SH2-199 The Head of the Soul Nebula Complex
Finally finished this creepy(Just in time for Halloween, LOL!) but beautiful monster last night…
Sharpless 2-199 – The Head of the Soul Nebula Complex,
Westerhout 5 (Sharpless 2-199, LBN 667, Soul Nebula)
is an Emission Nebula in the Constellation Cassiopeia.
The Soul Nebula is sometimes also known as the Embryo Nebula or IC 1848, which is a designation used for the open star cluster embedded within the nebula. Several small open clusters are actually embedded in the nebula: CR 34, 632, and 634 (in the head)
The nebula is home to W5, (Westerhout 5) a radio source that spans an area roughly the size of four full Moons. The radio source has large cavities that are the result of the nearby massive stars’ winds and radiation carving the nebula, pushing the gas together and causing it to ignite to form new stars.
I captured this 4.5 hour exposure from my backyard in Dayton, Ohio on 09/23/2019 and 09/26/2019 using my QHY183M BI CMOS camera & C6 Newtonian Scope, Bisque MyT mount, Coma Corrector, & EFW, 4.5 hours of exposure time through Hydrogen Alpha (90min), Oxygen III(90min), & Oxygen III(90 min), narrowband wavelengths, mapped out to an RGB! Deepsky Stacker, Maxim DL, & Adobe CS.
Best Regards,
John Chumack
The Propeller Nebula
The Propeller Nebula, AKA Simeis 57 = DWB 111 & DWB119 = MRSL 479
Not much is known about this object…but it is located in star rich region of Cygnus the Swan or the Northern Cross.
The brighter propellers are visible visually in an 18″ diameter scope from a dark location…but the rest is so faint you likely won’t be able to glimpse it visually, but long exposures will show the rest of it,
I will try this again for a much longer exposure, this was shot from my backyard in Dayton, through high thin clouds for a good part of the full moon night, So will give it another go sometime in the future..
Its not too bad, considering the poor conditions I had, and it shows the Propeller well, but more data is needed to pick up the rest of the fainter gas filled region & dark nebula.
C6 F5 Newt. Scope & QHY183M Bi Cooled Cmos camera bin 1×1, ZWO EFW, 2.5 hours in bi color, H-Alpha, OIII, OIII, mapped out to RGB.
No Auto-guiding was need, My mount tracks well enough for the 2 minute subs, I was limited to 2 minute subs, due to the sensitivity of the Camera, city lights, and Full moonlight, plus the high cirrus haze, all this can easily overwhelm the sensor and as well as saturate the brighter stars.
Best Regards,
John Chumack
www.galacticimages.com
Melotte 15 – The core of the Heart Nebula Complex
Some places in the Universe are simply magical, they often can take your breath away,…and this is one of those places!
It is the incredible vistas like these that continue to motivate me to capture the Universe! Its a lot of work but so worth the results!
Please like my “Galactic Images by John Chumack” Facebook Page..you can easily share from there..and Follow me by name on Twitter & Instagram as well.
This is my extreme close-up shot inside the core of the Heart Nebula Complex with Melotte 15, here is a 6 hour exposure (72 x 300 sec subs) in Narrow Band H-Alpha & Oxygen III light captured over 3 nights, along with about 50 calibration frames for each night, all taken through my 6″ diameter Newt. scope & ZWO 174MM Cooled Cmos camera, yes taken from my backyard observatory in Dayton, Ohio. I’m very happy with the results from this capture, calibration, & processing, but image processing is a never ending learning curve. I’m forever trying to figure out new ways to pull out as much detail as possible, despite my often poor seeing conditions in Dayton, Ohio.The entire Heart nebula complex is very large 150 arc minutes x 150 arc minutes in some of my wider field shots, but using this scope camera combo, I’m really Inside the center of the Heart Nebula in this image, the F.O.V. is only about 32 x 50 Arc minutes across. My resolution is 1.53 arc seconds per pixel.The Heart nebula, also known as Index Catalog IC-1805, Sharpless 2-190, with Melotte 15 open star cluster lies some 7500 light years away from Earth and is located in the Perseus Arm of our Milky Way Galaxy in the constellation Cassiopeia. It was discovered by William Herschel on 3 November 1787. This is an emission nebula showing glowing ionized hydrogen gas and darker dust lanes.The nebula’s intense red/golden output and its shape/configuration are driven by the radiation emanating from a small group of stars near the nebula’s center(right). It reminds me of a twisted rope…This open cluster of stars known as Melotte 15 contains a few bright stars nearly 50 times the mass of our Sun, and many more dim stars that are only a fraction of our Sun’s mass.
Best Regards,
John Chumack
www.galacticimages.com
The Road to Mars
Thanks to NASA for featuring another one of my image as their (APOD) “Astronomy Picture of the Day”.
Sometimes you just need to follow “The Road to Mars”!
Capture last May in Moab, Utah. The Road to Mars was beautiful, The Bright Red Planet Mars, as seen at the end of a road in Arches National Park near Moab, Utah.
Captured while looking south at 4:36am on 05-16-2018 and you can see the Milky Way in the upper right with Saturn just below the Milky Way as well. I used Low level lighting for the road & road side scenery. The Faint Green Glow on the Horizon just below Mars is called Natural Air Glow, The Amber glow on the Horizon in the lower right is the Light Pollution glow from the town of Moab, Utah.
