Chris Curtis Web Site

The Great Orion Nebula, originally uploaded by ThinkingCamera.

Winter is arriving very fast and Orion was rising above the roof of the old railway engine sheds I can see from my garden, so although it was still quite low in the sky, I had to try to “grab” the great Orion nebula again (M42).
I took literally hundreds of exposures from 5sec to one minute and “HDR” combined them before processing carefully in PixInsight and Photoshop. This is the best image of this magnificent star-forming area I have made to date.

Crescent nebula, originally uploaded by ThinkingCamera.

NGC6888. This is a faint one, but very interesting. What you are seeing is an arc of gas excited (so glowing) because of the powerful “solar wind” of the bright bluish star inside the “crescent”. This is a “Wolf-Rayet” star (there is a good wikipedia article) – a massive and very bright star which pushes out its atmosphere in a powerful “solar wind”. The arc of gas was expelled from the star and energetic streams of particles are causing it to glow.
40 x 30s exposures. Atik 320e camera. f2 CPC800 telescope.

Comet Garradd, originally uploaded by ThinkingCamera.

or more formally comet 2009/P1. This is my first image of a comet. This one is now showing a tail, the characteristic “greeny hue” but not much detail. Magnititude officially around 8.5 but it seems brighter than this to me.

Easter Veil (mosaic), originally uploaded by ThinkingCamera.

This is a two-frame mosaic of the Eastern Veil Nebula in Cygnus. (Caldwell 33 which includes NGC 6992, NGC 6995 and IC 1340)
This is a supernova remnant – all that is left of a bright star which exploded about 10,000 years ago.
I took a total of 100 x 30 second exposures last night and used Maxim and Pixinsight software to combine and process them. (Camera was an Atik 320e, using a Baader Neodymium filter on a CPC 800 telescope at f2 with Hyperstar).
It was a lovely summer’s night: warm and still. The sky looked slightly hazy or misty to the eye, but the telescope seemed to look right through this.
I love this object. Although born from quite unimaginable violence and power, it is delicate and beautiful.

Cocoon Nebula, originally uploaded by ThinkingCamera.

Caldwell 19, IC 5146 or Shapless 2-125 in Cygnus. This is a small star cluster surrounded by gas which is lit and excited by the central star, formed only 100,000 years ago. The nebula is surrounded by more gas which is not visible, but hides the distant stars.
The object is about 4,000 light years away
50 x 30sec exposures. Atik 320e OSC Camera. CPC800 telelscope with Hyperstar. Baader Neodymium filter. Taken in deep twilight

This is the first time for ages that I have been out with the telescope and the air was remarkably transparent after heavy showers for several days. This time of year, it is never quite dark here at 51.5 degrees North, and the moon was low, but still in the sky.  On the other hand, it is very pleasant to be able to do astronomy without being cold and there is something magical about summer nights where the stars are scattered like dust. When high cloud came in around 1am ending the astronomy, the sky was exceptionally beautiful, with the stars really like luminous jewels peeking through the veil.

Pelican Nebula, originally uploaded by ThinkingCamera.

This cloud of gas and dust is about 1,800 light years away in the direction of the constellation Cygnus. This is not a great image, but our sky does not ever become completely dark at this time of year, so I was pleased to image something.
It was very nice to sit out in shirt sleeves on a very warm and pleasant evening enjoying the twilight (even if it was not the best conditions for imaging). Cloud rolled in almost exactly at midnight so I turned in.
Atik 320e camera. Celestron CPC800 telescope. Alt-Az. 50 x 30s exposures

M13 HDR (again), originally uploaded by ThinkingCamera.

Despite being bright and easy to find in a telescope, this object is hard to image. There is a huge brightness range from the faint outer stars and the very bright core.
This was HDR combined in PixInsight from 100 exposures each at 5 seconds, 10 seconds and 30 seconds, then processed in PixInsight and PS.
Atik 320e camera. CPC800 Hyperstar (f2) telescope.