Dave Collings
The Antenna Galaxies by Dave Collings
Submitted by Chelsea Chin
NGC4038/NGC4039: Antenna Galaxies
This is the Antenna Galaxies NGC4038/NGC4039 I just completed two days ago. This target is normally imaged by the big guns 24” PW in Chile because it is more of a Southern Hemisphere target. However, this image will show the power of a PlaneWave 12.5”CDK telescope in the Northern Hemisphere. The highest altitude this target gets here is 32 degrees in North Carolina. This was an incredible shoot for the PlaneWave 12.5” CDK. Let me know what you think.
- PlaneWave 12.5” CDK telescope with the PW 0.66 Reducer captured this image at a MAX height of 32 degrees.
- I have about 15 hours in this LRGB image of the Antenna Galaxies.
- All sub-frames were captured at 300 sec.
- Astrophysics 1100GTO CP4 mount was used with the ATIK 16200 Mono main camera.
- ATIK EFW3 filter wheel with LRGB HA, OIII, and SII Chroma filters.
The Antennae Galaxies (also known as NGC 4038/NGC 4039) are a pair of interacting galaxies in the constellation, Corvus. They are currently going through a starburst phase, in which the collision of clouds of gas and dust with entangled magnetic fields, causes rapid star formation. The nuclei of the two galaxies are joining to become one giant galaxy. Most galaxies probably undergo at least one significant collision in their lifetimes.
David Collings – Blue Ridge Observatory | Sparta, North Carolina USA
SH2-308 by Dave Collings
Submitted by Chelsea Chin
SH2-308: Dolphin Head Nebula
This is the Dolphin Head Nebula (SH2-308) imaged in HOO. Sh2-308, commonly known as the Dolphin-Head Nebula, is an H II region located near the center of the constellation Canis Major, composed of ionized hydrogen. The nebula is bubble-like and surrounds a Wolf–Rayet star named EZ Canis Majoris. This star is in the brief, pre-supernova phase of its stellar evolution. The nebula is about 4,530 light-years away from Earth but some sources indicate that both the star and the nebula are up to 5,870 ly away.
The Dolphin Head Nebula took me 3 weeks to gather the data to finish. The OIII signal is weak so it takes a lot of hours to get the details to pop in the Blue Oxygen. The Ha is much fainter but adds to the overall beauty of the image. You can see the Dolphin’s head, mouth, eye, nose, and awesome details. Really cool to look at and amazing that these beautiful nebulas are out there for us to image and share with the world.
- Plane Wave 12.5” CDK with the 0.66 PW Reducer sitting on an Astro-Physics AP1100GTO CP4 mount.
- My main camera is the ATIK 16200 Mono with EFW3 Filter Wheel with Chroma narrowband filters.
- Guider is an Astromania 400mm refractor with an ASI 290MM guide camera.
- Total integration time was >12 hours of OIII and Ha.
David Collings – Blue Ridge Observatory | Sparta, North Carolina USA
Rosette Nebula by Dave Collings
Submitted by Chelsea Chin
Rosette Nebula
“The Rosette Nebula is an H II region located near one end of a giant molecular cloud in the Monoceros region of the Milky Way Galaxy. The open cluster NGC 2244 (Caldwell 50) is closely associated with the nebulosity, the stars of the cluster having been formed from the nebula’s matter. The cluster and nebula lie at a distance of 5,000 light-years from Earth and measure roughly 130 light years in diameter. The radiation from the young stars excites the atoms in the nebula, causing them to emit radiation themselves producing the emission nebula we see. The mass of the nebula is estimated to be around 10,000 solar masses.
- PlaneWave Instruments 12.5” CDK with 0.66 PW reducer to capture the image.
- Main camera is the ATIK 16200 Mono with EFW-3 filter wheel and Chroma filters.
- The mount is an Astro-Physics AP1100 GTO CP4.
- Total integration time is over 20 hours of Ha, OIII, & SII from 4 quadrants of images to make up this beautiful Mosaic.
- It took over 3 weeks to capture all the images required to process this Mosaic.
