Skywatcher 72 ED

Nikon D3500

ISOSPEED= 3200

EXPTIME = 18167.5995368958 / Exposure time (in seconds)

EXPOSURE= 18167.5995368958 / Exposure time (in seconds)

NCOMBINE= 403 / Number of stacked frames

SOFTWARE= 'DeepSkyStacker 5.1.6'

DATE-OBS= '2024-12-29T02:09:50'

Processed with Siril and Darktable

The Andromeda Galaxy from my backyard in Los Alamos, New Mexico.

Orion ED80

Canon 5D

Celestron CG5 mount.

32 x 1min exposures at ISO 1600

Stacked with DeepSkyStacker.

Imaging telescope or lens:Altair Astro 72edf deluxe

Imaging camera:Pentax K-5

Mount:iOptron SkyGuider Pro

Guiding telescope or lens:QHYCCD miniGuideScope

Guiding camera:QHYCCD QHY5II-L

Focal reducer:Hotech SCA Field Flattener

Software:DeepSkyStacker 4.1.1, Pleaides Astrophoto PixInsight 1.8 Ripley

Frames:

63x120" ISO800

16x150" ISO800

Integration: 2.8 hours

Darks: ~26

Flats: ~7

Flat darks: ~7

Bias: ~100

M: iOptron EQ45-Pro

T: WO GTF81 Refractor

C: ZWO ASI1600MC-Cooled

G: 200mm (FL) Finder and PHD2

GC: ZWO ASI120MC

RAW16; FITs

Temp: -20 DegC

Gain 200; Exp 60s

Frames: 84 Lights; 10 Darks; 10 flats

60% Crop

Capture: Sharpcap

Processed: DSS; LR, PS, Gradient Exterminator.

Sky: No moon, breezy, no cloud, good seeing.

23.16 million light years distant.

I've taken the first steps to learning more about astrophotography. This shot of M13, the Hercules Cluster was taken on a polar aligned mount with a 500mm lens piggybacked on my optical tube. I recently bought an autoguider but this was just before I did that. This is 27 90 second images stacked with darks, biases and flats in deepskystacker.

EXIF - 140X180" (7h), Gain 0

Calibration: Darks - 40, Bias - 40

Camera: ZWO ASI294MC Pro (cooled to -10°C)

Filter: Astronomik L-2 - UV IR Blockfilter 1,25"

Main optics: William Optics RedCat 51

Mount: Sky-Watcher EQ6-R Pro

Guiding: William Optics UniGuide + ZWO ASI120MM Mini

Controller: ZWO ASIair Pro

Software: DeepSkyStacker + Pixinsight + Photoshop

Location: Sibenik, Croatia

Heart Nebula IC 1805, Fishhead Nebula IC1795

4.5hrs guided

Camera and scope : TS72 APO + TS72flat, Nikon d90 mod

432mm /f6/ iso800

Tracking: Skywatcher Star Adventurer

guiding: TS 50mm f3.6 guidescope , zwo asi120mc-s

Software: Deepskystacker, Photoshop, PHD2

About 9.5 hours of exposure over four days using a Tamron 150-600mm lens set to 300mm attached to a Canon EOS 50D(modified). Taken in strong Los Angeles light pollution under the hated light pole. I really need to invest in a light pollution filter but they're expensive...

Processed using DeepSkyStacker, Photoshop, Topaz Denoise AI, and Lightroom.

Immagine realizzata in collaborazione con Giuliano Monti (www.tecnosky.it) coautore che ha gentilmente concesso tutta la strumentazione, lol, io ho messo solo la camera eos e due birre ♥

Telescopi o obiettivi di acquisizione: GSO RC12

Montature: SkyWatcher AZ EQ6 GT

Camere di guida: Starlight Xpress Lodestar

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

Filtri: Orion SkyGlow 2" Imaging Filter

Accessori: Tecnosky Guida fuori asse-OAG

Date: 30 luglio 2013

Luoghi: Fubine (AL)

Pose:

Orion SkyGlow 2" Imaging Filter: 7x480" ISO1600 1C bin 1x1

Orion SkyGlow 2" Imaging Filter: 4x600" ISO1600 1C bin 1x1

Orion SkyGlow 2" Imaging Filter: 1x780" ISO1600 1C bin 1x1

Integrazione: 1.8 ore

Dark: ~21

Flat: ~24

Scala del Cielo Scuro Bortle: 3.00

Temperatura: 17.00

Haven't been around these parts much lately, but managed a couple of images in the meantime.

