NGC 1333 is the currently most active region of star formation in the Perseus molecular cloud. It was first discovered by Eduard Schonfeld in 1855 and is a bright reflection nebula in the western portion of the Perseus molecular cloud. The star BD +30◦549 illuminates NGC 1333 and was found to be a B8 spectral type. It is approximately 1000 light years away and is about 15 light years in diameter.

I rarely capture data on LRGB targets, so this has been a baptism of fire for me!!

Details

M: Avalon Linear Fast Reverse

T: Orion Optics ODK10

C: QSI683 with Baader LRGB filters

Luminance 60x600s

Red, Green and Blue 30x600s for each filter

Totalling 25 hours of exposure.

The famous Horsehead Nebula in the constellation Orion, taken back in March.

For more information please see my Astrobin: astrob.in/fw4yw0/I/

Imaged in floodlight moon conditions, think it was a half moon actually, so detail is lost, but this image is not half bad with lots of subs stacked.

M42 MN190 800ISO 62M 117 frames.

MN190/71/2inch Maksutov Newtonian telescope.

Canon 760D,

Skywatcher NEQ6 mount,

MGEN3 guiding.

A very hungry looking dark nebula.

OTA: Astro Physics RH305 f3.8

GUIDER: ZWO ASI6200

GUIDE CAMERA: ZWO ASI174mm guide camera

FILTERS: Astrodon LRGBHα filters

ACCESSORIES: OPTEC Gemini rotating focuser

MOUNT: Bisque Paramount MEII

LOCATION: M & K Observatory, NSW

©2021JKLOVELACE

To see more of my work and to buy prints visit www.jklovelacephotography.com/pages/space

Making of: astrocamp.eu/en/astrophoto-messier-45-pleiades-03-21/

Reprocessed 09/2023

A Ha-OIII-RGB composite of Messier 78 (NGC 2068) is my first attempt at this deep sky object and this type of post-processing. It was imaged in the northern hemisphere in my yard.

M78 is the brightest diffuse reflection nebula of a group of nebulae that includes NGC 2064, NGC 2067 and NGC 2071. This group belongs to the Orion B molecular cloud complex and is about 1,350 light-years distant from Earth.

Subframes

66 Light (RGB) x 300 sec

21 Ha x 300 sec

30 OIII x 300 sec

Flat x 44

Dark x 25

Bias x 78

Total time 9.75 hrs

The Witch Head Nebula (IC 2118) lurks in the constellation Orion. It is illuminated by the nearby star Rigel.

See on Fluidr

OTA: Takahashi FSQ-106

MOUNT: Software Bisque Paramount MX

CAMERA: SBIG STX-16803

GUIDE CAMERA: SBIG STX built in

REDUCER: N/A

SOFTWARE: SGP, PhD2, TheSkyX, Pixinsight, Starnet++, Photoshop

FILTERS: Astrodon LRGB; Hα 5nm, SII 5nm, OIII 5nm

ACCESSORIES: SBIG FW-7 Filter Wheel

LOCATION: M & K Observatory, NSW Australia

To see more of my work and to buy prints visit www.jklovelacephotography.com/pages/space

My latest project which has taken over a month to complete with data from 5 separate nights, totalling 12h 35' of LRGB.

The giant molecular cloud complex, surrounding the reflection nebula NGC 1333, in this region of Perseus, lies approximately 1000 light years away and contains more than 10,000 solar masses of gas and dust. There are also several designated LBN, LDN and Vdb objects in this region which covers an area of 6º by 2º in total.

This was tough to process but I hope I've done it justice.

This star forming region in the constellation Perseus resembles a snail inching its way across the Galaxy.

