1st March 2012Moon At long last the new QSI 683 camera is ready to take images.The sky was very overcast so I used the Moon to get the first focus adjustment. This is a single 0.03 second exposure through thin cloud. Image cropped and enlarged 4th MarchRosette Nebula in Hydrogen alphaThis is the first attempt at narrowband imaging. 7x10 minutes with the Astrodon Hydrogen alpha 5nm filter. The image scale allows only the heart of the nebula to be captured in one frame. 12th MarchRosette Nebula OIII and SII data added and combined using the Hubble palette.I was surprised by the different levels of noise obtained with the three filters. Hydrogen alpha is very smooth, but SII shows lots of grainy noise. Experts on PAIG tell me this is perfectly normal. 19th MarchM95 SupernovaPSN J10435372+1140177 was discovered on 2012 March 16.8493 by J. Skvarc; Alessandro Dimai of the Italian Supernovae Search Project. The magnitude measured with a photometric V filter was 13.474 Mars is very close to the galaxy at present, hence the uneven illumination in the image (top right corner). 21st MarchM95 Supernova
NGC2174 - Monkey Head Nebula Narrowband image in Hubble pallette Ha, OIII, SII, 140,140, 60 minutes in 10minute subs 24th MarchM95 Supernova
The Cone Nebula, ngc 2264 Poor seeing conditions with high level haze. 14x10 minutes in Ha 25th MarchThin crescent Moon just after sunset.0.04 second exposure, QSI camera ngc 2254 Cone Nebula in Hubble pallette 15x10 minutes Ha, 4x10 minutes OIII, 3x 10 minutes SII. There was very little nebulosity in the OIII and SII frames, hence the shorter times. The same data in a more realistic mapping. 26th Marchngc2264 The northern partAnomaly in ngc2264 The first 10 minute exposure of ngc 2264 showed an object looking very much like a star that did not show up in subsequent frames. It was also missing in the preceding test frame. Cosmic ray blemishes usually appear as streaks, whereas this was a neat circle. The pixel intensity was also much higher than normal cosmic ray traces. A more detailed account of the anomaly is here. If you have any idea how this could have been caused, please leave a comment in the Guest book. 30th March
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