David Collings – Blue Ridge Observatory | Sparta, North Carolina USA
NGC281 by Dave Collings
Submitted by Chelsea Chin
NGC281: “The Pacman Nebula”
This is “The Pacman Nebula” NGC281 that I imaged in SHO Narrowband “Hubble Palette.” Took two weeks due to the weather and the number of hours required. You will find it incredible with the resolution of any APOD out there now and captured with a Plane Wave 12.5” CDK!
- I have a total of 16 hours in this image consisting of 5 hours Ha, 6 hours OIII, and 5 hours of SII.
- The telescope is the Plane Wave Instruments 12.5” CDK with the PW 0.66 Reducer sitting on the Astro-Physics 1100GTO CP4 mount.
- Filters used are Chroma Ha, OII, and SII narrowband.
- Main camera is the ATIK 16200 Mono with ATIK EFW 2.2 filter wheel.
- Guide scope is the Astromania 400mm Refractor and ASI 290 guide camera.
NGC281 is a bright emission nebula and part of an HII region in the northern constellation of Cassiopeia and is part of the Milky Way’s Perseus Spiral Arm. It is located at a distance of 9,500 light-years from Earth. It has a magnitude of ~ 7.4. Long-exposure photography is necessary, preferably using narrowband H-alpha, Sulfer II and Oxygen III filters where the most details are resolved.
David Collings – Blue Ridge Observatory | Sparta, North Carolina USA
NGC1333 by Dave Collings
Submitted by Chelsea Chin
NGC1333 : Reflection Nebula
- Imaged on November 18 through November 20th capturing 16 hours of LRGB data.
- Plane Wave 12.5 CDK with the PW 0.66 reducer
- Astro-Physics 1100GTO CP4 mount.
- Main camera used is the ATIK 16200 Mono with Chroma filters.
- Guider scope is the Astromania 400mm Refractor and ASI290mm guide camera.
- The integration time was 7 hours Luminance, and 3 hours each for RGB for a total of 16 hours all 5 minute sub frames.
“NGC1333 is located in the northern constellation Perseus, positioned next to the southern constellation border with Taurus and Aries. The nebula is visible as a hazy patch in a small telescope, while a larger aperture will show a pair of dark nebulae designated Barnard 1 and Barnard 2. It is associated with a dark cloud L1450 (Barnard 205). Estimates of the distance to this nebula range from 980–1,140 light years from Earth. It contains a fairly typical hierarchy of star clusters that are still embedded in the molecular cloud in which they formed.”
David Collings – Blue Ridge Observatory | Sparta, North Carolina USA
IC63/IC59 by Dave Collings
Submitted by Chelsea Chin
IC63 / IC59: “The Ghost of Cassiopeia”
“IC 63, also known as “The Ghost of Cassiopeia”, is an area of molecular hydrogen clouds and dust located 550 light-years away in the constellation of Cassiopeia. This region is both an emission nebula and a reflection nebula. The gas and dust in this region are bombarded with radiation from the bright star Gamma Cassiopeia. This Blue-White Giant star that forms the middle star in the “W” form made by the constellation.”
- Total of 26 hours in this image due to the difficulty of it being so dim with minimal OIII signal.
- The image has 6 hours of Ha, 11 Hours of OIII, and 9 hours of SII. It was imaged on 4 different evenings taking over 2 1/2 weeks to collect the data.
- Plane Wave 12.5”CDK with 0.66 PW reducer sitting on an Astro-Physics 1100GTO CP4 mount.
- Main camera is an ATIK 16200 Mono with Chroma filters. This image is an SHO narrowband stacked and edited in PixInsight.
David Collings – Blue Ridge Observatory | Sparta, North Carolina USA
M33 by Dave Collings
Submitted by Chelsea Chin
M33: “The Triangulum Galaxy”
“M33, (The Triangulum Galaxy) is such a beautiful target to image. M33 is located 2.73 million light years from earth in the constellation Triangulum. It is a spiral galaxy like our Milky Way but slightly less than half the size. M33 has a lot of star formation areas occurring as seen in the image in the beautiful clusters and Ha regions. It took me 3 days to capture all the data, but it was worth it.