This is another collaboration between myself and Dave Williams, who provided the Ha used as luminance. My first mosaic, it consists of three frames (well, two and a tiny little strip in between really) processed using photomerge in Photoshop, which I was impressed with. Several sessions between July and September 2013

Meaningless stats follow:

RGB:

SW ED80/EQ5

Canon 500D modded, Baader Neodymium filter

All three frames: 246 subs totalling 13 hours 28 minutes

Acquisition: APT

Guiding: Quickcam Pro4000/9x50 finderscope, PHD

Stacked in DSS and processed in CS5, using photomerge for the stitching together

Ha (Dave Williams):

Usual :)

www.DonegalSkies.com

Location: Killygordon, Co. Donegal, Ireland.

Time: 22:00 - 00:00

Date: 21 Sep 2012

Target: ANdromeda Galaxy

Exposures: 8 x Five minute exposures (12Darks) Flats

Equipment:

Mount- Celestron CG5-GT (unguided)

Camera- Self-modified Canon 1000D

Telescope- Celestron Oynx 80ED

Additional- Astronomik cls clip LP filter.

Stacking & Processing: DeepSkyStacker & Photoshop CS5

Night shift today with my son Kevin. The green dot on the top right is the comet "Leonard". It passes the earth only every 80,000 years (!) and is visible this year from late November to early December. Unfortunately the weather is very cloudy, we have been watching the weather forecast for days and saw last night that this morning could be an opportunity with a lot of luck. So we got up at half past four and searched. After about 30 minutes we had found it. Then made a total of 120 pictures each 4 seconds and stacked them with DeepSkyStacker. Lens was the "bokeh master" Sigma 105/1.4.

Erste Gehversuche mit Deep Sky Fotografie und DSS (Stacker).

Stack von 25 Bilder mit Canon 70-200 /2.8

200mm / f2.8 / 1,6sec / ISO 1250

Aufnahme vom 2019-02-24

Fujifilm X-T10, Samyang 135mm f/2.0 @ f2.0, ISO 1600, 32 x 60 sec, tracking with iOptron SkyTracker Pro, stacking with DeepSkyStacker, editing in GIMP, taken June 2 under Bortle 3/4 skies.

July 31 edit: Reduced green cast.

The faint outer halo is just visible, bringing out the dark ring around the brighter centre of the galaxy.

34 x 1-minute unguided exposures at ISO 6400. Modified EOS 600D & Revelation 12" f/4 Newtonian reflector telescope.

Frames registered and stacked in DeepSkyStacker software; curves adjusted in Canon Photo Professional; noise reduction in CyberLink PhotoDirector.

The Pinwheel Galaxy (also known as Messier 101, M101 or NGC 5457) is a face-on spiral galaxy 21 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Ursa Major. The giant spiral disk of stars, dust and gas is 170,000 light-years across — nearly twice the diameter of our galaxy, the Milky Way. M101 is estimated to contain at least one trillion stars. The galaxy’s spiral arms are sprinkled with large regions of star-forming nebulas. These nebulas are areas of intense star formation within giant molecular hydrogen clouds. Brilliant, young clusters of hot, blue, newborn stars trace out the spiral arms. (ref: Wikipedia and NASA)

Observation data (J2000 epoch)

Constellation: Ursa Major

Right ascension: 14h 03m 12.6s

Declination: +54° 20′ 57″

Distance: 20.9 ± 1.8 Mly

Apparent magnitude (V): 7.9

Tech Specs: Orion 8” RC Telescope, ZWO ASI2600MC camera running at -10F, 47 x 60 seconds, Celestron CGEM-DX pier mounted, ZWO EAF and ASIAir Pro, processed in DSS and PixInsight. Image Date: February 5, 2024. Location: The Dark Side Observatory (W59), Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).

