Tag Archives: namibia

Oddball Planetary Nebula

20-inch keller-cassegrain, NA, astrofotografie, astronomie, astronomy, astrophotography, centaurus, fr2-8, hakos, hakos guest farm, ias, ias observatory, ias observatory hakos, khomas, namibia, pgc, pgc49877, planetarischer nebel, planetary nebula, world, zentaur
PGC 49877 / Fr 2-8 – Galaxy / Planetary Nebula in Centaurus – OSC v1

Imaged at the IAS Hakos Observatory, Namibia with the 20″ Philipp Keller Cassegrain at full focal length of 4500 mm, f/9, this oddball object is listed both as a galaxy (PGC 49877) and a planetary nebula (Fr 2-8).

Quoting from Planetary Nebulae in the Solar Neighbourhood: Statistics, Distance Scale and Luminosity Function by David John Frew

Fr 2-8 (Fr 1400-5102, AM 1357-504, LEDA 49877). This small nebula, about 2′ across, was found serendipitously from SHASSA field 057, while measuring a Hα flux from the nearby PN MeWe 2-4, and has been confirmed spectroscopically as a high-excitation PN, with the 2.3m MSSSO telescope. The position is coincident with the SIMBAD ‘galaxy’ AM1357-504 (Arp & Madore 1987). It had been independently noted as a PN by Cˆote et al. (1997), but no details were provided in their paper.

Interestingly enough, the team around IAS member Uwe Glahn observed this object visually at Hakos back in 2009.

More details at Astrobin.

Continue reading →

Cometary Globule CG 19

28-inch-newton, NA, astrofotografie, astronomie, astronomy, astrophotography, centaurus, cg19, cometary globule, dark nebula, gamsberg, gamsberg plateau, ias, ias observatory, ias observatory gamsberg, khomas, namibia, world, zentaur
CG 19 – Cometary Globule in Centaurus – OSC v1

Results from the second night at the IAS observatory on the Gamsberg plateau with the 28 inch Newtonian “Wolf-Peter-Hartmann-Teleskop”, adding to my growing catalog of cometary globules.

Alas, sky flats at dusk didn’t work well, so some of the dust struture seen here may be artefacts of the calibration and gradient removal.

More details at Astrobin.

Continue reading →

Galaxies and Supernova in Crater

28-inch-newton, NA, astrofotografie, astronomie, astronomy, astrophotography, crater, galaxy, gamsberg, gamsberg plateau, hoag-type galaxy, ias, ias observatory, ias observatory gamsberg, khomas, namibia, ngc, ngc3660, pgc, pgc1000714, spiral galaxy, world
NGC 3660, SN 2026cff, and PGC 1000714 – Galaxies and Supernova in Crater – OSC v1

First result from this year’s trip to Namibia, including two nights at the IAS observatory on the Gamsberg plateau using the mighty 28 inch Newtonian telescope for astrophotography. I came across this field of view when observing the supernova SN 2026cff in NGC 3660 with the IAS remote telescope and noticed the near-by, peculiar Hoag-type galaxy PGC1000714 with its ring structure.

More details at Astrobin.

Continue reading →

Toes of the Lagoon

12-inch lacerta remote, NA, astrofotografie, astronomie, astronomy, astrophotography, emission nebula, emissionsnebel, hakos, hakos guest farm, ias, ias observatory, ias observatory hakos, ic, ic1274, ic1275, ic4685, khomas, namibia, ngc, ngc4995, reflection nebula, sagittarius, world
IC 1274/1275/4684/4685, NGC 6559 – Nebulae in Sagittarius – SHO w/RGB Stars v1

An assortment of nebulae in Sagittarius, very close to the well-photographed Lagoon, thus sort of completing the Lagoon footprint, which made me come up with this nickname.

This is a narrowband (SII, H-alpha, OIII) plus RGB image. For rendering the NB data, I used the “Foraxx” palette described in The Coldest Nights blog along with other techniques. Worked rather well, a pure SHO approach would yield a very green image. Stars are color-calibrated RGB.

Emission and reflection nebulae in this field: IC 1274/1275/4684/4685, NGC 6559

The strange object below and right of NGC 6559 is the planetary nebula PN M 1-41
(RA 18 09 30.10, DEC -24 12 26.0).

More details at Astrobin.

Continue reading →

Night in Namibia 2023-2025

Watch this video on YouTube.
(Klicken, um YouTube-Video zu laden. Siehe auch Datenschutzerklärung.)

Two years in the making, here comes a new Night in Namibia time-lapse video.

Special thanks to:
Internationale Amateursternwarte e.V. https://www.ias-observatory.org/

Locations: TimBila Camp Namibia, IAS Observatory Hakos and Hakos Astrofarm, Namibia

An mj’s photography production https://photo.m-j-s.net/

Time-lapse photography Copyright (C) 2023-2025 Martin Junius
Music “Sequenced Variations 1” Copyright (C) 2025 Martin Junius
(Home-made in my studio, hopefully avoiding Youtube Content-ID hell)

Omega Centauri

20-inch ak3, NA, ak3, astrofotografie, astronomie, astronomy, astrophotography, centaurus, globular cluster, hakos, hakos guest farm, ias, ias observatory, ias observatory hakos, khomas, kugelsternhaufen, namibia, ngc, ngc5139, omega centauri, star, star cluster, stars, stern, sterne, sternhaufen, world, zentaur
NGC 5139 – Omega Centauri Globular Cluster – OSC v1

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 reading →

Flickering Globular Cluster

20-inch ak3, NA, ak3, astrofotografie, astronomie, astronomy, astrophotography, globular cluster, hakos, hakos guest farm, ias, ias observatory, ias observatory hakos, khomas, kugelsternhaufen, m62, messier, namibia, ngc, ngc6266, ophiuchus, star, star cluster, stars, stern, sterne, sternhaufen, world
Messier 62 – Flickering Globular Cluster in Ophiuchus – OSC v2

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 reading →

Spider Globular Cluster

20-inch ak3, NA, ak3, astrofotografie, astronomie, astronomy, astrophotography, globular cluster, hakos, hakos guest farm, ias, ias observatory, ias observatory hakos, khomas, kugelsternhaufen, m4, messier, namibia, ngc, ngc6121, scorpius, star, star cluster, stars, stern, sterne, sternhaufen, world
Messier 4 – Spider Globular Cluster in Scorpius – OSC v3

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 reading →