Heart and Soul nebulae

The astronomical nights is soon coming to an end. Last night we only had 2 hours of astronomical darkness so despite the Northern Lights (Photo of that is coming later) my main focus was to do some deep sky photography. My plan was to take photos of the Heart and Soul nebula since I haven't done them for quite some time and not with the Nikon D810A. All in all I'm quite happy with the result.

Photo was taken with a Nikon D810A, Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8E @ 135mm f/4. Exposure 45 x 60 seconds for a total exposure of 45 minutes at ISO 1600. Stacking and calibration (Darks, flats and bias frames) was done in PixInsight, final processing in Photoshop.

Cygnus Loop

This is the Cygnus Loop, an emission nebula measuring nearly 3° across (Six times the size of a full moon in the sky). This nebula is a large remnant after a supernova, a massive stellar explosion that occurred between 5,000 to 8,000 years ago. The distance from Earth is estimated to 1500 light years.

Photo was taken using a Nikon D810A with a Nikon 180mm f/2.8 Ai-s lens at f/4.0. Total exposure time is 1 hour (60 x 1 min) at ISO 1600. AstroTrac used for unguided tracking.

The Cygnus Loop

Behind the scenes with location of Cygnus Loop marked.
The green down to the right is some Northern light.

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The size of the Andromeda Galaxy

It was quite some time since I photographed the Andromeda galaxy so last night I had another go at it. For this photo I used a total exposure time of 75 minutes to bring out the details in the galaxy.

It is the nearest major galaxy to the Milky Way with a distance of 2.5 million light-years. Just stop and think for that a minute, the light has traveled 2.5 million years before it arrived to Earth. Since the speed of light is ~300 000 km per second, we can quite easily come to the conclusion that the Andromeda galaxy is extremely far away.

But, since it at the same time is extremely big, its size in the sky is as big as 6 full moons placed next to each other.

In this photo I took last night I've included the size of the Moon as it appears in the sky, just so that you can get an idea on how big the Andromeda galaxy really is in the sky. Since the light from the galaxy also is very faint due to the long distance, we can just barley see the galaxy with the naked eye. But if we could see it in its full glory, this is how big it would look compared to the Moon. Quite a view.

Nikon D810A, Nikon AF-S 300mm/f2.8, 75 minute exposure, ISO 1600

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Astronomical nights arrives

Last night we experienced the first astronomical night here in Östersund, Sweden. Astronomical night is defined as when the geometric center of the sun is 18º or more below the horizon. Astronomical nights is something we astrophotographers want since then we can do really long exposures without the catching any light from the Sun.

September and October is also the high season for shooting the Milky Way. It's high in the sky and stretches over the entire sky from south west to north east around midnight.

Here's a shot I took a week ago when the sky still wasn't completely black. What you're seeing is our own galaxy The Milky Way rising from the horizon, filled with billion of stars, nebula's and interstellar dust blocking the light from distant stars creating these darker areas you're seeing.

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