12/4/2018 12:46-1:41am MST

Grand Mesa Observatory

grandmesaobservatory.com/

14x 240sec

Processing: Photoshop CC, PixInsight

Stacking: DeepSkyStacker

Camera: QHY367C One Shot Color CMOS

Pixel Size: 4.88x4.88

Image Scale (1x1): 1.55 arcsec/pixel

FOV: 127.3 x 190.1 arcmin

Optics: Takahashi FSQ130

Aperture: 130mm

Focal Length: 650mm

Focal Ratio: F5

Guiding: Stellarview 50mm

Mount: Paramount ME

Framing is a little out as this was shot using 2 scopes.

H-alpha data captured by Mick Hyde (9 Feb 14).

H-Alpha - 12x300s & 7x20s

Green - 21x120s & 21x15s (2x2)

Blue - 15x120s & 15x15s (2x2)

Stacked in DeepSkyStacker & processed in PS2.

Camera: Atik 490ex Mono

Filters: Baader H-Alpha 7nm, GB.

Scope: (G&B) Sky-Watcher Equinox 80ED .

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

wiki

grazie ad Ale ed a Edo, per l'ospitalita', l'assistenza e la compagnia!! :) un bel regalo di compleanno ragassi!

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, Adobe Lightroom 3, Noel Carboni's Astro Tools for PhotoShop

Filtri: Orion SkyGlow 2" Imaging Filter

Risoluzione: 1600x1066

Date: 07 giugno 2013, 08 giugno 2013

Luoghi: Refrancore

Pose:

Orion SkyGlow 2" Imaging Filter: 10x240" ISO1600 bin 1x1

Orion SkyGlow 2" Imaging Filter: 18x360" ISO1600 bin 1x1

Integrazione: 2.5 ore

Dark: ~12

Flat: ~20

A spiral galaxy in the constellation Camelopardalis.

It goes by the nickname of the Hidden galaxy as it's a very difficult target for visual and for photography. This is due to it lying pretty much in the same line of sight as the Milky Way and all it's bright stars and dust lanes. Except IC342 which is about 11 million light years further on.

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.

Darks, Flats & Bias.

Stacked with DeepSkyStacker and processed in StarTools & Affinity Photo.

28 x 5 minutes, ISO 800

Sensor temp: +39-43C

60 darks, 60 flats, 100 bias

Equipment: Canon t2i, Orion 8" Astrograph, Atlas EQ-G

Guiding: SSAG, Orion ST80, PHD

Accessories: Astronomik CLS, Baader MPCC

Acquisition: EQMOD, Cartes du Ciel, Backyard EOS

Processing: DeepSkyStacker, Pixinsight, Photoshop CS6 (for mask fine-tuning)

The time is now! I've heard the requests and for my latest calendar, it is exclusively astrophotography as shot through my telescope/camera setup. I'll unveil all 12 months in the coming days, but for today, I'll open up preorders and share with you a brand new photo that made the cut. More on this photo after the calendar details:

If you want to preorder a 2022 calendar, please fill out this form forms.gle/cNdv9go1NcBQp4tC8 . The calendars will be $18 for preorders and then $20 after November 1. The price includes shipping to anywhere in the US/Canada. The calendars are individually wrapped and all photos are ones that I have shot with my telescope/camera setup of amazing celestial views. I'll be sharing some more of exactly what you can expect next week.

As for this new image... you are looking at NGC 7380, the Wizard Nebula! I first shot this about a year ago when I was still figuring out a lot with capturing/processing narrowband astrophotography, and I just re-shot it a few nights ago and gave it a full new re-process. The final result is a bit more true to how the colors actually appear to the naked eye, as far as the emissions of the various gases involved. The image came from a little over 5 hours of narrowband exposures (105 minutes in Hydrogen-Alpha, Sulfur-ii, and Oxygen-iii separately) in the same night. The individual exposures were 5 minutes long and they were stacked in DeepSkyStacker before being combined in PixInsight.

