Supernova sn 2017gxq in Ursa Major (2)

Another picture of sn 2017gxq in NGC 4964 (Ursa Major). Now parent galaxy is visible as a small comet-like nebula (with longer total exposure and better atmosphere). My estimation gives the brightness of the supernova is comparable with the total brightness of the galaxy!

Supernova sn 2017gxq in Ursa Major

On 18-Oct-2017, I tried to picture a quite bright supernova sn 2017gxq, which exploded in a galaxy NGC 4964 (Ursa Major).
Despite the galaxy with the supernova was quite low in the sky (altitude ~29*) and in the direction near the city center (huge light pollution!) I managed to catch it.
Note that a parent galaxy is not visible at all (only very weak nebulosity could be mentioned).
My rough estimation of supernova's brightness is ~14.2m+-0.2

SkyWatcher 150/750 / EQ5 motorized + Canon EOS 600D; 20x32s; ISO=400. Processed with IRIS, green channel.

Messier 15 Globilar Cluster

Messier 15: a globular cluster with the very compact core; it is suspected that a black hole may exist in the center of the cluster.

Processing: IRIS (calibration, alignment), FITStacker (stacking, gamma, color correction), RawTherapee, FITWorks4, GIMP (SCNR by my plugin, BW+Color combining), FSViewer, crop, resize 50% of original.

The next picture is at 100% resolution, crop to field of view 15'

(after some deconvolution and contrast adjustment using AstraImage)

Perseids 2017

I tried to catch some meteors from my backyard in the night from 11 to 12 of August. Haze and Moon make the sky to glow so I mentioned only several brightest meteors by eye (one of them was definitely not Perseid).

Using Canon EOS 600D with kit lens in the night from 11 to 12, after 1 a.m. local time I managed to catch two bright meteors: at 1:17 (brighter) and at 1:36.

Canon EOS600D + kit lens 18-55 @18mm f/3.5 ISO=1600 Tv=15s

The brightest meteor passed near Little Dipper (left). A part of Cassiopeia W is in the bottom-right corner.

Field of view: 40x41 degree.

Asteroid Florence

Asteroid Florence
01 Sep 2017, 22:45..2315 (UT+3); Kyiv
Field of View: 30 arcmin

Canon EOS 600D + SkyWatcher 15075 OTAW / EQ5 Motorized
87 x 15s (+5s gap between frames)
ISO=1600

Evolution of Supernova SN 2017eaw

A supernova in a galaxy NGC 6946 is changing its color from bluish to yellowish due to cooling of an expanding gaseous shell. The color change was already noticeably at the end of Jun.

SkyWatcher 150/750 + Canon EOS 600D ISO 1600. 186x30s (1st image; two sessions: May 20 and 27), 101x30s (2nd image, Jul 22)
Kyiv

M31 again

M31 Andromeda galaxy: a quick'n'dirty picture taken at the end of another session in the night 22/23 of July.

Setup: SkyWatcher 15075 OTAW Newtonian / EQ5 motorized + Canon 600D

11x30s @ISO1600

Supernova SN 2017eaw (3)

"Express shot" of the supernova (14x30s ISO=1600; SkyWatcher 15075 OTAW / EQ5 + Canon EOS 600D)

21-Jun-2017; Kyiv (Osokorky)

It seems that the supernova changes its color from bluish to yellowish, see the following picture:

M57 (remastered)

Another version of M57 nebula based on the material gathered during the night 28th-29th of Jun.
The nebula itself is better seen (then in the previous version) with its central white dwarf.

Night 28th-29th of Jun 2017; Kyiv
Field of view: 15x15 arcminutes; North is up

Setup: SkyWatcher 15075 OTAW / EQ5 motorized(no guiding) + Canon EOS600D
97*30s; ISO=800

M57

M57 "Ring" Nebula
Gaseous shell (~1 l.y. in diameter) surrounds dead star: a white dwarf (faint star in the center of the nebula). The white dwarf -- a remnant of the star, in fact, dead star's nucleus -- is hot enough to emit powerful ultraviolet radiation. That ultraviolet emission makes surrounding gases to glow.

Night 28th-29th of Jun 2017
Kyiv

North is up.

