#space art

The Achirp and the Pintint in Hydrogen Alpha, taken with a 2.5" f/15 achromatic refractor and a Principle Imaging Systems H-alpha etalon filter. This uses a special safe solar filter that lets in just a specific shade of red light that is emitted from the star's chromosphere (its atmosphere) but which is absorbed by its photosphere (its surface).

Unlike with white light imaging, the same system can be safely used with both the Achirp and the Pintint, since narrowband stellar chromosphere imaging filters are letting through all of the light in a very narrow band, rather than rejecting all light evenly as in a white light filter. The downside is that the Pintint will always look somewhat dim in H-alpha compared to the Achirp, especially visually.

Below the cut is the original grayscale image I used to make this colored view, as well as a few alternate false color versions:

Darrel K. Sweet

1. The great Nebula about the multiple Star θ Orionis 2. Crab Nebula, near ζ Tauri 3. The Ring Nebula