News / Education
Super Wide Field of the Bubble Nebula
How many stars can you count?
Amateur Astronomy Picture of the Day
Feb 21 2010
The Bubble Nebula and surrounding friends
Taken by John Walton FRAS
This was taken at Global Rent a Scope in New Mexico, using G14 which is the FSQ106ED and STL11000 combination. 900 second exposures LRGB using Astrodon filters.
It can be seen that the Bubble Nebula is surrounded by a host of deep sky objects, like M52 and NGC7538, but also wisps of ionised hydrogen and streaks of dark dust all set against the backdrop of the Milky Way.
It can be seen that the Bubble Nebula is surrounded by a host of deep sky objects, like M52 and NGC7538, but also wisps of ionised hydrogen and streaks of dark dust all set against the backdrop of the Milky Way.
John's image was also awarded Picture of the Month in Astronomy Now magazine in the UK.
I have been imaging seriously since 2006 and have a backyard observatory here in the UK based around a TeleVue/Losmandy system.
When I bought ACP to automate my system I met Arnie Rosner online and he was extremely helpful setting up one of the early subscriber accounts at GRAS.
I am a semi-pro guitarist, satellite design engineer and a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society.
The picture was shot in August/September 2009 at G14 which is the FSQ106ED and STL11000 combination. 900 second exposures LRGB using Astrodon filters, I used 900 second exposure to try and see the background detail at the expense of over exposing M52.
It can be seen that the Bubble Nebula is surrounded by a host of deep sky objects, like M52 and NGC7538, but also wisps of ionised hydrogen and streaks of dark dust all set against the backdrop of the Milky Way.
This is a great circumpolar wide field subject so can be imaged all year round.
The fits files were processed using MaximDL, CCDStack and MIRA and the resultant TIFF files were LRGB combined in Photoshop CS3, I used techniques taught me by Adam Block, but I did not use any noise reduction algorithms.
Global Rent a Scope (GRAS) is a proud to be the sponsor of the Amateur Astronomy Picture of the Day (AAPOD), hosted by Astronomy.FM. The Monthly winner of AAPOD will receive a GRAS account with 300 points to access our robotic telescopes located in New Mexico and Australia.
Do you want to take your own Deep Space images?
Astronomy.FM and Global Rent-a-Scope have teamed up to bring you a free trial account to use on two of their remote-operated observatories. Our special trial account will give you 100 points of free access to GRAS's one-click imaging systems on their remote telescopes, G3 (in New Mexico), G13 (in Australia). Registration does not require a credit card or any commitment from you. At the end of your trial, you will be able to upgrade to a full-use GRAS account that will let you access all of their telescopes.
These image where taken with GRAS free trial account.
Follow Global Rent-a-Scope on Twitter to get Alerts on when the observatories are open, and special offers made only to twitter followers.
Astronomy.FM, an amateur astronomy focused organization, has as its mission "to explore, enjoy, and promote astronomy and space science; to encourage and facilitate the growth of astronomy science to professionals, amateurs, and students, and to bring awareness to the public; to educate and inspire humanity to 'look skyward' and learn." Membership is free and without obligation. Members and the public can listen to broadcasts using links at Astronomy.FM.
