Taking advantage of a clear night for some astrophotography loving. Oh, and read the lovely interview I did for Meera Sethi at Inkling Magazine: www.inklingmagazine.com/articles/qa-phillip-chee

Fujifilm X-T10, Samyang 135mm f/2.0 @ f2.0, ISO 1600, 47 x 60 sec, tracking with iOptron SkyTracker Pro, stacking with DeepSkyStacker, editing in GIMP, taken Sept. 3 under Bortle 3/4 skies.

I saw a few meteors as I was imaging this one, and was excited to find that I'd caught a small Perseid shooting through the Heart Nebula on one of my frames. The placement of the meteor is uncannily similar that of this APOD by Roger Clark, which is one of those inspirational astroimages that has stuck with me: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap160905.html

Used my 10" f/4 Newtonian and Atik 314L with narrowband filters to capture 6 subs at 5mins each in OIII and 8 subs at 5mins each in Ha. Stacked both image sets in Deepskystacker and colour combined (Ha,Ha,OIII) in Maxim D/L 4. Final processing carried out in Photoshop. Image taken 9/10/15

This is two interacting galaxies, NGC 4490 being the larger, and NGC 4485 being the smaller one above.

They have already passed by one another, but interacted heavily with each other as they went. They are still connected by a stream of material stretching some 25 light years.

The pinkish spots on NGC 4490 are area's of intense star birth which have been triggered by the close fly by from NGC 4485.

They have passed through each other now, however gravity may well just pull them back together and smash them in to each other again and again over billions of years.

We are safe here for now. This is all happening about 24 million light years away in the constellation of Canes Venetici.

Boring techie bit:

Skywatcher quattro 8" S & f4 aplanatic coma corrector

HEQ5 pro mount guided with an Altair 50mm & GPcam setup

Canon 450D astro modded with Astronomik CLS CCD EOS APS-C clip filter. Neewer Intervalometer used to control the exposures.

67 exposures of 133 seconds at ISO 800

Stacked together with 20 each of Flats, Darks, Dark Flats & Bias calibration frames.

Processed with Deep Sky Stacker & StarTools.

Fujifilm X-T10, Samyang 135mm f/2.0 @ f2.0, ISO 1600, 60 x 60 sec, tracking with iOptron SkyTracker Pro, stacking with DeepSkyStacker, editing in GIMP, taken July 30 under Bortle 3/4 skies.

Reprocessed Aug. 2 without using a luminance layer, to keep emission nebulae red; I like the colors much better now and the Seahorse Nebula also pops better in this version. I decided several months ago to use luminance layers in processing after getting some nice results, but after reprocessing several images without luminance and getting better color results, I'm thinking using a luminance layer is now the exception rather than the rule for me.

Clear and chilly tonight.

The universe is in constant motion in many ways, ranging from slow movement following nice, predictable, easy-to-understand Newtonian physics to mind-blowing accelerating cosmic expansion. Please refer to Monty Python's Universe Song for more information! The black smudge along the bottom is a line of trees at the edge of the field I was shooting from, blurred by the motion of the sky tracker which rotates the camera at the same rate as the Earth, pointing continuously in a fixed direction in the sky. Really, it's nowhere near as complicated as it sounds! :)

Taken under the glorious dark sky of Killarney Provincial Park in Ontario, located about 30,000 light years from the centre of the Milky Way galaxy!

Nikon D610

AF-S Nikkor 50 mm f/1.4G @ f/2.8

Vixen Polarie

Hoya RA54 (didymium)

iso 400

24 lights de 30"

24 darks

12 flats

12 bias

Encuadre y enfoque: APT

Utilidad astro para DSLRs Nikon: Dark current enable tool

Calibrado, registro y apilado: DSS

Post-procesado: Startools demo: Develop, crop, wipe, color

Captura de pantalla de startools demo.

Salou, Tarragona

Agosto 2020

Bright supernova in M101.

A stack of the best 27 of 30x60s exposures using a QHY22 camera on a TS Imaging Star71 - 71mm f/4.9 Imaging APO telescope. Unguided. CLS filter. Flats, darks and bias applied. 2x2 binning.

Calibration and stacking done in DeepSkyStacker and post-processing in PixInsight.

