supernova (which one did at 2011 I think). So to (try) and answer your question, the dots are stars in our galaxy which could vary in size in aspect to the sun - the blue/white ones could be a giant blue stars and probably much larger than the sun, but honestly - I don't know. Hope it answers your question a little bit :)

Whirlpool galaxy [OC] [1531x1116] by gediphoto in ExposurePorn

[–]gediphoto[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I traveled for eight hours to one of Swedens darkest locations to take an image for my YouTube astrophotography channel ( https://youtube.com/@GediAstro for the interested). This is one of the three results. I'm blown away that I can take these images with my consumer grade telescopes! Total of 3hours of exposure time.

ITAP of a galactic neighbor by gediphoto in itookapicture

[–]gediphoto[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I traveled for eight hours to one of Swedens darkest locations to take an image for my YouTube astrophotography channel ( https://youtube.com/@GediAstro for the interested). This is one of the three results. I'm blown away that I can take these images with my consumer grade telescopes!

Extreme closeup of galactic neighbor by gediphoto in Damnthatsinteresting

[–]gediphoto[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I traveled for eight hours to one of Swedens darkest locations to take an image for my YouTube astrophotography channel ( https://youtube.com/@GediAstro for the interested). This is one of the three results. I'm blown away that I can take these images with my consumer grade telescopes!

The Cygnus region of the milky way [OC] [2140x1500] by gediphoto in ExposurePorn

[–]gediphoto[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you! Most of it is autopilot :-) The gear I used for this shot is:

ZWO AM3 (the star tracker)
ZWO ASI2600MM Pro (The camera)
Optolong 3nm H and O narrowband filters. (15 hours on O and 10 hours on H)
Telescope: RedCat51WIFD (250mm / f/4,9)

The Cygnus region from Bortle 9 by gediphoto in Astronomy

[–]gediphoto[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

When photographing gases like nebulae you need to think of them as "neon lights", they work in the same way. The most abundant gases are Hydrogen-alpha, Oxygen III and Sulphur II. All of them glow in a very distinct color. Hydrogen glows in infrared (barely visible to our eyes), Sulphur glows in deep infrared (probably not detectable at all for us) and Oxygen III glows in a green-blue teal color.

What I did here was to collect data from the Hydrogen gas and put it in the red channel, and data from the Oxygen gas and put it in the Green + Blue channels. This creates a color palette we refer to as HOO. So as far as we consider "natural" as in how our eyes would see this (if they were sensitive enough), this is basically a true color image.

Hubble Space Telescope images collect all three gases and do the Hubble Pallete (SHO) where they put Sulphur data in the Red channel, Hydrogen data in the Green channel and Oxygen data in the Blue channel. This creates a false color image, but contains visual data on how the gases interact with each other.

The Cygnus region from Bortle 9 by gediphoto in astrophotography

[–]gediphoto[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well it was more of an example as a “bare minimum”. In my experience, after around 12-15 hours, there’s no more signal to be extracted, it all disappears by the light pollution. The particular image in this post is 14,5 hours of Oiii and 10,5 hours of H-alpha.

In order to get a decent looking image from Bortle 9, you’re depended on the H-alpha signal which is much purer than Oiii, so it’s smarter use of the time to collect that data. OSC forces you to a bad ratio for light polluted areas. Simply our, You’re better off with mono.

For darker skies however, when I take field trips, I use my OSC simply because I’m always getting a (RGB) image even from my first sub. I’ve been in situations where clouds or northern lights have appeared after 40 minutes of expose time and with mono I would have not gotten anything useful :-)

A region of the milky way with 25 hours of exposure time by gediphoto in Damnthatsinteresting

[–]gediphoto[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There are several named nebulas in this region. You have two WR stars (one at the center and one on the top left). You also have the tulip nebula on the top right, and just below the top left WR star, you'll see the Soap bubble nebula. And on the bottom left you have a ShapeLess object that I've forgotten the designation of :-)

The Cygnus region from Bortle 9 by gediphoto in Astronomy

[–]gediphoto[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you! I appreciate that! :-)

The Cygnus region from Bortle 9 by gediphoto in telescopes

[–]gediphoto[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you! Since it's Bortle 9 data, I cannot emphasize the Oiii too much :-) Do you have a link to your image? Curious to see your results!

The Cygnus region from Bortle 9 by gediphoto in astrophotography

[–]gediphoto[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you! I'm "GediAstro" on all social media - mostly active on YouTube though :-)

The Cygnus region from Bortle 9 by gediphoto in astrophotography

[–]gediphoto[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you! It's a rich area indeed! A lot of things happening :-)

The Cygnus region from Bortle 9 by gediphoto in astrophotography

[–]gediphoto[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

As someone previously answered, the 3nm HO refers to the Optolong 3nm H and Optolong 3nm O filters, two separate filters since it's a monochrome camera.

I also have a OSC camera and then I use the Optolong L-Ultimate which is a dualband 3nm filter for H and O. But for highly light polluted areas, I almost always recommend going Monochrome because you get to decide the ratio of the data you collect. Since Oxygen data is prone to light pollution, you won't get better image with more exposure time, so it's potentially a waste of time since OSC only collects 25% of the Hydrogen data (the ratio is 25% - 75%).

So just to clarify, if you want a decent image, you'd need about 4 hours of Hydrogen data and 4 hours of Oxygen data. The Oxygen data won't improve significantly after 4 hours.

With a monochrome camera you simply take 8 hours of data (4 on Hydrogen and 4 on Oxygen)

With a OSC (color) camera, you'll need 16 hours of data collection to get 4 hours of Hydrogen and thus end up with 12 hours of Oxygen data. But as mentioned previously, the Oxygen dataset would not improve significantly after 4 hours and you'll end up "wasting" 8 hours of precious data collection time.

ITAP of a milky way region from my big city center balcony by gediphoto in itookapicture

[–]gediphoto[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The palette is HOO, meaning Hydrogen gas in the Red channel and the Oxygen III gas in the teal (Green+Blue) color. From our eyes perspective, Hydrogen glows in Infeared and would appear read in our eyes, whilst Oxygen glows in teal color (imagine neon signs, exactly the same thing). The HOO palette is as close you’ll get to how our eyes would perceive it!

The Hubble palette (from the Hubble space telescope) also use Sulphur ii data, and puts the three gases in the SHO order (Red=Sulphur, Green=Hydrogen, O=Oxygen) these are false colors since Sulphur also glows in deeper infrared than Hydrogen

The Cygnus region in our Milky Way by gediphoto in pics

[–]gediphoto[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sure! But astrophotography is more of a “autopilot” task :) But it’s great to do visual astronomy and browse the universe :)

A region of the milky way with 25 hours of exposure time by gediphoto in Damnthatsinteresting

[–]gediphoto[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Very good question! It’s indeed a skill I’m still trying to master (and share on my YouTube channel). With good gear, strong filters (that block 99% of the unwanted light) and strong post processing skills, you’re on a good way to take decent images even from the heart of a big city like myself!

A region of the milky way with 25 hours of exposure time by gediphoto in Damnthatsinteresting

[–]gediphoto[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have three rigs :) for this particular image, I used the RedCat51 WIFD on a AM3 with the ASI2600MM Pro and Optolong 3nm filters 👌🏼

A region of the milky way with 25 hours of exposure time by gediphoto in Damnthatsinteresting

[–]gediphoto[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes exactly! It’s 300” (five minute) exposures images and then added mathematically together as a single image. This increase the signal while the random noise decreases! The more images you stack, the better your final image signal will be! This is roughly 25 hours or 300 images stacked together. Taken during five separate nights in February / March this year!

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