I think I stopped the aperture down a bit too much on this one, causing the diffraction spikes around the Pleiades's brightest stars. Next time, I'll try f/5.6 or f/6.3.

Taken with a Sigma AF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 APO DG at 133mm and f/8, Canon T3i DSLR, and Celestron Advanced VX mount. Consists of 34 light and 30 dark frames, each a 90-second exposure at ISO 1600, and 21 flat frames. Captured with BackyardEOS, stacked in DeepSkyStacker, and processed in Photoshop.

Stacked with DeepSkyStacker: 15 frames, 2s, F2.8, ISO1600

More commonly known as The Dumbell Nebula. Sometimes as the Apple core or egg timer as well.

M27 is a planetary nebula over 1,200 light years away in the constellation of Vulpecula. Discovered by Charles Messier in 1764 it's thought to be the first planetary nebula discovered.

They were given the title planetary nebulae by William Herschel, who thought that these kind of objects looked small and round like a planet.

Boring techie bit:

Celestron Nexstar 8SE telescope, Skywatcher EQ6 R pro mount, RVO 32mm mini guide scope, ZWO asi120mm mini guide camera, ZWO asi533mc pro cooled to -10c gain 0, ZWO asiair plus.

Darks, Flats & Bias.

Stacked with DeepSkyStacker and processed in Affinity Photo.

Photo credit myself & Stuart Keane.

Data captured at www.astronomycentre.org.uk

This is my second attempt at processing this image, I think the result looks better than my last try. I still need more data though.

Canon 60Da

Tamron 24-70mm at 70mm

Astronomik CLS EOS Clip Filter

22x 120 second exposures

ISO 3200 at f/2.8

Tracked using an AstroTrac TT320X-AG (no guiding)

Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker and processed in Photoshop.

Taken in Cabo de Gata National Park in Spain, May 2014.

The center of this view was barely fifteen degrees above the horizon when I started imaging it, I was killing time waiting for my main target to rise in to view.

22 Lights

30 Darks

30 Flats

100 x 4' subs, stacked in DeepSkyStacker. No dark, flat, or bias frames (I really need to do that to up my game). Curving dust tail, with the ion tail a bit dimmer rotated just to the left of the dust tail. Nice striations in the dust tail.

As requested by some fellow imagers, here's a look at what each individual narrowband channel has to offer in this part of the sky.

3 panel narrowband mosaic. Exposure times for each panel: 24X600"Ha, 24X600"OIII, and 24X600"SII.

Equipment used:

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

Pleiades M45 last night. Moon was out, so hard to get detail! 🔭

Stacked 20 lights, iso 800, 180seconds and processed in DeepSkyStacker and Photoshop. Nikon z 50 and Skywatcher Esprit 100.

Canon 135mm f/2 prime lens closed down to f/2.8,SX Trius Pro 694 mono ccd with Baader 7nm Ha filter (1.25") riding on CEM60.

Two pane mosaic consists of 12-18 ten minute subs stacked in Deepskystacker,mosaic stitched using Microsoft ICE and processed in PS CS2.

Taken 22/02/27

www.DonegalSkies.com

Location: Killygordon, Co. Donegal, Ireland.

Time: 20:30-22:00

Date: 14 March 2010

Target: Orion's Belts (inculding M42 and the Horsehead Nebula)

Exposures: Seven ten minute exposures (6 Darks). 70mins total exposure. Combined with 15 x 30sec and 30 x 15sec exposures for the core of the Orion nebula.

Equipment: Mount- Celestron CG4 (unguided)

Camera- Unmodified Canon 1000D

Lens- 70-300mm Sigma APO working at 135mm

Additional- Astronomik cls clip LP filter.

