The Rosette Nebula in Monoceros
ukastronomy
I had been observing for a number of years before I even realised that
the constellation of Monoceros existed. It was several more years
before I realised that one of the most attractive targets for the
owner of a wide-field scope could be found there.
With a CCD and a wide field scope I discovered that it was easy to
obtain an attractive image of the Rosette Nebula. The only significant
problem to overcome was the neighbour's roof! This was overcome by
moving all my observing to a remote scope based in New Mexico.
http://www.martin-nicholson.info/rosette/rosette.htm
Martin Nicholson, Daventry, England.
My website is at http://www.martin-nicholson.info/1/1a.htm
My informal Astronomical Blog is at http://ukastronomy.livejournal.com/
George Normandin
"ukastronomy" <> wrote
...
> The Rosette Nebula in Monoceros
>
> I had been observing for a number of years before I even realised that
> the constellation of Monoceros existed. It was several more years
> before I realised that one of the most attractive targets for the
> owner of a wide-field scope could be found there.
>
> With a CCD and a wide field scope I discovered that it was easy to
> obtain an attractive image of the Rosette Nebula. The only significant
> problem to overcome was the neighbour's roof! This was overcome by
> moving all my observing to a remote scope based in New Mexico.
>
> http://www.martin-nicholson.info/rosette/rosette.htm
>
> Martin Nicholson, Daventry, England.
Martin,
Yep the Rosette is a great object and an easy target from a dark sky
location. A few years ago I decided to try finding it using my 20x80
binoculars from my "camp" in NY's Adirondack Mts (very dark). I thought that
it would be difficult, but it turned out to be easy.
Over the past weekend at Stellafane in Vermont I mentioned all of this to
a friend who wants to take a CCD image using his 6" F/4 Newt. He said "Well
lets look at it in your Obsession 20!" I thought that it would not fit in my
field of view, but it did just fit in my 26mm Nagler on the 20-inch F/5.
Needless to say it was an easy object in a scope that size, but my friend
then claimed that he could see it in his 40mm binoculars.
George N
William R. Mattil
> The Rosette Nebula in Monoceros
>
> I had been observing for a number of years before I even realised that
> the constellation of Monoceros existed. It was several more years
> before I realised that one of the most attractive targets for the
> owner of a wide-field scope could be found there.
>
> With a CCD and a wide field scope I discovered that it was easy to
> obtain an attractive image of the Rosette Nebula. The only significant
> problem to overcome was the neighbour's roof! This was overcome by
> moving all my observing to a remote scope based in New Mexico.
>
Martin,
Seems to me that there should be a *lot* more data there than is seen in
your image. New Mexico Skies is up pretty high ......
Here are two images taken from my extremely light polluted back yard:
FSQ106N - 3 x 1800 seconds
http://www.celestial-images.com/Images/NGC2244-3x1800s-Ha.html
253mm f/6 Newt at appx f/7 3 x 1800s
http://www.celestial-images.com/Images/NGC2244-4x1800s-Ha.html
Bill
Greg Crinklaw
William R. Mattil wrote:
> ukastronomy wrote:
>> The Rosette Nebula in Monoceros
>
> Martin,
>
> Seems to me that there should be a *lot* more data there than is seen in
> your image. New Mexico Skies is up pretty high ......
Yes, five minute exposures are way too short for our skies unless the
moon is up.
I think you are wasting your time. This guy spams various forums with
links to his web site but seldom seems interested in discussing his
posts or anything else. In my experience criticism, no matter how well
intended or constructive, is wasted on him.
William R. Mattil
Hi Greg,
FWIW I agree. You can lead a horse to water but it's not that easy to
get him up on ski's.
I'll not waste my time further with him.
Thanks
Bill
Anthony Ayiomamitis
Both of your images are exceptional with tons of fine detail. I have
an ST-10XME on the way and I will be sure to tackle this gem with both
my AP160 and Tak FSQ.
Anthony.
On 5 Αύγ, 22:31, "William R. Mattil" <wrmat...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
> Martin,
>
> Seems to me that there should be a *lot* more data there than is seen in
> your image. New Mexico Skies is up pretty high ......