Nebulae area of constellation Cygnus in hydrogen alpha narrowband 3 panel mosaic. Each panel was stacked and processed with 24, 10min exposures for each panel: 24X600"

Equipment used:

Canon 85mm f1.8 lens at f4, ASI183mm camera, AP900 mount, DeepSkyStacker, Photoshop levels, curves, blending, Sometimes guided with ZWO174mm and Stellarvue SVR90T.

I processed this photo in Photoshop CC. Can Deep Sky Stacker produce similar or better milky way landscape photo?

Shot in Ventnor, Isle of Wight

Location :CastresmallObservatory (Castres, Tarn - France)

Acquisition Date :2016-07-09

Author :Pierre Rougé

Scope :Newton Orion 200/1000 (f/5) + MPCC Baader

Autoguiding :Skywatcher Synguider (v1.1) & Meade ETX 70/350 mm

Camera :Canon EOS 400D (Digital Rebel Xti) refiltré Astrodon in Side (modded Astrodon in Side)

+ EOS CLIP CLS Astronomik

Exposure :95 minutes [19 subexposures of 300 sec each (selected from 19)] @ ISO 800

Calibration :Dark & bias : 16/9 @ ISO 800 - Flat & Dark-Flat : 9 @ ISO 800

Weather :Très bonne transparence. Vent Nord-Ouest. T=24°C humidité faible.

Software Used :Astro Photograph Tool (v3.11), DeepSkyStacker, PhotoShop CS

This is my first image of 2021 and my first time using a hydrogen-alpha filter. It’s amazing how far away and faint this object is, but with the right equipment, hidden wonders beyond everyday light pollution can be uncovered.

I decided to go with a fiery look considering this was my first attempt with a Ha filter. The bright reds and burning oranges never get old especially when you understand this area in space is both a hot star-forming region and where tons of cold, dark gas come together to create beautiful, artistic silhouettes.

Telescope: Startravel 120/600mm

Camera: Astro-modified Canon 60D

Mount: Heq5 Pro

Integration: ~8.3 hrs

Filters:

30x600s using Astronomik 12nm Ha

20x600s using Lumicon UHC

ISO: 500

Location: Vancouver, BC

Bortle 8

Date: January 21 - February 11, 2021

Acquisition:

Astrophotography Tool

PHD2

EQMOD

Processed (in this order):

Deepskystacker

Siril

Starnet++

Photoshop

Denoise AI

Follow me on Instagram @astrosaldanha :)

More details, better Colourbalance, same raw-data as image before.

M31 - Andromeda Galaxy

13.08.2018

36 x 120 Sek. = 72 Mins

ISO-800 NIKON D750

Refractor 100mm f/5.8 Quadruplet Astrograph

Vixen SXD2 + PHD2

DeepSkyStacker + Photoshop

Nice easy summer (northern hemisphere) target; easy to find, and quite bright for a nebula. Always admired this object in my astronomy books as a kid, and now I finally took a photo of it myself!

M57, “Ring Nebula”

Canon 40D

ISO1250

Optical Craftsmen 8" Newtonian, f/5, 900mm

Orion Starshoot autoguider

BackyardEOS, PHD

36 × 60s lights, 40 darks, 40 bias, no flats

Processed in DeepSkyStacker, Photoshop CC, Lightroom 5

Here's a quick shot of Comet P46 Wirtanen above a palm in my suburban backyard, taken through a small gap in the clouds last night. Lots of Brisbane light pollution so the comet was not visible with the naked eye, but it was easily spotted in 7x50 binoculars, and the camera picked up its greenish glow fairly well.

This is 10 x 3.2 second exposures with my 100mm macro lens at f/2.8 and 3200 iso, stacked in DeepSkyStacker.

Manually guided for 5 x 7-minute exposures at ISO 1600, f/6.25. Modified EOS 600D & Sky-Watcher ED80 refractor, piggybacked on a Celestron C8 telescope for guiding.

The red halo around Gamma Cass is an imaging artefact (Probably an internal reflection). Also, I had to crop the image due to badly distorted stars around some edges - evidently something wasn't aligned correctly.