- Image time is 5 hours Luminance, 4 hours Ha, 1.5 hours of each RGB for a total of 13.5 hours.
- This was imaged with my Plane Wave 12.5″ CDK telescope with the 0.66 PW Reducer sitting on the Astro-Physics 1100 GTO CP4 mount.
- My main camera is the ATIK 16200 Mono using Chroma filters. I stacked and edited the sub-frames using PixInsight.
It is a stunning beautiful image to capture and it was a pleasure imaging it again. It has been 5 years since I last imaged it.”
David Collings – Blue Ridge Observatory | Sparta, North Carolina USA
https://www.blueridge-observatory.com
WR134 by Dave Collings
Submitted by Chelsea Chin
WR 134: “The Blue Dolphin”
- Processed and captured as a HOO narrowband.
- 16 hours of just OIII and another 7 hours of Ha to make this image appear in all its splendor.
- I imaged WR 134 from 8-20-2023 to 9-16-2023 for many evening sessions (1 month) of imaging to get enough data to pull out the details!
- PlaneWave CDK12.5
- PW 0.66 reducer
- ATIK 16200 Mono main camera with Chroma narrowband filters.
- Mount is an Astro-Physics 1100GTO CP4.
“The details of the Dolphin are incredible making it easy to identify the nose, head, body, eye, dorsal fin, and tail fin. What a great target for the Planewave 12.5” CDK to show off its capabilities. Very pleased with my final stack image of WR 134. ”
David Collings – Blue Ridge Observatory | Sparta, North Carolina USA
CED214 by Dave Collings
Submitted by Chelsea Chin
CED214: “The Emission Nebula”
Check out the details of the rising pillars of dust and smoke from new young star formations.
- This was imaged beginning on 8-31-2-23 and finished on 9-9-2023.
- 18 hours of Ha, OIII, and SII were imaged to stack this beautiful nebula in SHO narrowband.
- Planewave 12.5” CDK
- PW 0.66 reducer
- Main camera: ATIK 16200 Mono captured this incredible detail
- Mount is the Astro-Physics 1100GTO CP4
- Filters used for these sub-frames are Chroma narrowband filters
David Collings – Blue Ridge Observatory | Sparta, North Carolina USA
The Pelican Nebula by Dave Collings
Submitted by Chelsea Chin
IC5070: “The Pelican Nebula”
- Plane Wave Instruments 12.5” CDK telescope with the PW 0.63 reducer on the Astro-Physics 1100 GTO CP4 mount.
- Main camera is the ATIK 16200 Mono with Chroma Filters capturing this beautiful 11 hours of Narrowband Ha-OIII-SII.
- Subframe captures were 5 minutes each for the Ha-OIII-SII.
“The details show an active mix of star formations and evolving gas clouds. The foreground has a dark dust molecular cloud.”
David Collings – Blue Ridge Observatory | Sparta, North Carolina USA
M22 by Dave Collings
Submitted by Chelsea Chin
This is M22 sitting in the middle of the Milky Way, a stunning amount of stars!
- Captured with my Plane Wave Instruments 12.5” CDK telescope with the PW 0.63 reducer on the Astro-Physics 1100 GTO CP4 mount.
- My main camera is the ATIK 16200 Mono capturing this beautiful 5-hour LRGB Globular Cluster nestled in our Milky Way.
Being 3000 ft up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of NC allows for very dark skies yielding good details of the massive amount of stars in our Milky Way galaxy. Subframe captures were 60 secs each for Luminance and 120 secs each for RGB.
M22 has an estimated 80,000 Suns in its cluster. The age of M22 is estimated to be 12 billion years and is only 10,000 light years from Earth located in Sagittarius.
David Collings – Blue Ridge Observatory | Sparta, North Carolina USA
The Crescent Nebula by Dave Collings
Submitted by Chelsea Chin
NGC6888: “The Crescent Nebula”
- Plane Wave Instruments 12.5” CDK telescope with the PW 0.63 reducer on the Astro-Physics 1100 GTO CP4 mount.
