More on-site OSC data from the IAS Hakos observatory, the reflection nebula IC 4601 in the constellation Scorpius.
More details at Astrobin.
Continue readingReflection Nebula IC 4601
Author Archives: mj
Omega Centauri
And one more. ;-) Of course, Omega Centauri aka NGC 5139 is a jewel in the southern sky and a go-to-target. So Omega Centauri’s photons were the “first light” for the ASI 2600 MC Duo on the AK3 astrograph, but I messed up focussing and had to redo it later.
All three globular clusters here in the blog were processed in PixInsight and Lightroom with the same color calibration and processing steps. Interestingly enough, their appearance varies quite a bit!
Also compare this with be previous image of Omega Centauri.
More details at Astrobin.
Continue readingFlickering Globular Cluster
Another globular cluster, only about 9 degrees from M4 towards the constellation Ophiuchus, Messier 62 or NGC 6266 against the dense background star field of the Milky Way.
More details at Astrobin.
Continue readingSpider Globular Cluster
More processed OSC data with the ASI 2600 MC Duo and the IAS 20″ telescope AK3, featuring the globular cluster Messier 4 aka NGC 6121.
Notable change to my previously shown OSC workflow: I used “K2V star” as the white reference for SpectrophotometricColorCalibration. Standard “Average spiral galaxy” yielded stars, which were too “golden” for my taste, thus this bluer/colder rendition.
See also at Astrobin.
Continue readingDellbrückentag – Mehr Impressionen
Dellbrückentag – Doppel im Viertel – Von Schaufenster zu Schaufenster
Ausstellungsrundgang zu Fotos von Rebecca Peetz mit „Kulturpaaren“ aus Architektur, Bildung, Fotografie, Literatur und Medien sowie (viel) Musik. Fand am Freitag, 30. Mai 2025 statt.
Die komplette kleine Serie findet sich hier unter Gallery > Photography > Köln > Dellbrückentag 2025.
Continue readingWorkflow CG 8 and 9
This blog post is a quick overview of the processing in PixInsight (PI) for my CG 8 and 9 image. Quite some 3rd party add-ons for PI were used. If time permits I’ll add links to the various tools.
Continue readingDellbrückentag – Doppel im Viertel
Dellbrückentag – Doppel im Viertel
Ausstellungsrundgang zu Fotos von Rebecca Peetz mit „Kulturpaaren“ aus Architektur, Bildung, Fotografie, Literatur und Medien sowie (viel) Musik. Fand am Freitag, 30. Mai 2025 statt.
Die komplette kleine Serie findet sich hier unter Gallery > Photography > Köln > Dellbrückentag 2025.
Continue readingDellbrückentag ante portas
Die letzten Vorbereitungen laufen … am kommenden Freitag (30. Mai) startet wieder der Dellbrückentag, ein Stadtteilspaziergang diesmal unter dem Motto “Doppel im Viertel“. Auch hier ist Station, daher gut, dass noch ein frischer Anstrich gemacht wird. ;-)
Cometary Globules CG 8 and 9
Continuing with the cometary globules, CG 8 and 9 were captured on-site at the IAS observatory Hakos with the 20″ Newtonian Astrograph AK3 and a new ASI 2600 MC Duo camera, which works quite nicely with this scope.
One more step on the long way to complete the CG catalog here. Most of the CGs are in Puppis, which meanwhile sets quite early in the southern hemisphere night.
Details at Astrobin.
Continue readingSupernova SN 2024abfo Final Data
Supernova SN 2024abfo‘s brightness increased steadily from our first measurement at 16.91 mag on 17 Nov 2024 until peak brightness was reached during the night 06 Dec 2024, at 13.81 mag, more than fifteenfold. Meanwhile, brightness is back at 16.73 mag on 11 Apr 2025 (all values median mag of the dataset).
Discovery by ATLAS (ATLAS-STH_ATLAS-03) on 15 Nov 2024 reported a brightness of 16.79 mag with filter “orange-ATLAS”, measurements by Pan-STARRS (PS1_GPC1) two days later on 17 Nov 2024 reported 16.63 mag with filter “i-P1”.
Our amateur measurement with 137 datasets in total now cover a period of 146 days, quite an achievement I’d say. ;-)
Due to using an L filter (Baader UV/IR cut) and not a V band filter, the measurements here overestimate the brightness by approx. 0.2 mag. With almost full moon and low altitude (meanwhile NGC 1493 is setting quite early), the last two measurement have a higher uncertainty, up to 0.08 mag.
IAS – Internationale Amateursternwarte e.V. – Hakos Observatory, Namibia
IAS remote telescope “Dieter”
Data aquisition by Martin Junius and Stephan Messner.
Technical details see previous post. Photometry measurements with L filter.