Registered and stacked using DeepSkyStacker; initial curves adjusted in Canon Photo Professional; final curves & colour-balance adjusted using Paint Shop Pro; noise reduction via CyberLink PhotoDirector.

ennesima elaborazione da frustrato :) alla disperata ricerca della flux (la cui visibilità varia a seconda del tasso alcolico del medesimo), il tempo non collabora purtroppo. Mi piace ed affascina il dettaglio sulle galassie ed il bilanciamento colori ma è uno scatto tutto da rifare con un cielo degno, sob!

----

Yet another frustrated and cropped stack :) in a desperate search of flux (whose visibility varies depending on the alcohol content in the body), unfortunately the weather does not cooperate. I like the detail on the galaxies and the color balance but i need to start all over again with a sky worthy, sob!

Telescopi o obiettivi di acquisizione: APO Triplet 130/910 mm

Camere di acquisizione: Canon / CentralDS EOS Astro 50D

Montature: Sky-Watcher EQ6 Pro

Telescopi o obiettivi di guida: 80/600

Camere di guida: lacerta mgen2

Riduttori di focale: Flattener 2"

Software: DeepSkyStacker, photoshop, Adobe Lightroom 3, Noel Carboni's Astro Tools for PhotoShop

Filtri: Orion SkyGlow 2" Imaging Filter

Risoluzione: 1280x853

Date: 04 maggio 2013, 06 maggio 2013

Pose:

Orion SkyGlow 2" Imaging Filter: 15x300" ISO1600 -6C bin 1x1

Orion SkyGlow 2" Imaging Filter: 7x400" ISO1600 -6C bin 1x1

Orion SkyGlow 2" Imaging Filter: 12x480" ISO1600 -6C bin 1x1

Integrazione: 3.6 ore

Dark: ~16

Flat: ~20

Scala del Cielo Scuro Bortle: 3.00

Temperatura: 10.00

Camera: Sony A65

Lens: Minolta 135mm f/2.8

Exposure: ~180 minutes-cm2 (10x60s f/2.8 ISO800)

Tracker: Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer

Raw converter: RawTherapee

Stacker: Deep Sky Stacker (DSS)

Processing: rnc-color-stretch

Processing: GIMP

Total 6hrs 15min

H-Alpha - 1x600 & 11x900s, Red 8x600s, Blue 5x600s & Green 3x600s

Stacked in DeepSkyStacker & processed in PS2.

Camera: Atik 314L+ Mono

Filters: Baader H-Alpha 7nm, RGB.

Scope: Sky-Watcher Equinox 80ED .

Mount: AZ EQ6-GT goto, PhD guided with Orion 50mm guidescope & SSAG.

I last imaged this with the same setup a year ago, but here I managed to get more sub-exposures. Last time, the clouds moved in after just 3 frames; this time dew on the lens limited me to 8.

8 x 7-minute exposures at ISO 1600, f/6.25. Modified EOS 600D & Sky-Watcher ED80 refractor, piggybacked on a Celestron C8 telescope for manual guiding.

Registered and stacked using DeepSkyStacker; initial curves adjusted in Canon Photo Professional; final curves and colour balance adjusted using Paint Shop Pro; noise reduction via CyberLink PhotoDirector.

Canon 6D

Canon 300mm f/4.0 + Canon 1.4 Teleconverter @ f/5.6

Vixen Polarie tracking head

51 x 30sec @ISO3200

22 x 30sec @ISO12800

Stacked in DeepSkyStacker

Processed in Lightroom

9th of May 2017 - Jupiter, Io and Europa

First light of my ASI224MC camera

Taken with a TMB92L, Canon T3i DSLR, and Celestron Advanced VX mount. Consists of 41 light and 39 dark frames, each a 50-second exposure at ISO 800, stacked in DeepSkyStacker and processed in Photoshop.

Kochab

2019-06-01 between 00:00h and 01:00h

50s / f4.0 / ISO500 /@280mm

Canon 80D / 70-200f2.8LII / ext 1,4x

stack 24 lights / 4 darks

Taken in my backyard (a street lamp very close)

Class 4 bortle

SW Esprit 150ED apo triplet with 0.77x reducer/flattener.

SX Trius 694 mono CCD

SX filter wheel and OAG.