OTA: Takahashi CCA-250

MOUNT: Software Bisque Paramount ME-II w/AOE encoders

CAMERA: FLI PL-16803

REDUCER: Takahashi 645 CA 0.72X (f/3.6)

SOFTWARE: SGP, PhD2, TheSkyX, Pixinsight, Starnet++, Photoshop

FILTERS: Astrodon LRGB; 5nm Hα, SII 3nm, OIII 3nm

ACCESSORIES: FLI CFW 5-7 Filter Wheel

LOCATION: SRO

See on Fluidr

To see more of my work and to buy prints visit www.jklovelacephotography.com/pages/space

IC 434. 1600 Lightyears away in the Northern Constellation Orion

The Horsehead and Flame nebulae in Orion. The famous Horsehead is a dark nebula, catalogued as Barnard 33, framed by the Hydrogen Alpha emissions of IC434. The large bright star is Alnitak, the furthest East of the three stars of Orion's belt and further east is The Flame Nebula, NGC 2024. Further emission nebulae, including NGC2023, IC435 and VdB51 also feature.

The total image is composed of a total of 7 hours 13 minutes of Hydrogen Alpha and RGB data.

Full details on Astrobin: app.astrobin.com/i/kviaqr

The Pleiades or Seven Sisters is an open star cluster in the constellation Taurus. The seven main stars are easily visible with the naked eye.

This is a reprocessed version of an image taken back in October 2023 which now reveals fainter dust surrounding the main stars.

More details on Astrobin: astrob.in/48x9ar/B/

M78 is is the blue reflection nebula in the centre of the frame and Barnards loop is the red / pink area to the left of the frame.

The nebula Messier 78 (also known as M78 or NGC 2068) is a reflection nebula in the constellation Orion. It was discovered by Pierre Méchain in 1780.

M78 is the brightest diffuse reflection nebula of a group of nebulae that include NGC 2064, NGC 2067 and NGC 2071. This group belongs to the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex and is about 1,600 light years distant from Earth.

Barnard's Loop (Sh2-276) is an emission nebula in the constellation of Orion.The loop takes the form of a large arc centered approximately on the Orion Nebula. The stars within the Orion Nebula are believed to be responsible for ionizing the loop. Recent estimates place it at a distance of between 518 light years and 1434 light years giving it dimensions of either about 100 or 300 light years across respectively. It is thought to have originated in a supernova explosion about 2 million years ago, which may have also created several known runaway stars.

This is another image taken with the dual rig.

Details

M: Mesu 200

T: Takahashi FSQ85 0.73x

C: QSI683 and Moravian G2-8300 with Baader RGB filters, 3nm Ha Astrodon filters and Hutech IDAS.

70x300s RGB

30x1800s Ha

45x1200s Luminance

​Total exposure time 47 hours 30 mins.

This has been blended as a simple RGB combination, then with the Ha data added into the red channel. The luminance layer was created using the luminance data and some Ha data added.

Making of: astrocamp.eu/en/astrophoto-ngc-6914-07-21/

This region of the sky, in the constellation Monoceros, contains many different types of objects including Reflection nebulae (NGC2170), Hydrogen Alpha Emission nebulae (LBN999) and lots of surrounding molecular dust clouds. It is low in the sky from my latitude so more difficult to capture clean data and I also battled with intermittent clouds and a large number of satellite trails.

Takahashi FSQ-85EDX with 1.01x Flattener

Altair Astro Hypercam 26C

iOptron CEM70

16 hours of RGB data captured with APT

Processed using AstroPixelProcessor, Pixinsight and Photoshop

More details and hires on Astrobin: astrob.in/swtfm6/K/

I have been very fortunate over the past week to have had 7 continuous clear nights which is unheard of here in Devon, in fact I can't ever remember having such a prolonged spell.

This image of the Strawberry or Raspberry nebula is the first from this week. SH2-263 is an emission nebula juxtaposed with the reflection nebula VdB 38. The main sequence, blue giant HD34989, located around 736.26 light years from Earth, illuminates the nebula which is located just north of the star Bellatrix in the head of Orion.

Capture details on Astrobin: app.astrobin.com/i/yuajdn

Apologies if you've seen this before, I accidentally deleted it so I'm reposting it!

