1st March 2012

Moon

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 March

Rosette Nebula in Hydrogen alpha
This 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 March

Rosette 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 March

M95 Supernova
PSN 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 March

M95 Supernova
  This is not brightening as rapidly as the M101 supernova.

(My readings in red).














     
     


NGC2174 - Monkey Head Nebula

Narrowband image in Hubble pallette
Ha, OIII, SII, 140,140, 60 minutes in 10minute subs



24th March

M95 Supernova
  The maximum brightness is soon to be reached.

















The Cone Nebula, ngc 2264

Poor seeing conditions with high level haze.
14x10 minutes in Ha



25th March

Thin 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 March

ngc2264 The northern part



Anomaly 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

  Supernova in M95 now past maximum brightness and starting to fade.