November 16: The "Red State"
Seeing California as a "Red State" can be a dream or a disaster depending on your political affiliation. While we won't find out the latest political coloring of California for another year, this "California" has been glowing red for around a hundred thousand years.
This is a three panel mosaic using the TMB152 and STL-6303 at JMSM Observatory. Each panel is composed of images exposed through hydrogen-alpha (Ha), red, green, and blue filters. The Ha filtered data was used for the entire nebula in the red channel of the final image - while the red filtered data was used only for the stars. A fraction (15%) of the Ha data was also added to the blue filtered image to create the blue channel.
Click the image above to view larger versions of the California Nebula.
October 16: Two Hearts
This is two views of the Heart Nebula (IC1805). One is a pseudo-true color image using a Hydrogen-alpha filter for the red channel combined with standard green and blue filters. The second is a false-color image using the [SII], Hydrogen-alpha, and [OIII] narrow band filters.
These images were taken using the facilities of JMSM Observatory, owned by Mike Sherick.
Click the image above for larger versions of this image. Read the rest of this blog entry for some more details.
September 09: Sh2-129 and vdB 140
This is a not-often imaged section of sky, probably due to it's more famous neighbors (IC1396 & vdB 142).
This image taken using the facilities of JMSM Observatory.
Click the image above for larger versions of this image. Read the rest of this blog entry for some more details.
June 27: The Eagle and the Swan (M16 & M17)
M16 (The Eagle Nebula) and M17 (The Swan Nebula) are quite often imaged alone. However, we sometimes forget how close these two are optically and they may be part of a larger complex of interstellar matter. Indeed in my image there appears to be a physical connection between these two nebula.
Personally I was a bit surprised by the brightness difference of these two objects - with the Swan being much brighter than the Eagle. (This is not as apparent in the final image due to the processing choices I made.)
Image taken using the facilities of JMSM Observatory.
Click the image above for larger versions of this image. Read the rest of this blog entry for some more details.