Baader 2" 7nm narrowband filters set.

ASI462MC (guide camera)

Mesu-200 Mk1

Ha data taken back on the 16th Aug,OIII taken on the 20th Aug,four subframes @ fifteen minutes exposure for both filters.

Stacked in Deepskystacker and using Maxim DL4 to align and colour combine using Ha/OIII/OIII

sequence,processed in Photoshop CS2.

Taken using Skywatcher Evostar 80ED Pro (.85x reducer) & Nikon D3300. ISO 1600,135x30s lights, ~100 flats and bias. Stacked in DeepSkyStacker and post processed in Photoshop.

Taken with a TMB92L, Canon T3i DSLR, and Celestron CG-4 mount. Consists of 37 light and 29 dark frames, each a 40-second exposure at ISO 800, stacked in DeepSkyStacker and processed in Photoshop.

Just shy of 2 hours of data from my suburban backyard, 8 min subs. Modded Nikon D5100, Improved DGM NPB filter, CCDT67 reducer, GSO 6" RC. IOptron iEQ30 Pro, guided via 50mm guidescope, SSAG, and PHD2. Stacked in DeepSkyStacker, processed in StarTools.

Manually guided for 7 x 5-minute exposures at ISO 1600, f/6.25. Modified EOS 600D & Sky-Watcher ED80 refractor, piggybacked on a Celestron C8 telescope for guiding.

Registered and stacked using DeepSkyStacker; initial curves adjusted in Canon Photo Professional; final curves & colour-balance adjusted using Paint Shop Pro; noise reduction via CyberLink PhotoDirector.

Fujifilm X-T10, Samyang 135mm f/2.0 @ f2.0, ISO 1600, 37 x 60 sec, tracking with iOptron SkyTracker Pro, stacking with DeepSkyStacker, editing in GIMP, taken August 3 under Bortle 3/4 skies.

M: iOptron EQ45-Pro

T: WO GTF81

C: ZWO ASI1600MC

Gain: 300; RGB24; FITs

Frames: 40 Lights; 5 Darks; 2 flats

Exp: 31s

Cropped to taste.

Capture: Sharpcap

Processed: DSS; PS

Fujifilm X-T10, Samyang 135mm f/2.0 @ f2.0, ISO 1600, 40 x 60 sec, tracking with iOptron SkyTracker Pro, stacking with DeepSkyStacker, editing in GIMP, taken July 29 under Bortle 3/4 skies.

Messier 45 Pleiades Star Cluster, also known as the Seven Sisters. I still need to work on this a bit to refine the colour balance, reduce the noise and improve the nebulosity.

Canon 70D with Canon EF75-300mm lens at 300mm @ f/6.3 ISO1600, fitted with an Astronomik CLS filter, mounted on iOptron SKyTracker. 10 light frames at 60 seconds each with long exposure noise reduction on, 10 flats & 10 bias frames. Stacked in DeepSkyStacker, processed in Lightroom.

Milky Way (stacking): 7 pictures (ISO 1600; 30sec; f2.8) stacked with DeepSkyStacker

Olympus OMD-EM10 MKII + Zuiko 17mm 1.8

This is one of the most beautiful and distinctive nebulae in our galactic neighbourhood.

The eye-catching Bubble Nebula is designated as NGC 7635, Sharpless 162 and Caldwell 11 and lies close to the direction of the open cluster Messier 52.

It is 7 light-years across – about 1.5 times the distance from our Sun to its nearest star, Alpha Centauri and resides 7100 light years from Earth in north-western Cassiopeia close to the border with Cepheus.

The 8.7 magnitude seething star forming this nebula (BD+60°2522) is 45 times more massive than our Sun. Gas on the star gets so hot that it escapes away into space as a stellar wind moving at almost 7 million km/h.

As the surface of the bubble's shell expands outward, it collides with dense regions of cold gas on one side of the bubble. This asymmetry makes the star appear dramatically off-center from the bubble, with its location in the 10 o'clock position in this image.