Setup: SkyWatcher 15075 OTAW / EQ5 motorized(no guiding) + Canon EOS600D
97*30s; ISO=800

Size of the field is 39.4 x 39.4 arcmin (by nova.astrometry.net). A faint galaxy is visile near the nebula:

Saturn

Yet another Saturn.
21-Jun-2017 ~23:10(UT+3)

SkyWatcher 15075 OTAW / EQ5 motorized + TeleVue Barlow x3 + Canon EOS 600D

3 x (10% of 5000frames). ISO=1600.

Processing: PIPP; AS!3; AstraImage(deconvolution); WinJupos; FITSwork4 (wavelets). RawTherapee.

Saturn's system 2017-06-21 22:53(UT+3)

Jupiter: The First Try of WinJupos

This is my first try of WinJupos: a program, that eliminates an effect of the rotation of a planet (if the effect is quite small) and allows to combine images taken during some period of time to improve a quality of the resulting image.

Three clips taken on 17th of May (with SW15075OTAW + Tele Vue Barlow x3 (1.25") + Canon EOS 600D) were recorded at 21:56, 21:59, and 22:03 UT+3 (times correspond to the end of the recording of each clip).

Those clips were processed using AS!3 and Registax6 (15% of 3600 frames for each clip were stacked and sharpened with wavelets).
Then the resulting images were derotated and compiled into the final image with WinJupos.
Finally, the image was additionally sharpened in Registax6 and postprocessed in FITSwork4 and RawTherapee.

2017-05-17 ~21:59(UT+3)

Kyiv

Saturn

SATURN from Kyiv on 18-Jun-2017.
Planet's altitude was about 15*.

Setup: Sky-Watcher 15075 OTAW / EQ5 + Barlow TeleVue x3 + Canon EOS 600D
Processing: PIPP (4 movies, 4500-5000 frames); AS!3 (RGB align, stacking, 15% of frames from each movie used to generate images); Registax6 (wavelets); WinJupos (4 images de-rotated and compiled together); Registax6 (again, wavelets)

The largest Saturn's moon Titan is barely seen in the following image (single movie, Titan is made brighter):

Comet C/2015 V2 (2)

C/2015 V2 (Johnson)

Time: 2017-06-09 23:53 .. 2017-06-10 01:17 UT+3

Kyiv

Moon was full (99.9%) so the background was severely highlighted.

Setup: Sky Watcher 15075 OTAW on EQ5 with motor drives (no guiding); Canon EOS 600D

89 light frames 30s each; 21 offsets; 21 darks; 18 flats.

Processing: IRIS (calibration, stacking by the comet); postprocessing: FITStacker, FITSwork4, RawTherapee

North: up, West: to the right.

Animation (the same 89 frames; calibration and alignment: DeepSkyStacker; postprocessing: RawTherapee, FSViewer, VirtualDub)

2017-06-09 23:53 .. 2017-06-10 01:17 UT+3

(1h24min)

45'x45'

Supernova SN 2017eaw (2)

Supernova SN 2017eaw in a galaxy NGC 6946 (Fireworks Galaxy) is still shining as billion suns (the supernova is marked by green dashes -- see the second picture beneath). The galaxy is distanced from us at approximately 22,000,000 light years.

Most of the stars in the picture (except the supernova) belongs to our Milky Way. An open star cluster NGC 6939 is visible in the upper right corner (a distance to it is about 4,000 light years).

A picture was taken in the night 27-28 of May 2017 from Kyiv.

Setup: Sky Watcher 15075 OTAW / EQ5 motorized (no guiding) + Canon EOS 600D @ ISO=1600.

There were 91 light frames in total @ Tv=30s (total exposure 45.5 min) plus 21 darks, 21 biases, and 10 flats.

This is a combo image: synthetic L-channel overlapped by RGB image.

Image size: 47,3x47,3 arcmin [nova.astrometry.net]

Supernova SN 2017eaw

Supernova SN 2017eaw in Fireworks galaxy (NGC 6946). 

The supernova is marked by green dashes (to the upper-right from the galaxy).

Other stars (visible in the picture) belong to our own galaxy, Milky Way.