Stacking & Processing: DeepSkyStacker & Photoshop 7.0

While I'm waiting for a new 12mm f2.0 lens, I thought I'd test my new Fuji X-M1 with the kit zoom under the light polluted skies of suburban Melbourne at ISO 6400. Then I pushed and played as much as I dared.

It's not realistic, but it is remarkable what a digital camera and software can do these days.

A photo of our galaxy, the Milky Way, taken just outside our chalet at Crystal Springs Mountain Lodge in Mpumalanga, South Africa. It's amazing what a dark, clear sky can show (along with a little work on the computer). This is 10 photos that I took (each 30 seconds exposure time), stacked together (using Deep Sky Stacker), and then edited a bit in GIMP. My first real Milky Way shot!

If anyone is curious about how I went about getting this shot, I wrote a "how-to" here: digital-photography-school.com/forum/how-i-took/197256-mi...

there the stars are born from the Cocoons.

Covering the large portion of the Milky Way, which is the disk subsystem of our Galaxy, constellation Cygnus houses a lot of gaseous and dusty entities, both bright and dark. This image features among others the tiny bright Cocoon nebula (IC 5146/ Caldwell 19) which is a star formation region and much more prominent dark filament of Barnard 128 (the Snake nebula).

2048 size is quite viewable :)

Aquisition time: 10-11.08.2013 between 23:45 and 01:30 MSK (UTC+4)

Equipment:

Canon EF-S 60mm f/2.8 macro USM lens and Baader Planetarium 2" UHC filter mounted in front of the lens via step-down ring attached to Canon EOS 60D running Magic Lantern 2.3 firmware override riding on Vixen Polarie tracking platform over photo-tripod (alltogether codenamed "Anywhere Is, SWANS configuration").

Aperture 21,4 mm

Focal length 60 mm

Tv = 60 seconds

Av = f/2.8

ISO 4000

Exposures: 58 (plus 27 dark frames and 10 offset frames plus 2 fake flat-field frames).

Processing: Contrast was set to "linear" for all images in Canon DPP and 16-bit outputs were fed to DSS and stacked in Maximum Enthropy mode.

16-bit stacking result was processed in Photoshop with AutoContrast and Levels (namely gamma was set to 3,5) and Curves (skewed sigmoid curve was applied).

Note: I had to crop away some portion at the bottom of the image. The stars were really ugly there.

Comet ATLAS C/2019 Y4, discovered in December 2019, has been quickly increasing in brightness over the last few months, and many of us hope that trend will continue; past projections put it as reaching naked-eye brightness this April or May. However, it's brightness has recently plateaued around magnitude +8. That and an elongated nucleus suggest that it might be disintegrating.

It was likely about magnitude +8 when I photographed it last night, April 9th, near Star 42 Camelopardalis. I'm not sure what the faint nebulosity is to the lower left of the comet: either Dark Nebula HSVMT 25, integrated flux nebula (IFN), or it's simply an artifact. Galaxy NGC 2366 is also apparent in the upper right corner.

Acquisition details: Fujifilm X-T10, Samyang 135mm f/2.0 ED UMC @ f2.0, ISO 1600, 50 x 30 sec, tracking with iOptron SkyTracker Pro, stacking with DeepSkyStacker (used comet stacking mode so stars and comet were stacked separately and then combined), editing with Astro Pixel Processor and GIMP, taken in the 30 minute-window between astronomic dusk and the rise of the 93% illuminated moon on April 9, 2020 under Bortle 3/4 skies.

'Ave anuvver one :)

Did this the same session as The Ring Nebula. Two images in one session - whatever next? :)

M103 aka NGC 581 is one of the most distant open clusters known, with distances of 8,000 to 9,500 light years from Earth and ranging about 15 light years apart. The cluster is about 25 million years old. Thus spake Wiki.

To me, it's number 27 :)

Taken with a TMB92L, Canon T3i DSLR, and Celestron CG-4 mount. Consists of 34 light and 20 dark frames, each a 45-second exposure at ISO 800, stacked in DeepSkyStacker and processed in Photoshop.