NGC7023 is an open star cluster that illuminates parts of the Iris Nebula (LBN 487). I used 140 captures, each with 120 seconds of exposure time resulting in ca. 4.6h overall exposure time.

NGC7023 ist ein offener Sternhaufen der Teile des Irisnebels (LBN 487) erleuchtet. Hier habe ich 140 Aufnahmen mit jeweils 120 Sekunden Belichtungszeit verwendet, was etwa 4,6h Gesamtbelichtungszeit entspricht.

Capture:

APT, PHD2, TS RC 8" @ 1090mm, CCD47 Reducer, camera Touptek (ATR3 CMOS 26000 KPA)

Processing:

Siril (Stacking), GIMP, LR

This is a wide-field image of Lagoon (M8) & Trifid nebulae (M20) in Sagittarius constellation. These nebulae are both star nurseries. The Lagoon nebula is emission nebula mainly composed of Hydrogen gas. The black focal spots in the nebula are protostar collapsing dust clouds called Bok globules. The nebula is brightened by two giant stars in the centre and the open star cluster NGC 6530 above it. In the other side, the Trifid nebula which is composed of Red emission nebula & Blue reflection nebula. It’s called trifid because the dark dust lanes are separating the nebula into three lobes. Its about 5,200 light years distance. Gear setup: WO Redcat51 f/4.9, Optolong L-Pro, ZWO ASI 2600 MC, iOptron Sky Guider Pro unguided, ASIair. Acquisition 20 x 180 sec subs, 20 Darks, 50 Bias. Total one hour integration. Processed by DSS, PS and Topaz Denoise AI. Little cropped from sky Bortle 4.

It has been over 10 years since I shot this target (targets?) by itself, and I wanted to see what I could get from my backyard with a filter set and mono camera instead of a one-shot color camera.

Telescope: Celestron Edge HD 925 at f/2.3 with Hyperstar

Camera: Atik 414-EX mono

Filters: 2" L, R, G, B, and Hα from Optolong using Starizona filter slider system

L: 57 10s exposures

R: 64 30s exposures

G: 77 30s exposures

B: 59 30s exposures

Hα: 47 50s exposures

Preprocessing with bias, dark, and flat frames in Nebulosity; registration, stacking, channel combination, and initial processing in PixInsight; final touches in Photoshop

The image is rotated so the top is 19.7° east of north. All data taken from Bortle 8/9 skies in my backyard in Long Beach, CA on the night of 2022-07-02.

Also known as Cadwell 4, NGC7023 is a bright reflection nebula of magnitude 6.8 located in the constellation of Cepheus (the King), the dust in this region that creates the nebula is illuminated by a magnitude 7 star. It is 1,300 light years distance from Earth.

Taken at Sugar Grove Nature Center, McLean, IL on 6/27/2017

Image type: HA-LRGB 20x180ea

Type: Ha-LRGB: 10:8:8:8:8 frames of 300:300, 180, 180, 180 secs each.

Hardware: AT8RC, SBIG ST8300M

Software: Nebulosity, CCDStack, Photoshop CS6

Object: Messier 78 (other designations: NGC2064, NGC2067, NGC2068, NGC2071, Ced 55u, DG 80, IRAS 05442-0000, [KPS2012] MWSC 0664) M78 is a reflection nebula in the Orion constellation about 1600 light years from earth. The nebula is lit up by two 10th magnitude stars HD 38563A and HD 38563B. The nebula also contains about 45 other young stars of type T Tauri as well as 17 Herbig–Haro objects which are nebulosity areas associated with newly born stars.

- Acquisition Date: October 28, 2017 to November 25, 2017

- Location: Western Massachusetts

- Camera: SBIG STF8300M @ -15°C

- Telescope: Telescope: Takahashi FSQ106EDX-III @f/5

- Mount: Astro-Physics AP1100

- Guide scope: Off Axis Guiding

- Guide Camera: Starlight Express Lodestar 2

Filters:

-Luminance: 29 x 5 min. (145 min.)

