PF-QHY Camera PR Images

We include here some public outreach images taken with the WEAVE PF-QHY sCMOS camera during pre-commissioning phase.

Moon

Exposure time: 0.001 s.
Obs date: 6 Nov 2020, credit: Chris Benn and Lara Monteagudo.

Mars

Only 30 images in RGB. Esposure times 2, 3, 5 ms for R, G, B, respectively. Binning 1. Processing with Autostakkert (50p best selection, alignment 3x drizzle, stacking), Registax (wavelet sharpening), convert (colour composition), Gimp (blue level reduction). Seeing probably about 0.7".
Obs date: 7 Nov 2020, credit: Jure Skvarc, Norberto Gonzalez.

NGC 2371

5s exposures in seeing 0.9", binning 2x2. DeepSkyStacker (stacking and calibration), Astrometry.net (wcs coordinates), Astropy, sep (Background subtraction, bw=300), APLpy (RGB combination, stretch=sqrt, pmin=15, pmax_r=99.78, pmax_g=99.75, pmax_b=99.75).
Obs date: 18 Feb 2021, credit: Florencia Jimenez.

M 82

Composition of 5 guided images x 120s for each filter RGB. Deepskystaker for stacking the images, Photoshop for the color balance and cosmetics improvements.
Obs date: 13 Feb 2021, credit: Richard Ashley, Eduardo Mantero.

M 74

Composite RGB images: R filter focus 0.55 FWHM=0.5" 5 imgsx60s runs; G filter focus ~0.55 FWHM=0.6-0.7" 5 imgsx60s runs; B filter focus ~0.55 FWHM=0.7" 5 imgsx60s Halpha focus 0.72 FWHM=1.5" 15 imgsx60. All runs taken with dithers. Deepskystacker, Gimp, Rawtherapee and Registax for a touch of wavelets. N left, E up.
Obs date: 7 Nov 2020, credit: Jure Skvarc, Ovidiu Vaduvescu, Norberto Gonzalez.

M 51

Deepskystacker for stacking and calibration, convert from ImageMagick collection for RGB composition, Registax for sharpening and colour plane adjustment, Rawtherapee for level adjustment and GIMP for removal of a flat artifact.
Obs date: 25 Jan 2021, credit: Jure Skvarc, Lilian Dominguez, Norberto Gonzalez.

Einstein Cross

Attempt to resolve the cross in the galaxy centre using R-band images (5x100s in seeing 0.8", binning 2x2) using DeepSkyStacker (drizzle 3), DS9 (log scale, linear for the cross) and Photoshop (sharpenning).
Obs date: 20 Nov 2020, credit: Javier Mendez, Marc Balcells, Norberto Gonzalez.

M104

Composite image made with 3 Exp 60s for each filter RGB. No Flats, No bias and no dark correction and no guiding were used. Deepskystaker for stacking the images, Photoshop for the color balance and cosmetics improvements.
Obs date: 12 Feb 2021, credit: Richard Ashley, Eduardo Mantero.

Conjunction Jupiter and Saturn

This image of an unusually-close conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn was obtained on 21 Dec 2020, during tests of the new optical corrector at the prime focus of the William Herschel Telescope (WHT). The image is a composite of exposures taken with a CMOS camera, through blue, green and red filters. The apparent separation of the two planets was about 9'.
Obs date: 21 Dec 2020, Credit: Javier Méndez, Richard Ashley, Lilian Domínguez, Emilie Lhome, Jure Skvarc, Ovidiu Vaduvescu.
ING News: The Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn