Cassiopeia the Queen – The Amazing Sky

November 18, 2014

Both the Heart and Soul of Cassiopeia

Here are both the heart and the soul of Cassiopeia the Queen.

Two days ago I posted an image of the Soul Nebula. Now, here is the matching Heart Nebula, in a mosaic of the glorious region of the Milky Way called the Heart and Soul Nebulas located in the constellation of Cassiopeia.

They are otherwise respectively called IC 1805 and IC 1848. Amid the swirls of nebulosity are numerous clusters of stars, such as NGC 1027 just above centre. The separate patch of nebulosity at upper right is NGC 896.

I shot the frames for this 3-segment mosaic over two nights, with one segment taken from the frames that made up the previous post. Plus I shot two others to span the region of the Milky Way that is about seven degrees long, a binocular field.

Each of the 3 segments is a stack of 12 frames, with each frame a 6-minute exposure. I used the filter-modified Canon 5D MkII and shot through the TMB 92mm apo refractor at f/4.4. All processing was in Photoshop, including the mosaic assembly.

In all, it’s the best image I’ve taken of this much-shot area of the sky. It really brings out the diversity in star colours, and sky colours, from the dusty orange-brown region at left, to the inky dark dustless region at far right.

November 16, 2014

The Soul of Cassiopeia

The Soul Nebula glows from within the constellation of Cassiopeia the Queen.

I shot this image last night, capturing an object prosaically known as IC 1848, but more popularly called the Soul Nebula.

It is often depicted framed with a companion nebula just “off camera” here to the right, called the Heart Nebula. Thus they are the Heart and Soul. Both shine on the eastern side of Cassiopeia the Queen.

Here I’m framing just the Soul, taking in some of the faint nebulosity to the left of the main nebula, including a tiny object called IC 289, a star-like planetary nebula at upper left.

I like this image for its variety of subtle colours, not only the reds and magentas in the bright nebula, but also in the dark sky around it from dim dust adding faint yellows, browns and even a touch of green.

The Soul Nebula lies 6,500 light years away in the Perseus Arm, the next spiral arm out from ours in the Milky Way. On northern autumn nights this region of the sky and Milky Way lies high overhead.

For the technically minded:

The image is a stack of 20 six-minute exposures, taken with a filter-modified Canon 5D Mark II at ISO 800. I was shooting through one of my favourite telescopes for deep-sky photography, the TMB (Thomas M. Back-designed) 92mm apo refractor, working at a fast f/4.4 using a Borg 0.85x field flattener and focal reducer.

I used one of Noel Carboni’s “Astronomy Tools” Photoshop actions to add the “diffraction spikes” on the stars. They are artificial (refractors don’t produce spikes on stars) but they add a photogenic touch to a rich starfield.

I shot this from the backyard of my New Mexico winter home.

September 30, 2013

King and Queen of the Sky

Cassiopeia and Cepheus reign over the autumn sky amid the Milky Way.

This is a photo from last night’s shoot, taken on a very clear autumn night with the Milky Way prominent across the sky. I shot sets of constellation images, among them this one framing Queen Cassiopeia and King Cepheus.

Cassiopeia is the well-known “W” pattern at lower left. Cepheus is harder to pick out – he’s a crooked square at right, topped by a tall triangle, like a child’s drawing of a house.

The Milky Way runs across the frame, peppered with red nebulas, from IC 1396 at far right in the bottom of Cepheus, to the NGC 7822 complex at centre, and the IC 1805 complex at far left. Lots of smaller nebulas dot the scene. At far left is the Double Cluster, two adjacent clumps of stars in the outer Perseus Arm of the Milky Way. Most of the deep-sky objects in this frame lie thousands of light years away in the next spiral arm out from the one we live in, or in the space between the two arms.

Most of the bright stars here are young blue stars. But a couple of exceptions stand out: yellow Shedar (or Alpha Cassiopeiae, the bottommost star in the W and an orange giant), and red Mu Cephei, at far right bordering the round IC 1396 nebula. That star is also known as Herschel’s Garnet Star. It is a red supergiant star 1400 times larger than our Sun and one of the most luminous stars in the catalog.

February 7, 2013February 9, 2013

Constellation of the Queen

After the 7 stars of the Big Dipper and the 3 stars of Orion’s Belt, these 5 stars are likely the most well-known in the northern sky.

These are the 5 bright stars of Cassiopeia the queen, better known simply as “the W” in the sky. Her five stars come in a range of colours, from blue giant Segin at upper left to yellow giant Shedar at lower right.

Scattered around Cassiopeia you can also spot at least one bright red nebula, the “Pacman Nebula,” plus a faint patch of purple nebulosity just above central Navi, the middle star of the W also known as Gamma Cassiopeiae. A few wisps of fainter reddish nebulosity and lanes of dark dust wind around the queen’s celestial throne. The left side of the W – the back of the throne – is also home to several clumps of stars, nice open clusters suitable for binoculars or any telescope.

I shot this portrait of the Queen on Wednesday night, February 6, on a cool and frosty winter night in my backyard. For the set of 8 images that went into this stack I used a new tracking device, the iOptron SkyTracker. It’s a nifty little battery-powered tracker, compact but very solid. And it tracks very well. For this portrait I used a 135mm telephoto lens, and most, though not all, shots were very well tracked with pinpoint stars. A few frames showed a bit of trailing, not unusual for small portable tracking mounts. At $400 the little iOptron SkyTracker is a great accessory for anyone wanting to shoot constellations and the Milky Way with wide-angle to telephoto lenses.