Captured near local midnight 20-21 May 2017 from Kyiv.

Setup: SkyWatcher 15075OTAW/EQ5 motorized (no guiding), Canon EOS 600D

95x30s ISO=1600

Processing: IRIS, FITStacker, RawTherapee, FITSwork4

A position of the supernova is marked by green dashes in the next picture:

Location of the galaxy NGC 6946 (by nova.astrometry.net)

Another view:

Comet C/2015 V2

Comet C/2015 V2
17-05-2017 22:50-23:54 (UT+3)
Kyiv

Setup: Canon EOS 600D + SkyWatcher 15075 OTAW / EQ5 motorized (no guiding).
Processing: Deep Sky Stacker, FITStacker, RawTherapee. 78x30s (19 darks, 19 biases, 10 flats).

Image size: 50x50 arcmin

Orbit diagram (calsky.com)

Moon in May 2017

Pictures taken at the beginning of May 2017
Kyiv
SkyWatcher 15075 + TeleVue PowerMate x5 (1.25") + Canon EOS600D

 3 May 2017: Albategnius

6 May 2017 Sinus Iridum in color

6 May 2017 Hainzel

6 May 2017 Plato

Jupiter and Io's shadow

Io's shadow on Jupiter
6 May 2017 22:19 (UT+3)
Kyiv, Osokorky

CanonEOS 600D + TeleView PowerMate x5 + SW 15075 OTAW + EQ5 motorized
ISO=1600; Tv=1/50
PIPP (3000 кадров, 2min), 25% of 3000 frames AS!2, Registax6 (RGB aligh), AstraImage3 (Lucy-Richardson), AstraImage5 (adaptive filtering), FITSwork4, RawTherapee.

Jovian System

In the evenig 24-Apr-2017 [@21:46(UT+3)] Jovian moons made interesting configuration.

Setup: Canon 600D + NPZ Barlow x3 + SW 15075 OTAW / EQ5 with motor drives.
Video taken directly by Canon EOS 600D (stored to a card); ISO=1600; Tv=1/60s; 25 frames/s

Processing: PIPP (90s fragment was extracted); Registax6; RawTherapee; GIMP 2.9

Ambient temperature was about 5*C; gusty wind.

2017-04-24 21:46(UT+3); Kyiv

To the right from Jupiter: Io, Europa, Ganymede (bright), Calliso (dim)

Moon and Jupiter near Conjunction

Moon and Jupiter 10-Apr-2017 at ~22:50 (UT+3) from Kyiv.
To the left and below Jupiter is θ Virginis.
The four Galilean moons are lined up: Io, Ganymede, Europa, Callisto.

This is a combination of three different exposures: 1/2s for Jovian moons, 1/128s for Jupiter itself, and 1/640s for Moon.

The camera [Canon EOS 600 D + EF-S f/4-5.6 55-250 IS II] was mounted on EQ5 with motor drives.

[Canon EOS 600D + EF-S f/4-5.6 55-250 IS II. Exp 1/2s + 1/128s + 1/640s (30 frames in total); ISO 400; F/13]

Comet 41P (TGK) Remastered

Images of a comet 41P in my previous post were processed with DeepSkyStacker. It is a very good program to get a quick-and-dirty result of an astrosession. Hovewer, I always got a better output with another free astrosoftware: IRIS. I've never tried to process comet's images yet with IRIS so it is my first attempt to use the special comet-tracking functionality of it.

I reprocessed the same set of frames as in my previous post: 50 frames x 30s, taken at ISO 800 using Canon EOS 600D attached to SkyWatcher 15075 Newtonian on top of motorized EQ5 mount (no guiding). I used 19 dark and 19 offset frames for calibration.

The frames were captured between 23:23 and 23:54 local Kyiv time (UT+3) on 2 Apr 2017.

I should say that IRIS gave a less noisy picture; comet's coma is seen better. In general, the image looks "softer" and "more natural".

A size of the cropped image is 45x45 arcminutes.

Comet 41P Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresak

Comet 41P (TGK) 2 Apr 2017@23:23-23:54 (UT+3) Kyiv

Setup: Canon EOS 600D + SW 15075 OTAW Newtonian on EQ5 with motor drives (no guiding)

50 frames x 30s; ISO 800 (19 darks, 19 offsets)
Processing: DSS + FITStaker + RawTherapee.
The angular size of the resulting cropped picture is 0.75x0.75 degrees; resize 25%.