-Red: 24 x 5 min. (120 min.)

-Green: 25 x 5 min. (125 min.)

-Blue: 24 x 5 min. (120 min.)

Total Exposure: 510min. (8.5hr)

Limiting Magnitude: 5.1

Comments:

-Captured with Sequence Generator Pro

-Processed in Pixinsight 1.8 and Photoshop CS5

Messier 20 a.k.a Trifid Nebula

……………………………………………

Discovered in the 18th century by Charles Messier, the Trifid Nebula has an apparent diameter of about 25 light years, is located a little over 4000 light years from Earth, and can be observed in the Centaurus Arm of the Milky Way, at the edge of the constellation Sagittarius.

What is special about this deep sky object is that M20 is a combination of an open cluster (in the middle of the red area), an emission nebula (red area), a reflection nebula (blue area) and a dark nebula (those gaps in the star field). Unfortunately, this dark nebula does not stand out very well in the attached image because I had less than 3 hours of “photon collection”.

Equipment and settings:

Mount: SW EQ6R

Telescope: Explore Scientific 102ED + 0.75 APM flattener/reducer

Camera: ASI 533MM Pro

Filters : LRGB Astrodon

Total integration: 2h47’ ( R – 12x3min, B – 15x3min, G – 12x3min, L – 25x2min )

Edit in Pixinsight.

Location: my Bortle 3-4.

NGC 7129 è una nebulosa a riflessione nella costellazione di Cefeo: ha dimensioni apparenti di 7'x7' e si trova alla distanza di 3300 anni luce.

La nebulosa viene illuminata dalla luce delle stelle di un ammasso stellare contenuto al suo interno: una survey professionale ha stimato che l'ammasso è costituito da più di 130 stelle con meno di 1 milione di anni di vita, quindi stelle molto giovani astronomicamente parlando.

Tutto il campo attorno alla nebulosa è ricco di polveri interstellari.

(testo adattato da Wikipedia)

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NGC 7129 is a reflection nebula with dimension 7’x7’ located 3300 light years away in the constellation Cepheus.

A young open cluster is responsible for illuminating the surrounding nebula.

A professional survey indicated that the cluster contains more than 130 stars less than 1 million years old, so very youg stars.

All the area around NGC 7129 is rich in dust.

(text adapted from Wikipedia)

Technical data

GSO RC12 Truss - Aperture 304mm, focal lenght 2432mm, f/8

Mount 10Micron GM2000 HPSII

Camera ZWO ASI 2600 MM Pro with filter wheel 7 positions

Filters Astrodon Gen2 E-Serie Tru-Balance 50mm unmounted LRGB

Guiding system ZWO OAG-L with guide camera ASI 174MM

Exposure details:

L 44x300", R 13x300", G 14x300", B 13x300" all in bin3 -15C

Total integration time: 7h

Acquisition: Voyager, PHD2

Processing: Pixinsight 1.8, Photoshop CS5, StarXTerminator, NoiseXTerminator

SQM-L: 20.9   

Location: Promiod (Aosta Valley, Italy), own remote observatory

Date 3/4/23 August, 22 September 2022

www.robertomarinoni.com

The Pleiades, aka Messier 45, embedded in the dusty nebulosity the star cluster is passing through in Taurus. The dust clouds are illuminated by light from the hot young blue stars.

This is a stack of just 12 x 4-minute exposures, as incoming Earth clouds spoiled some frames and prevented more exposures. Even so, some high haze hampered some of the images used in the final set.

All were with the Starfield Optics Géar115 f/7 apo refractor taken as part of testing the scope, with its 0.8x Adjustable Reducer for f/5.6 and with the stock 45-megapixel Canon R5 at ISO 800. Autoguided and dithered with the MGEN3 autoguider on the Astro-Physics Mach1 mount. No dark frames or LENR applied on this mild night in November.

