Largest part of our nature in images

Hi All,

I'm a Finnish amateur astrophotographer and a new member in this forum.
Night sky and universe are part of nature, actually a largest part of it!
Due the light pollution, people doesn't know it so well anymore.
I enjoy to be able to reveal even a small part of the hidden beauty of our Universe. Astro photographing is a mixture of technique, art and science and it's difficult enough to keep me interested. I hope you enjoy my images!

My portfolio: astroanarchy.zenfolio.com/
My Blog: www.astroanarchy.blogspot.com/

Some images

IC 5070, the "Pelican Nebula", is an Hydrogen emission region associated with the North America Nebula in the constellation Cygnus. The nebula resembles a pelican in shape (in a large field image), hence the name. The Pelican Nebula is , close to Deneb, and divided from its brighter, larger neighbor, the North America Nebula, by a molecular cloud filled with dark dust. Distance is about 1800 light years.
More info in my Blog: astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2011/01/ic-507...-pelican-nebula.html
Total exposure time about 9h.

This is one of the most interesting looking structures to me!
NGC 7635 aka "Bubble Nebula, Sh2-162 or Caldwell11, is a Hydrogen emission nebula in constellation Cassiopeia. It locates near the open cluster M 52 at distance of about 11.000 light years from the Earth.
The bubble structure is created by a strong stellar wind, a radiation pressure, from massive hot magnitude 8,7 central star, SAO 20575, it can be seen in an image inside of the bubble, off centered at Right.
Bubble is an expanding shock front inside a giant molecular cloud and it has a diameter more than Six light years. The spherical formation is expanding at speed of 6500.000 km/h, due the huge scale and distance we can't see the movement easily. In a century, the bubble in this image will be only about one pixel wider, than now! ( ~1 arc second)
Strong UV-radiation from a central star ionized elements in a gas and makes them glow at typical wavelength to each element. (Hydrogen glows Red light as Sulfur, Oxygen emits Green/Blue light at visible wavelengths)
If you are interested about color schemes used in my images, I wrote a small study about them, please, have a look here: astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2009/11/colors-in-astro-images.html
More info about the Bubble Nebula in my Blog: astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2011/03/bubble...ula-reprocessed.html

Total exposure time about 10h.

Previous two images are imaged with a Meade LX200 GPS 12" telescope and a cooled astronomical CCD-camera, QHY9. A narrowband filter set for three visual wavelengths was used
to create a color image. (Astro cameras are usually grayscale CCD's)


This last image was imaged with a camera lens, many of the targets has a very large angular diameter and they don't fit to telescopes narrow field of view. The diameter of this supernova remnant is about three degrees in a sky, that's six times full Moons diameter!

This very large SNR locates in constellation Cygnus, about 2000 light years away. Angular diameter is about three degrees, about six full Moons side by side. Veil Nebula is one of the brightest features in the X-ray sky, optically it has a low surface brightness.

Total exposure time with a Tokina AT-X 300mm and a cooled astro camera, QHY8, about 5h.

More info in my Blog: astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2011/01/supern...ant-veil-nebula.html

Awe inspiring images ... thank you for sharing them

Most spectacular on several layers. The images cause a mandatory paradigm shift. The explanations of what we are seeing is also amazing. Thanks so much for sharing these and for the careful details of the science involved.

As a past slave to a 10inch Meade Ritchey–Chrétien, and junkey to Astronomy Picture of the Day link I really appreciate your craft!

Thanks for the kind comments!

Zardoz, I have had three APOD's so far, that's a great site and service from the NASA..