Camera: Canon 350Da with Hutech IDAS LPS,

Telescope: Celstron C8 at f/6.3 (with focal reducer)

Guiding scope: Celestron ED80

Mount: Takahashi EM200 Temma Jr

Autoguiding: Toucam 740K, PHD Guiding

Total exposure time: 166 min (9955 sec)

Exposures in detail: 55 x 181 sec , ISO 1600 , 2009-07-25

Alignment and stacking: DeepSkyStacker

Final post-processing: Pixinsight LE, Photoshop CS3

IC1848 is actually the open star cluster in the lower right of the picture. IC1871 can also be found towards the upper middle, looking a little bit like a knight's boot.

This is a 4 panel mosaic captured on the 5th of December 2023 at the Astronomy Centre, Todmorden, UK.

Boring techie bit:

Skywatcher Quattro 8" Newtonian Reflector steel tube with the f4 aplanatic coma corrector, Skywatcher EQ6 R pro mount, Altair Starwave 50mm guide scope, ZWO asi120mm guide camera mini, ZWO asi533mc pro cooled to -10c gain 100, Optolong L'enhance 2" filter, ZWO asiair plus.

4 panels combined, each panel made up from 15 exposures, 180 seconds each exposure.

Darks, Flats & Bias.

Stacked with DeepSkyStacker, stitched together in Microsoft ICE and processed in StarTools & Affinity Photo.

60 - 30sec exposures stacked.

Slice of our galaxy in the Cassiopee region. This is not the brightest part of the Milky Way but always fabulous to see it :-)

Canon Eos 600D

3 min 20 s exposure

ISO 1600

f/3.5

18 mm

10 photos superimposed with DSS.

I'd been eyeing this area in Camelopardalis for awhile because of the concentration of dark nebulae. Barnards 8-13 are the dark nebulae on the lower left.

It was a bit of a let down to process - It's not nearly as neat as the the dark nebulae in Taurus or Cepheus, in my opinion, but it was fun to explore anyway. I almost didn't post it because it's a bit underwhelming, but since there aren't too many images of this area, I decided to post anyway.

Fujifilm X-T10, Samyang 135mm f/2.0 ED UMC @ f2.0, ISO 1600, 50 x 60 sec, tracking with iOptron SkyTracker Pro, stacking with DeepSkyStacker, editing with Astro Pixel Processor and GIMP, taken on Nov. 24, 2019 under Bortle 3/4 skies.

Equipment

Imaging Telescopes Or Lenses

TS-Optics 6" f/4 UNC Newtonian Telescope - Carbon

Imaging Cameras

ZWO ASI 183 MM PRO

Mounts

Sky-Watcher NEQ6-Pro

Filters

Baader B 1.25'' CCD Filter · Baader G 1.25'' CCD Filter · Baader R 1.25'' CCD Filter · Baader L 1.25'' Filter

Accessories

ZWO EAF Electronic Auto Focuser · TSOptics TS Off Axis Guider - 9mm · Pal Gyulai GPU Aplanatic Koma Korrector 4-element

Software

Luc Coiffier DeepSkyStacker (DSS) · PHD2 Guiding · PhotoShop CS5 · FitsWork 4 · CCDCiel

Guiding Telescopes Or Lenses

TS-Optics 6" f/4 UNC Newtonian Telescope - Carbon

Guiding Cameras

Astrolumina Alccd5L-IIc

Acquisition details

Dates:

April 4, 2021

Frames:

Baader B 1.25'' CCD Filter: 17x180" (51') (gain: 53.00) -20°C bin 1x1

Baader G 1.25'' CCD Filter: 17x180" (51') (gain: 53.00) -20°C bin 1x1

Baader L 1.25'' Filter: 35x180" (1h 45') (gain: 53.00) -20°C bin 1x1

Baader R 1.25'' CCD Filter: 17x180" (51') (gain: 53.00) -20°C bin 1x1

Integration:

4h 18'

Canon 135mm f/2 lens (stopped down to 2.8) attached to SX Trius 694 via a Geoptik adapter with internal 7nm Ha filter,piggybacked to main scope on CEM60 mount.

Each image comprises of 12 x 300sec subs stacked in Deepskystacker,mosaic created and processed in Photoshop CS2.