I brought out the faint dust clouds with the application of luminosity masks created with Lumenzia extension panel in Photoshop, plus an application of the Nebula Filter action from the Photokemi Star Tools action set on a separate stamped layer and blended into the final image. Noise reduction with RC-Astro Noise XTerminator. All stacking, alignment and processing in Photoshop.

This is image is rendered from two nights of capture, and it is my best M45 image yet. Even so, it still does not hit the mark for me.

I did not use Blink or SubframeSelector before running WBPP, but WBPP rejected a lot of frames. To better understand why, I went back and used Blink and SfS after WBPP, and saw many frames with bad tracking. It doesn't seem that WBPP rejected enough frames, so perhaps some bad frames were included in the stack. Another potential problem that I detected is that the accepted frame counts are no where near equal across the RGB channels, which possibly accounts for the greenish cast to the smaller stars.

My thoughts about how to produce a better image than this one are to 1) cull the bad frames before processing again, 2) keep the good data and collect more data to add more signal and to balance the RGB frame counts, 3) collect some stars only (20s RGB subs) data, and 4) process stars and nebula separately before combining in the final image.

not sure why they called them the Seven Sisters...

A handful of 2- and 1-minute L subs taken last night, tweaked and toned in Affinity.

Merry Christmas :)

This is my favorite region to shoot in the entire night sky. Where else can you get such a jaw-dropping splash of red, blue, and yellow-gold nebulosity - and a globular star cluster (M4) thrown in for good measure - all in one frame? And the trails of dark nebulosity confer an impression of motion - as if the colorful fireworks are shooting forward. But the object has always been a bear to process for me, and this image has "technical difficulties," but I will come back to it later and work on improving it.

This is a stack of 52 tracked (not guided) 90-second exposures taken with a stock Fujifilm X-T10 camera and Samyang 135mm f/2 lens at f/2, ISO 1600. The images were stacked in DSS and processed in Astro Pixel Processor (APP) and Photoshop. No calibration frames were applied for this image. I took flat frames but the stacking in DSS yielded a very gray image that was hard to coax any color out of, so I'll have to go back and look at what's going on there. Fortunately, APP is very good at removing gradients and vignetting, so flat frames are not really needed - for this setup anyway.

There was a lot of smoke in the air from nearby controlled burns, which I think cut down the transparency. I had to exclude a number of the early exposures because the stars were massively bloated due to light scattering by the smoke. The camera was mounted on an Orion Sirius EQ-G equatorial mount, which provided the tracking.

I recently looked at my previous image of the Witch Head nebula (flic.kr/p/2hd49Qs), and thought I could improve upon it with the additional data from my recent Orion mosaic (flic.kr/p/2k5jMXc). This is a reprocessing and crop of the mosaic.

Fuji X-T10 + Samyang 135mm + iOptron SkyTracker Pro. Bortle 3/4 skies. Data acquired in 2019 and 2020. More acquisition and processing details at flic.kr/p/2k5jMXc.

The Great Orion Nebula (Messier 42). We all know it. It’s one of the first targets we point our telescope or camera at before stumbling down the ridiculous rabbit hole that is astrophotography.

One of my main goals in astsophtoogrpahy has been to meticulously create the most detailed and deep image of the Orion Nebula I could manage. A perfect challenging in astrophotography, in my opinion, as Orion is both a delightful and easy target for beginners, and as advanced a target as we might like for revisiting in years to come. Over the past three years or so I’ve accumulated some 150 hours of data on Orion, scattered amidst assorted experiments and attempts in editing (which, up until now, I’ve never finished). Over the past four months I’ve collected the images for this rendition, and spent an embarrassing amount of time learning and experimenting with new (to me) post-processing approaches to arrive at this result. I’m sincerely delighted to share this labor of love with everyone.

Constrictive feedback and discussion are absolutely welcome.

