My name is Peter Nerbun. I'm an astrophotographer who lives in
Perry Hall, Maryland in the USA.
Here are the astrophotos I captured with my C11 Schmidt Cassegrain Telescope (SCT) and ATIK 460EX astronomy camera. Please click on any one of the images to see a description of how and when I captured that particular image. After you've read the description please click on the green oval icon at the top left corner of this page, this will take you back to the page showing all of my astrophoto images.
This is my image of the Triangulum Galaxy, Messier 33, which I captured on Nov 25 2017 and earlier using my C-11 SCT and ATIK460EX camera. Please note the many red H-II regions interspersed throughout the spiral arms of the galaxy; these regions were formed by the light from hot young blue stars having sufficient energy to ionize hydrogen into separated protons and free electrons; when the electrons re-combine with the protons they emit a pulse of light having a red wavelength of 6563 Angstroms which is why the H-II regions appear as a shade of red.
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I captured M33 over 7 nights in November 2017 using LRGB color filters and a 3nm H-alpha filter on the following dates; please note the exposure times for each filter and the number of frames per filter on the dates specified. Also I integrated the data for 45 Luminance frames that I captured last year on Dec 30 2016 :
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Luminance: Nov 15 2017 -- 38x2mins= 76mins
Luminance: Nov 21 2017 -- 50x2mins= 100mins
Luminance: Dec 30 2016 -- 45x2mins= 90mins
Red: Nov 10 2017 -- 32x2mins= 64mins
Red: Nov 24 2017 -- 53x2mins= 106mins
H-alpha: Feb 15 2017 - 7x15mins= 105mins
Green: Nov 11 2017 -- 44x2mins= 88mins
Blue: Nov 20 2017 -- 43x2mins= 86mins
Blue: Nov 25 2017 -- 56x2mins= 112mins
Total Integration Time = 737 minutes = 12.3 hours
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In addition to the C-11 SCT I used an ATIK460EX main imaging camera, a Lodestar X2 guide camera, an On Axis Guider (ONAG), an F/6.3 Reducer, a Starlight Instruments motorized programmable focuser control system, all components supported on a Losmandy
G-11 mount controlled by a Gemini 2 mount controller.