Taken 05/01/22

“Wow, you must have a good telescope to take photos like that”. These words get said to me quite often, and I can understand why. The first few times I saw a photo like this one, with its thousands of stars; the colourful nebulae around the stars in the Rho Ophiuchi region (left-hand side, mid-way up the photo); the filigrees of interstellar dust and gas seemingly streaming across the field of view; and the lovely white dot that is the planet Saturn (to the right and just below centre), I had a similar reaction. I pictured an amateur or professional astronomer huddled over some equipment consisting of a telescope that was following the movement of the night sky, with a camera (costing an amount that had five digits in it) attached, whiling away the hours on a cold night somewhere away from city lights.

This image was captured away from the lights of major cities, but it wasn’t too far from the country city of Lismore, in New South Wales, Australia. Yes, a camera was used, but it wasn’t attached to a telescope and it wasn’t tracking the sky’s movement while taking the photos. Creating this image involved taking eleven images using my Canon DSLR camera, set at a very high sensitivity (ISO), a 50mm standard lens (that only cost around the $150 mark), a tripod, and a remote shutter release to stop the camera from shaking and ruining the shots. The eleven photos were taken close to each other and each one was exposed for only five seconds. I also shot some extra frames with the camera’s lens cap on, which are used to work out how much digital noise the camera creates. These are all combined in a process known as “stacking”, using free software to do the job. Adobe Lightroom was then used to crop the image, adjust the exposure and tweak the contrast and colour saturation.

Localisation : CastresmallObservatory (Castres, Tarn - France)

Acquisition Date : 2016-11-27

Auteur/Author : ROUGÉ Pierre

Mouture/mount : Orion Atlas EQ-G

Tube/Scope : Newton Orion 200/1000 (f/5) + MPCC Baader

Autoguiding : Skywatcher Synguider (v1.1) & Meade ETX 70/350 mm

Camera : Canon EOS 400D (Digital Rebel Xti) refiltré Astrodon in Side (modded Astrodon in Side)

+ EOS CLIP CLS Astronomik

Exposure : 93 minutes [31 subexposures of 180 sec each (selected from 31)] @ ISO 1600

Calibration : Dark & Bias : 24/11 @ ISO 1600 - Flat & Dark-Flat : 9 @ ISO 400

Temps/Weather : Bonne transparence. Faible vent de E à SE. T=9°C. Humidité faible.

Constellation : Triangulum/Triangle

Software Used : Astro Photograph Tool (v3.13), DeepSkyStacker 3.3.6, Pixinsight LE, PhotoShop 7, xnview, Noiseware Community Edition

20 superimposed images with DeepSkyStacker

50 mm

f/1.8

ISO 1600

13 x 20 seconds

(JPEG editing only)

Location : France

Just starting to learn things in astrophotography of course with the help and support of GeoAstro team ^_^

27 frames were shot with Nikon D5100, 200mm lens f/2.8, ISO 3200, Exp. 30"

Processed in Deepskystacker and retouched in Photoshop cs6.

- Canon 7D Mark II

- Orion 8" f/3.9 Astrograph

- Baader MPCC Mark III Coma Corrector

- Orion Atlas Pro Mount

- ZWO ASI 120MC-s guide camera w/ 60mm guide scope

- 39 x 240 second Lights ISO 1600. Dithered each frame

- 10 flats

- No dark or bias

- Captured with BackyardEOS

- Guided with PHD2

- Stacked with DeepSkyStacker

- Processed in Pixinsight

- Imaged on July 1st during the 2016 Golden State Star Party

More info - www.youtube.com/watch?v=trkccIaMYIs

Part of the famous Veil Nebula supernova remnant. The bright star with the reflection halo is 52 Cygni.

Unfortunately, this has the frequent problem I get with bloated stars towards the lower right. Not got to the bottom of it yet, but something in the optical chain must be getting out of alignment. I do check collimation before each session. Anyway, I was pleased with the detail in the nebula, so have posted despite the flaws.

Manually, off-axis guided for 11 x 4-minute exposures at ISO 1600, f/4. Modified EOS 600D & Revelation 12" Newtonian reflector telescope.

Registered and stacked using DeepSkyStacker; initial curves adjusted in Canon Photo Professional; final curves & colour-balance adjusted using Paint Shop Pro; noise reduction via CyberLink PhotoDirector.