Sony A7SII with a Sony E-mount to Canon lens adapter & Canon 16-35mm Lens set to F3.2, ISO 12,800, for a 13 second exposure, camera on a tripod.
Best Regards,
John Chumack
www.galacticimages.com
NGC1499 The California Nebula Complex Close-up
Up Close & inside the California Nebula Complex.
The California Nebula (NGC 1499) is an emission nebula located in the constellation Perseus. It is so named because it appears to resemble the outline of the US State of California on long exposure photographs. It is almost 2.5° long on the sky and, because of its very low surface brightness, it is extremely difficult to observe visually.
The nearby energetic O7 star, xi Persei is responsible for the fluorescence of the nebula, due to excitation of the Hβ line. The California Nebula is also known as Sharpless 220 and is located about 1,000 light years from Earth. The California Nebula was discovered by E. E. Barnard in 1884.
This is my extreme close-up shot of it, literally looking inside near the center section the California Nebula Complex, you can also see the elusive black Jelly Fish, an opaque dark black molecular dust cloud near the bottom. A tremendous amount of details are visible within the California Nebula cloud..
I captured this image from my backyard observatory in Dayton, Ohio over 3 nights 09-17, 09-21, & 09-22 of 2017 of light gathering for a total of 7 hours & 15 minutes of exposure time, using my 6 inch diameter F5, Newtonian Scope & a ZWO 174MM cooled Cmos camera in HA, S2, O3 lines Mapped out to RGB.
Best Regards,
John Chumack
www.galacticimages.com
IC1396 The Elephant Trunk Nebula Complex
The Elephant’s Trunk nebula is a concentration of interstellar gas and dust within the much larger ionized gas region IC 1396. Located in the constellation Cepheus about 2,400 light years away from Earth, this is a massive star formation region.
Taken from my backyard observatory in Dayton, in Narrow Band, 120 min in HA, 125 min in S2, 115min in O3, for a total of 6 hour exposure, over 3 nights from 09-17, 09-20, & 09-22 of 2017. Using a 6 Inch diameter Celestron Newt. Scope & ZWO 174MM Cooled Cmos Camera.
Best Regards,
John Chumack
www.galacticimages.com
The Great American Total Solar Eclipse
Another nice Solar Eclipse image here is a short exposure I did to catch the “Solar Prominence Activity” on the edge of the Sun during totality! Several large ones. Capture in Hopkinsville, KY
Best Regards,
John Chumack
www.galacticimages.com
The Great American Total Solar Eclipse
Here is my Final Master Piece Image showing The 2017 Total Solar Eclipse during Totality in a 5 image HDR, High Dynamic Range.Blow it full screen and look at the details. also stand back from the Monitor and check it out from a distance too, not just close-up. It looks 3D to me…with the Earth-shine Moon, you can barely see the moons surface features, due to reflected light from Earth, The suns edge with Pink Prominence’s, with Inner Coronal loops and full outer Corona Details. The Brightest star in Leo “Regulus” is in the Upper left of the Frame. This is my best Totality image to date! FCD 100mm Diameter Explore Scientific Triplet APO Refractor (714mm FL), & Canon 6D DSLR, August 21, 2017 The Samford Homestead, Hopkinsville, KY.
My Personal Best Image to Date!
Best Regards,
John Chumack
www.galacticimages.com
The Bubble Nebula NGC-7635
NGC7635 The Bubble Nebula
Certainly my best shot of the Bubble Nebula complex to date!
Lots of detail in this one!
It is an enormous bubble being blown into space by a super-hot massive star!
This was a 10 Hours of exposure through Astronomik 7nm & 6nm Narrow Band data Mapped out to RGB. Captured over 3 nights from my backyard observatory in Dayton. 6″ Celestron Newt.,Coma Corrector, & ZWO 174mm Cooled CMOS Camera, Nebulosity, Pixinsight, & Adobe CS.
NGC 7635, also called the Bubble Nebula, Sharpless 162, or Caldwell 11, is a H II region emission nebula in the constellation Cassiopeia, The “bubble” is created by the stellar wind from a massive hot, 8.7th magnitude young central star, SAO 20575.
The Bubble is located in front of the HII Emission Region. It is located about 7000 to 11000 light years from Earth.
Saturn with Moon Enceladus on 06-09-2017 @ 05:43 U.T.
Saturn is nearing Opposition, and is looking good all night long now…So go out and look it low in the South, Saturn is only ~ 21 degrees above my Southern Horizon in Dayton, Ohio, but still looks great in a telescope.
Here is another Shot this time Close-up of Saturn with the (11th magnitude Icy Geyser moon) Enceladus ,captured on 06-09-2017 from my backyard Observatory in Dayton, Ohio.
I used a Televue 5x Barlow & QHY5IIL Cmos Camera attached to my old orange tube C8, testing the magnification limits of my little 8 inch diameter scope.
The exposure times were longer than usual through RGB filters, as Saturn got very dim when magnifying that much with the 5x Barlow. I can only do this on nights of decent stable seeing, but it was cool to see it fill my screen.
Not bad for being so low on the Horizon and for an object that is 1.275 billion km or ~ 792 million miles away.
Saturn rises after dark in the South East each night, but is at its highest point in the South by about 2:00am …look for that bright Yellow Star due South.
I hope we get many more stable seeing nights during this Saturn Observing Season!
Best Regards,
John Chumack