M27 in CMYK

Here is a new image of Messier 27, done with my new set of Edmund dichroic cyan, magenta, and yellow imaging filters. An alternative to the traditional red, green, blue method, the CMY method has the advantage of allowing more than one color channel through the filter at once making imaging time less critical. At least, that is what it is touted for. This is my first CMY image, and it does appear to do just that. With the old RGB filters, it seemed all I could ever get was red/blue and the green channel was notoriously difficult to get signal with. There are very few, if any, green objects in space, so it would seem that the green color channel is a waste of exposure in many cases. The Cyan filter has both green and blue in its spectral wavelentghs, and in fact pulls in the entire OIII spectral line, which is missed by the old RGB method as this line lies between the blue and green filters.

These filters can be obtained from Edmund Optics and run about $68 dollars a set unmounted.

Yes, they are parfocal! However, I do not believe they block IR.

This image was done using my DSI Pro CCD that I normally use for guiding.

The Veil

This is a picture of a portion of the Veil Nebula, a large supernova remnant located near the constellation Cygnus. This object was created when a massive star exploded millions of years past, and threw off large quantities of gases, "star stuff", and shock waves. There are several portions of this visible in the sky, and they all form a roughly circular ring in the lower half of Cygnus. They cover too large an area to take all of them in, unless using a very wide field camera lens for your photo.

These interstellar shock waves will dissipate in several million years as they expand.

The Cocoon

Here is an image of Caldwell 19, the Cocoon Nebula. It is a large cloud of gas and dust superimposed over a dark nebula. The long, dark division among the stars is a black cloud of obscuring dust blocking out the stars behind. This nebula is quite dim, and is very hard to see with the eyes, even through a large telescope.

Pinwheel Galaxy

I shot this image of M101, the Pinwheel Galaxy several months back, but never got around to processing it. It is finally finished, but not as good an image as I had hoped. This is a quite large galaxy visible in the "Big Dipper" constellation. It has one spiral arm that has been disturbed and thrown "off kilter" by something in its past. I shot this on my smaller 5" Maksutov Cassegrain scope with an older SAC 8 II CCD camera.

Dumbell Close up

Here is a close up image of Messier 27, the Dumbell Nebula, as seen in an earlier post. This image was taken with a monochrome CCD camera using a special color filters to give color to the black and white image. The object is shown here in the combined light from Oxygen III, and Red. Oxygen III, or OIII is the wavelength of light given off by interstellar ionized Oxygen. A special filter was used to separate it out from the normal visible light spectrum. The light normally given off by M27 lies in the red and OIII regions.

*Warning - Technical stuff*

Light from interstellar objects comes in three flavors. It is Red from Hydrogen Alpha (HA) gas, Blue from cooler Hydrogen Beta (HB) gas, and Teal/Green from ionized Oxygen (OIII). These three color sources make up the Red/Green/Blue light our eye registers when looking at these types of objects.

Normally the cooler Hydrogen Beta is found in mostly the same places you will find Oxygen (OIII), so you can use the data from OIII and double it to serve as green and blue for the color separation process, and get a result close to the original. This is the basis of the Two Filter - Three Color process in use in this image. The Green and Blue channels are composed of OIII light, and the Red channel is from Red light. I did it this way because I was not satisfied with my Green and Blue filters and did not yet own a Hydrogen Alpha filter.

It seemed to work out OK. Sometimes Rocket Science really isn't Rocket Science.

Whirlpool in the Sky

This object is Messier 51, otherwise known as the Whirpool Galaxy. It is a pair of interacting galaxies that very much resemble their name, a whirlpool. The smaller galaxy is actually behind the larger one, and there is some speculation as to whether they are truly interactive or not. A small number of scientists think they are just in the same line of sight, and not truly interactive.

Bode's Galaxy

Messier 81 also known as Bode's Galaxy, is shown here with its smaller companion galaxy, Messier 82. Messier 82 is very interesting in the fact that it is in the throes of a violent explosion. Large streamers and filaments can be seen streaming from it in Hydrogen Alpha light. This picture was done in normal visible light, so they are not as prominent, but still can be seen. It is one of the great mysteries of science as to why this galaxy is exploding. The current theory has it resulting from a close pass from the larger spiral, M81.