First light with my first ever dedicated astronomy camera. It was a trial and error evening. After a lot of hair pulling and youtube watching, I managed to get most of the equipment talking to each other. So I decided to try it out on an easy target, Messier 82 the Cigar galaxy. I won't bore you with M82 facts . . . this time. If you do want to know, I did post a picture of M82 not long ago taken with my DSLR. If you flick back through some of my recent pictures you'll find some M82 facts there.

And now for the really boring bit, equipment used:

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, ZWO asiair plus.

20, 3 minute exposures bin 1 gain 0, stacked with darks, flats and bias.

DeepSkyStacker, StarTools and Affinity Photo used for processing.

M106 36 x 600 secs in Lum. Added 4 hours to my last image flic.kr/p/sazkxL

Optics: Orion Optics CT8 F4.5 fitted with a Baader Mark-III MPCC Coma Corrector.

Camera: Xpress Trius SX-694 Mono Cooled to -20C

Guiding: OAG witha Lodestar X2

Filter: Baader Lum

Mount: Skywatcher AZ EQ6-GT EQ & Alt-Az Mount connected to the Sky X and Eqmod via HitecAstro EQDIR adapter

Image Acquisition: Sequence Generator Pro

Stacking and Calibrating: Deepskystacker

Processing: Pixinsight 1.8, Photoshop CC

28x30sec at ISO 12800

180mm f/4

Nikon D750

Clear sky, no moon, new camera, and news of a comet in Taurus -- who cares if it's a little cold out there....

Posted to Slider's Sunday, even though the post-processing is relatively mild by that group's standards. In particular, let me emphasize that Lovejoy and the Pleiades really did share this little section of the sky. But posted to SS because it used a new (to me) color processing strategy.

Averaged the multiple (28) images in DeepSkyStacker, and imported the result into the Gimp, along with -- and this was the innovation -- an extra copy of the last exposure as a new layer. I roughly white-balanced out the skyglow in the new layer, smoothed it, bumped up the contrast (which has the effect of increasing saturation), and made this the "color" layer to emphasize the actual green and blue colors of the comet and stars.

This is the galaxy designated NGC 5961 located in the constellation Corona Borealis. Inside the galaxy is the supernova 2025ngs that I imaged on July 4, 2025. My magnitude estimate based on 60 minutes of collected data is V16.1.

Tech Specs: Meade 12” LX-90 SCT Telescope, Antares Focal Reducer, ZWO ASI2600MC camera running at 0F, 60 x 60 seconds, Celestron CGX-L pier mounted, ZWO EAF and ASIAir Pro, processed in Tycho Tracker and PixInsight. Image Date: July 4, 2025. Location: The Dark Side Observatory (W59), Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).

Startrails at Barronal Beach, Cabo de Gata, Spain.

Canon 60D

14mm Samyang at f/2.8

30 second exposures at ISO 800

160 frames stacked in Startrails.de

The Exif data is wrong because this lens doesn't communicate with the camera.

IC 2177 is a region of nebulosity that lies along the border between the constellations Monoceros and Canis Major. The region is often referred to as the Seagull Nebula, and includes a larger nebulous region as well and open clusters NGC 2335 and NGC 2343 and a small reflection nebula named NGC 2327 (in the wing of the Seagull). The open cluster Messier 50 (M50 or NGC 2323) can be seen in the upper left corner.

Tech Specs: Williams Optics Redcat 51 Telescope, ZWO ASI071MC camera running at -10F, total capture 2 hours and 10 minutes using 300-second exposures, Optolong L-eXtreme 2” filter, Sky-Watcher EQ6R-Pro mount, ZWO EAF and ASIAir Pro, processed in DSS and PixInsight. Image Date: February 4, 2024. Location: The Dark Side Observatory (W59), Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).

This planetary nebula is located right on the border of Taurus and Perseus. It is cataloged as NGC 1514 and is also known as the Crystal Ball Nebula. The magnitude, depending on the source, is listed at 10.9.