- Main camera is the ATIK 16200 Mono with Chroma filters for HA, OIII, and SII.
- Imaged in narrowband HOO for 8 hours total with 4 hours of Ha and 4 hours of OIII.
- Stacked as a bi-color image with Ha to Red, OIII to Green, and Blue with some pixel math allowing some Ha to the Blue channel.
“NGC6888 is an emission nebula in the constellation Cygnus, about 5000 light-years away from Earth. NGC6888 has an apparent magnitude of 7.4. It is formed by the fast stellar wind from the Wolf-Rayet star (WR 136) colliding with and energizing the slower-moving wind ejected by the star when it became a red giant star. The result of the collision is a shell and two shock waves, one moving outward and one moving inward revealing the beautiful OIII and Ha of the Crescent.
Being 3000 ft up in the Blue Ridge Mountains allows for very dark skies yielding good details of deep space objects.”
David Collings – Blue Ridge Observatory | Sparta, North Carolina USA
M63 ‘The Sun Flower Galaxy’ by Dave Collings
Submitted by Chelsea Chin
M63: The Sun Flower Galaxy
This is M63 ‘The Sun Flower Galaxy’. It took me 6 weeks to capture all the data needed for this LRGB image due to weathering. I finally got it done after capturing 10 hours of LRGB data.
- Plane Wave 12.5” CDK telescope with the PW 0.66 Reducer on an Astro Physics 1100 GTO CP4 mount.
- Main camera is an ATIK 16200 Mono CCD with an ATIK EFW3 Filter wheel with Chroma LRGB Ha & OIII, SII, HA 3nm filters.
- Guide scope is Astromania 400mm Refractor with an ASI 290mm guide camera.
- A total of 10 hours of imaging was used to create this beautiful LRGB image of M63 “The Sun Flower Galaxy’.
- All sub-frames were 300 sec. each gathering 4 hours of Luminance, 2 hours each Red, Green and Blue.
- Voyager software is used for capture and running the entire observatory. PixInsight was used for stacking the subs and editing to bring out all the fine detail of M63.
“I imaged M63 ‘The Sun Flower Galaxy’ 5 years ago that was published in Sky & Telescope magazine, but this image, today, of M63 using my Plane Wave 12.5” CDK telescope is 3 times the quality and details my old published image from just 5 years ago! Again, it sure says a lot about Plane Wave telescopes!”
David Collings – Blue Ridge Observatory | Sparta, North Carolina USA
Supernova Discovered in M101- The Pinwheel Galaxy
Submitted by Chelsea Chin
“This is an extremely rare event that I captured on May 24, 2023.
When I heard NASA thought they saw a super Nova in one of the spiral arms of M101 on May 23rd, I imaged M101 again on May 24th. I did very clearly see the new huge Super Nova, an extremely rare event to image.
They are in black and white by inverting the images to make it easier to see all the stars in the galaxy and the Super Nova.
- The image of M101 on the left was 12 hours of LRGB data inverted and B&W.
- The image on the right capturing the Super Nova in M101 was only 15 minutes of Luminance data only!
That says a lot about the Plane Wave 12.5” CDK !!”
The picture above depicts the original color image published in April, M101 by Dave Collings, now alongside M101 imaged on May 24, 2023.
David Collings – Blue Ridge Observatory | Sparta, North Carolina USA
Cosmic Bat Nebula by Dave Collings
Submitted by Chelsea Chin
LDN-43: “The Cosmic Bat Nebula”
- Plane Wave 12.5” CDK telescope with the PW 0.66 Reducer on an Astro Physics 1100 GTO CP4 mount.
- Main camera is an ATIK 16200 Mono CCD with an ATIK EFW3 Filter wheel with Chroma LRGB Ha & OIII, SII, and HA 3nm filters.
- Guide scope is Astromania 400mm Refractor with an ASI 290mm guide camera.
- A total of 9 hours of imaging was used to create this beautiful LRGB image of LDN-43 “The Cosmic Bat Nebula”. All sub-frames were 300 sec.
- 4 hours of Luminance, 2 hours of red, and 1.5 hours of Green and Blue.