I could not distinguish the comet by eye trough 28mm eyepiece. Probably it was because of poor transparency of the atmosphere that night. At the beginning I even saw iridescent corona around the Moon, then it disappeared.

The night was very warm (for the season here); the temperature gradually reduced from 16*C to 11*C; calm.
The Big Dipper was near zenith...

It was my first attempt to picture non-planetary object through my new Newtonian. 30-s exposures are good even without guiding.
I could see the comet shift between frames even for such a small interval (33 s from frame to frame)!

The first picture is stacked "by a comet"; the second one -- "by stars". You can see the shift of the comet during ~30min (size of the pictures is 0.75x0.75 degrees -- 1.5 of the visible diameter of the Moon).

An animation (23:23-23:54 (UT+3)); frame size 15'x15':

Shadow of Io on Jupiter

Jupiter, Io (small yellowish spot pointed by arrow) and its shadow: an animation of pictures taken during approximately one hour near local midnight (EEST UT+3).

Kyiv (Osokorky district)

Setup: SkyWatcher 15075 OTAW + NPZ x3 Barlow + Canon EOS 600D.
Processing: PIPP, AS3!, Registax6, VirtualDub.

2017-03-28 ~23:50 - 2017-03-29 ~0:50 UT+3


One frame from the animation with somewhat better resolution:

Barlow lens introduces chromatic aberration so colors of the image are somewhat distorted. Probably I will replace Barlow in the future.

Comet 45P Honda-Mrkos-Pajdusakova (3a)

Eventually I managed to stack frames by the comet (see link).
Two stacking modes were used: "average" (right image) and "sigma-clipping" to reduce stars brightness. Comet's tail is clearly seen.
Size of each image: 3x3 degrees.
2015-02-25; 23:04-23:55(UT+2)

An animation of a proper motion of the comet.
2015-02-25; 23:07-23:52(UT+2)

Comet 45P Honda-Mrkos-Pajdusakova (3)

Last night: 2017-02-25 23:05-23:55(UT+2)

Kyiv, Osokorky

Setup: Canon EOS 600D with Jupiter 37А lens [135mm] @f/5 on EQ-5 motorized mount.
42x60s frames.

Processing: DSS+FITStacker+RawTherapee.

Because the comet was too dim, I could not make alignment by the comet so alignment by stars was used. This caused distortion of the comet visible nucleus.

Crop 3x3 degrees

Venus

Venus on 19th of February 2017: Canon EOS 600D through SW 15075 OTAW + SW EQ5 motorized.

A visible angular diameter of the planet now is ~41 arcseconds, it is approximately 2% of visible Moon diameter.

Processing: PIPP+Autostakkert+Registax+GIMP; 25% of 1951 frames (movie taken at ISO400; 1/250s exposure)

Canon EOS 600D through SkyWatcher 15075 + Barlow 5x (Delta Optical)

The same picture with depicted planet's limb:

Flame Nebula and the Great Orion Nebula(2)

Flame Nebula: a part of Orion Molecular Cloud: to the left of Zeta Orionis (a blue supergiant star). Numerous stars inside the nebula cause its glow; interstellar dust forms dark filaments.
A deep scarlet canvas of hydrogen nebula lies beneath Zeta Orionis; a dark spot, which resembles (in better resolution) a head of a horse is (obviously) called Horsehead Nebula.

Setup: Canon EOS 600D with Jupiter 37A(135mm focal length f/3.5 lens) on EQ-5 (motorized, unguided). ISO=400; f/5.
It is the severely cropped result of stacking of 45 frames (120s each taken during three nights) calibrated and aligned in IRIS. Stacking of frames was done in FITStacker using a sigma-clipping algorithm. Post-processing: RawTherapee, NoiseWare, FITSwork.

January 2017
Kyiv (Osokorky district)

The Great Orion Nebula: a better version of the image posted before [45x120s]

Both nebulas in one image (three bright stars are Orion's belt) [45x120s]