Observation data: J2000 epoch

Right ascension: 04h 09m 16.98573s

Declination: +30° 46′ 33.4699″

Distance: 1520 ly

Apparent magnitude (V): 9.27

Apparent dimensions (V): 2.2′

Constellation: Taurus

Tech Specs: Orion 8” RC Telescope, ZWO ASI2600MC camera running at -10F, 68 x 60 seconds, Celestron CGEM-DX pier mounted, ZWO EAF and ASIAir Pro, processed in DSS and PixInsight. Image Date: January 2, 2024. Location: The Dark Side Observatory (W59), Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).

Equipment:

Telescope: Orion XT10i on Skywatcher EQ6 Pro

Camera: Canon 550D unmodified + Baader MPCC

Guiding: Orion Magnificent Mini Autoguider + PHD Guiding

Software: APT, DeepSkyStacker, PixInsight

Images: 120x30sec ISO1600 Lights; 50x Darks; 50x Bias; 50x Flats

Telescopi o obiettivi di acquisizione: Celestron 127/1500 Maksutov-Cassegrain

Camere di acquisizione: Svbony SV105

Montature: Celestron SLT

Software: ASTROSURFACE · PIPP x64 2.5.9 · DeepSkyStacker

Data:09 Novembre 2020

Ora: 12:43

Pose: 250

FPS: 15,00000

Lunghezza focale: 1500

Seeing: 3

Trasparenza: 7

I combined a stack of 10 with DeepSkyStacker to deal with the noise, and I had a heck of a time doing it, too! :) Maybe because I accidentally shot in jpeg...

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 31 under Bortle 3/4 skies. Conditions seemed about perfect, Sadr was nearly directly overhead, and my focus was dead-on, making processing simple.

Notable nebulae contained in this extent are the Gamma Cygni Nebula around Sadr and the Crescent Nebula near the center.

Taken on my third consecutive night of astrophotography - I'm not going out tonight despite the likely clear skies - I need a break.

Aug. 2 update: A re-edit, this time without a luminance layer - makes the reds less pink.

I managed to add 3 hours to my previous version of this on Saturday night, but that has little to do with the above result. This is my first attempt at collaboration with my good friend Dave Williams (whom I have never met, as he lives in the frozen northern wastelands known as Manchester). Dave works in NB, and provided Ha, which I added as a luminance layer (after trying a few other techniques without success), and this is the result. Now I'm fully aware that what you can see above is predominantly luminance, with a bit of RGB thrown in to provide character, so Dave very much deserves most of the credit for this image. However, as he's not on Flickr, I'm happy to accept it :)

This is also my first attempt at combining Ha with RGB (albeit as luminance), and It makes my previous version look a bit sick :)

RGB:

SW ED80/EQ5

Nikon D70 modded, Baader Neodymium filter

45 x 180secs iso 800, 60 x 180secs iso 640 (5 hours 15 minutes)

Guiding (RA only): Quickcam Pro4000/9x50 finderscope, PHD

Stacked in DSS and processed in CS5

Ha:

15 x 600secs (2 hours 30 minutes)

Used Hasselblad 250mm f4 lens at f4 (cropped - quite a bit!)

Moravian G2 8300

Astrodon 5nm Ha filter

Takahashi EM200 mount

Guiding: DMK through an old 100mm M42 lens

This was inevitable - got to leave it alone now.

Little less brutal, and easier on the blue. Also, I used lens correction in the previous version to compensate for the lack of flattener. That distorts the entire image though, and made the galaxy a little wide of girth! Better in this version I think (if you don't look at the corners) :)

SW ED80/EQ5, cropped

Nikon D70 modded, Baader Neodymium filter

18 x 4 mins iso 1600

30 x 6 mins iso 1250

22 x 10 mins iso 800

Guiding: Quickcam Pro4000/9x50 finderscope, PHD

Stacked in DSS and processed in CS5

Reprocessed again here :)