>
> Here are two images taken from my extremely light polluted back yard:
>
> FSQ106N - 3 x 1800 secondshttp://www.celestial-images.com/Images/NGC2244-3x1800s-Ha.html
ukastronomy
<Cut>
Sadly I can only implement your advice about imaging methods for
images taken subsequent to the advice being posted! When, for example,
Monoceros comes around again I can take exposures using the suggested
methodology, until then it is old images or nothing.
I would have thought any astronomical postings to astronomical usenet
groups would have been encouraged - given most of the garbage usually
posted here - but it appears not.
Such is life.
William R. Mattil
> Bill,
>
> Both of your images are exceptional with tons of fine detail. I have
> an ST-10XME on the way and I will be sure to tackle this gem with both
> my AP160 and Tak FSQ.
>
Anthony,
Thanks for the kind words!
Regards
Bill
George Normandin
"George Normandin" <> wrote
>
> "ukastronomy" <> wrote
> ...
>> The Rosette Nebula in Monoceros..........
>> Martin Nicholson, Daventry, England.
>
> Martin,
>
Oh, Oh....... I see that I got the Rosette confused with the Helix, which is
what my comments really refer to. That's what happens when you drive 600
miles in one week and do three all-nighter's of observing, and attend
daytime presentations, and play a round of golf, and attend a hot air
balloon rally and...... I gotta slow down! :)
George N
chri...@aol.com
wrote:
> The Rosette Nebula in Monoceros
>
> I had been observing for a number of years before I even realised that
> the constellation of Monoceros existed. It was several more years
> before I realised that one of the most attractive targets for the
> owner of a wide-field scope could be found there.
>
> With a CCD and a wide field scope I discovered that it was easy to
> obtain an attractive image of the Rosette Nebula. The only significant
> problem to overcome was the neighbour's roof! This was overcome by
> moving all my observing to a remote scope based in New Mexico.
>
> http://www.martin-nicholson.info/rosette/rosette.htm
>
> Martin Nicholson, Daventry, England.
>
> My informal Astronomical Blog is athttp://ukastronomy.livejournal.com/
I think what they're saying is that the quality of CCD cameras and
scopes today is so good that you should be able to far surpass the
level of performance with the equipment that you have. When CCDs first
came out, the images produced by amateurs were very poor, and did not
come anywhere close to what you could gte with film. The rapid
development of cameras and the subsequent improvements in amateur
optics to better match these cameras has resulted in some stunning
amateur images. These now rival or surpass what we used to get from
Mount Palomar back in the film days. Here's an example taken with a
12" aperture telescope in a heavily light polluted industrial park
just 1/2 mile from car dealerships and mega box stores:
http://geogdata.csun.edu/~voltaire/roland/m57.html
So, now if you want to promote remote imaging in some pristine area
with your telescopes, or whatever, then you need to be able to equal
or exceed this level of performance.
Rolando
ukastronomy
>
> - Show quoted text -
No, not quite.
I took the image not to show the best possible image that could
(reasonably) have been obtained but to give an idea of the sort of
work it is possible to do with even quite limited exposures. The
Messier 10 minute challenge was another manifestation of this.
It goes without saying that longer exposures (both in total and in
terms of individual sub exposures) would give improved results but the
rate of improvement in not linear. It is not "double your money double
your quality" (nor even close)
chri...@aol.com
wrote:
>
> - Show quoted text -
10 minute quickie imaages are like McDonald's fast food. It resembles
food only superficially. Take your time with your subject and you will
become more intimately familiar with it. Except for initial
compositional purposes, I see no point to it. Recently one of our
customers discovered a new faint bubble shape in a very long H-a
exposure of a familiar Milky Way nebula. Last night I was out imaging
for several hours and found faint filamentary structure in an area
that has nothing showing on any charts that I am familiar with. Show
people what can be done with your equipment, and they will beat a path
to your door.
Rolando
Chris L Peterson
>10 minute quickie imaages are like McDonald's fast food. It resembles
>food only superficially. Take your time with your subject and you will
>become more intimately familiar with it. Except for initial
>compositional purposes, I see no point to it. Recently one of our
>customers discovered a new faint bubble shape in a very long H-a
>exposure of a familiar Milky Way nebula. Last night I was out imaging
>for several hours and found faint filamentary structure in an area
>that has nothing showing on any charts that I am familiar with. Show
>people what can be done with your equipment, and they will beat a path
>to your door.