“It has amazing detail that even blew me away for a 12.5” Plane Wave Telescope. What a joy to capture this target.”
David Collings – Blue Ridge Observatory | Sparta, North Carolina USA
NGC4725 by Dave Collings
Submitted by Chelsea Chin
A beautiful galaxy about 41 Million light years from Earth and spans 100,000 light-years across!
- Image shot in LRGB. 7 hours Luminance, 2 hrs. Red, 2 hrs. Blue and 2 hrs. Green for a total of 13 hours. All sub-frames were 300 sec. exposures.
- Plane Wave 12.5” CDK telescope with the PW 0.66 Reducer on an Astro Physics 1100 GTO CP4 mount.
- Main camera is an ATIK 16200 Mono CCD with an ATIK EFW3 Filter wheel with Chroma LRGBHa & OIII, SII, and HA 3nm filters.
- Guide scope is Astromania 400mm Refractor with an ASI 290mm guide camera.
David Collings – Blue Ridge Observatory | Sparta, North Carolina USA
M101 Pinwheel by Dave Collings
Submitted by Chelsea Chin
The M101 Pinwheel stacked after 14 hours of HaLRBG. Captured with the PlaneWave 12.5 CDK telescope.
David Collings – Blue Ridge Observatory | Sparta, North Carolina USA
M100 by Dave Collings
Submitted by Chelsea Chin
Captured in LRGB 9-hour image all of 300-sec subframes with the PlaneWave 12.5 CDK telescope.
David Collings – Blue Ridge Observatory | Sparta, North Carolina USA
M104 Sombrero by Dave Collings
Submitted by Chelsea Chin
The M104 Sombrero in an LRGB 9-hour image all of 300-sec subframes. Captured with our PlaneWave 12.5 CDK telescope.
David Collings – Blue Ridge Observatory | Sparta, North Carolina USA
IC443 Jelly Fish Nebula by Dave Collings
Submitted by Chelsea Chin
Imaged over 3 evenings during a Gibbous Moon! This narrowband image was captured on March 29, March 30 and April 2, 2023 by David Collings at the Blue Ridge Observatory in Sparta, NC.
Captured with our PlaneWave 12.5” CDK telescope using Chroma filters, 3 hrs. of Ha, 3 hrs. of SII and 3 hrs. of OIII for a total of 9 hours imaging.
NGC2359 Thor’s Helmet by Dave Collings
Submitted by Chelsea Chin
David Collings – Blue Ridge Observatory | Sparta, North Carolina USA
M20 Trifid Nebula by Dave Collings
Submitted by Chelsea Chin
David Collings – Blue Ridge Observatory | Sparta, North Carolina USA
M27 Dumbbell Nebula by Dave Collings
Submitted by support@hoydenbranding.com
David Collings – Blue Ridge Observatory | Sparta, North Carolina USA
NGC7635 Bubble Nebula by Dave Collings
Submitted by support@hoydenbranding.com
David Collings – Blue Ridge Observatory | Sparta, North Carolina USA
M16 Eagle Nebula by Dave Collings
Submitted by support@hoydenbranding.com
Imaged in HOS Narrowband with a PlaneWave CDK12.5.
David Collings – Blue Ridge Observatory | Sparta, North Carolina USA
NGC4631 Whale Galaxy by Dave Collings
Submitted by support@hoydenbranding.com
David Collings – Blue Ridge Observatory | Sparta, North Carolina USA
IC405 Flaming Star Nebula by Dave Collings
Submitted by support@hoydenbranding.com
David Collings – Blue Ridge Observatory | Sparta, North Carolina USA
NGC7293 Helix Nebula by Dave Collings
Submitted by support@hoydenbranding.com
David Collings – Blue Ridge Observatory | Sparta, North Carolina USA
IC1795 Fish Head Nebula by Dave Collings
Submitted by support@hoydenbranding.com
David Collings – Blue Ridge Observatory | Sparta, North Carolina USA
M78 Reflection Nebula by Dave Collings
Submitted by support@hoydenbranding.com
David Collings – Blue Ridge Observatory | Sparta, North Carolina USA