You make the mistake of assuming everybody has the same goals. Most of
my imaging is scientific, but I often take time between projects to take
quick images of interesting targets. I seldom collect more than 30
minutes of data. While this isn't enough to produce a highly aesthetic
image, it is plenty to bring out wonderful and interesting detail in
many objects. I'm not interested in aesthetics, and I'm not all that
interested in sharing my images. Most of my targets are small galaxies
that even under the best of conditions don't yield the most aesthetic of
images.
While _you_ may see no point in it, it makes perfect sense to me that
lots of people are interested in the sorts of images they can make when
they only want to spend an hour collecting data. And with the techniques
available today (which IMO have advanced far more than either cameras or
optics), they can make quite nice images indeed. Martin's Rosette is a
perfectly good example of that; the fact that a longer exposure and
bigger scope would reduce S/N doesn't detract from what he was able to
manage with a short exposure and small telescope.
_________________________________________________
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com
ukastronomy
> that has nothing showing on any charts that I am familiar with. Show
> people what can be done with your equipment, and they will beat a path
> to your door.
>
> Rolando- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
The equipment was not mine, I was a paying customer that chose to
spend my money in a specific way. I don't understand what point you
were trying to make - I wasn't trying to get customers, just showing
an astronomical image on a astronomical group!
Please explain.
ukastronomy
Chris has explained my view on the topic exactly. If a fellow
enthusiast wants to spend ten times as long to get an image that
pleases him/her good luck to them - just not want I want to do.
chri...@aol.com
> You make the mistake of assuming everybody has the same goals. Most of
> Chris L Peterson
> Cloudbait Observatoryhttp://www.cloudbait.com
I don't make any assumptions about people's personal goals. I am only
saying that there are ways to improve the situation. When it comes to
imaging, time is your friend. I see lots of people who buy equipment,
take lots of images of all kinds of objects, marathon-like (but never
break any new ground), get totally bored with it, sell everything and
move on to another hobby. It doesn't occur to them that the universe
is out there waiting to be enjoyed at a leisurely pace.
Anyway, have fun, do good works, call your mom often and laugh and
sing once in a while.
Rolando
William R. Mattil
> Chris has explained my view on the topic exactly. If a fellow
> enthusiast wants to spend ten times as long to get an image that
> pleases him/her good luck to them - just not want I want to do.
If it pleases you to think that way then fine. But a large number of
people have indicated that you are not maximizing your available time
(Money). I finally realized that you simply don't get it. 5 minute
exposures in Ha are a waste of time. Ditto for largish numbers of 30 sec
images. As for the 5 minute challenge ..... how else will they get
people to sign up and spend their money ? It's a business. Your image of
the Rosette should be better for the mount of exposure time.
And another word about image download...... I do not mean the time you
spend getting the image from the host to your computer. I mean the time
required to download the Image from the camera to the local computer
that is handling the data. With an ST10XME it is about 20 seconds. With
an STL11K it's closer to 30 seconds. So why would you want to incur the
additional costs from taking so many short exposures ?!?!?
Bill
Chris L Peterson
<wrma...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>If it pleases you to think that way then fine. But a large number of
>people have indicated that you are not maximizing your available time
>(Money). I finally realized that you simply don't get it. 5 minute
>exposures in Ha are a waste of time.
I think he understands that 5 minute exposures in this case are
suboptimal. Nevertheless, the image obtained clearly shows that he
wasn't wasting his time. There may be good reasons for using 5-minute
exposures. There are many people with mounts capable of unguided images
when the exposure is that short. Longer exposures require guiding, and
that opens up all sorts of issues that not everyone wants to deal with.
While the equipment involved here might have been better utilized
(although that isn't certain; self-guiding through an Ha filter with the
tiny aperture used is very difficult, and long exposures may not have
been possible), I for one think it is interesting to see what can be
accomplished with shorter exposures.
suboptimal != waste of time.
Jan Owen
news:3a9320bc-7a89-49ef...@v57g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
Rolando
**********************************************************
Exceptionally well said!!!
--
Jan Owen
To reach me directly, remove the Z, if one appears in my e-mail address...
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http://community.webshots.com/user/janowen21