Acquisition Details

Takahashi FSQ-106EDX4, ZWO ASI2600MM Pro, iOptron CEM-40EC

- Jan 22 2022, Jan 26 2022, Feb 4 2022

- Astronomik RGB: 75x30" (37' 30") f/5 -20°C bin 1x1

- Astronomik RGB: 480x10" (1h 20') f/5 -20°C bin 2x2

- Astronomik UV+IR L2: 136x120" (4h 32’) f/5 -20°C bin 1x1

- Astronomik UV+IR L2: 160x30" (1h 20') f/5 -20°C bin 1x1

Celestron RASA-8, ZWO ASI2600MC Pro, iOptron CEM-40EC

- Jan 23 2022, Jan 24 2022, Jan 28 2022

- Color Imaging: 60x5" (5') f/2 -20°C bin 1x1

- Color Imaging: 129x120" (4h 18') f/2 -20°C bin 1x1

Additional Details at AstroBin

www.astrobin.com/kox4bv/

Post-Processing

Source data includes two nights of long and short exposures captured with my Celestron RASA-8 and ZWO ASI2600MC Pro, and numerous nights captured with my Takahashi FSQ-106EDX4 and ZWO ASI2600MM Pro with Astronomik UV/IR L2 and Deep Sky RGB filters. With the Takahashi I captured short and long exposures in luminance and color, along with a separate 4-panel mosaic in LRGB (binned color) which I used for stars and fine detail in highlights. I discarded sub-par data from sessions liberally. A master luminance image was created with data combined from both telescopes (blended into RASA data for the larger field of view, which was a point of challenge). A master color image was created with the RASA data, which contributed color for nebulae and background. And the four-panel mosaic was prepared and processed separately, ultimately contributing detail in highlights and the stars in the final rendition. And just because, why not—I’ve gone this far—I used my best subset of 5s exposures captured in Hα, last year, for luminance on the Trapezium. (The original is more than 16000 pixels across, and I went out of my way to present fine detail so a large print could end up on my wall, allowing me to appreciate details up close, returning me to these fun and stupidly cold nights whenever I like.) Starless versions were sent out to Adobe Photoshop for final combination and blending. Some normal PixInsight steps, like HDR combination, also ended up being handled, in part, in Adobe Photoshop. PixInsight was used during this process for features such as Local Histogram Equalization.

It’s challenging to outline post-processing details on this one because the workflow ended up looking like the stereotypical insane person’s wall cataloging a crime scene investigation, but I’m delighted to answer any questions someone may have.

Added some data hoping to bring out the dusty areas a little more.

Approx 2hrs total exposure time. in 5min subs.

The Iris Nebula (NGC 7023) and the Ghost Nebula (SH2-136) in the constellation Cepheus are reflection nebulae shrouded in dark, molecular dust.

Capture details and info on Astrobin: astrob.in/xfcobc/0/

IC 5146 a.k.a. Cocoon Nebula

…………………………..................

IC5146 is a emission/reflection nebula in interaction with a star cluster. The cosmic dust floating around the nebula and the ionized gas by nearby stars form ideal conditions for the formation of new stars, making the Cocoon Nebula a true cosmic nursery.

As general information, IC 5146 has a diameter of about 15 light years and can be seen in the constellation Cygnus, being at a distance of about 4000 light years from Earth.

#luciannicu

…………………………

Equipment and settings:

Mount: Skywatcher Eq6 R

Telescope: Orion Optics VX6

Camera: ASI 533MC Pro

Filter: Baader UV/IR cut

Total integration: 4h.

120 light frames x 120 sec, + calibration frames.

Stacking in Deep Sky Stacker.

Edit in Pixinsight

Location: My Bortle 6+ backyard.

The Bogeyman (or Boogeyman) Nebula is a dark cloud of dust and hydrogen that stalks the constellation Orion. In this orientation I reveal that is in fact Elmo who has been doing the stalking!

Happy Halloween!

See on Fluidr

OTA: PlaneWave CDK14

MOUNT: Software Bisque Paramount ME-II (no AOE)

CAMERA: SBIG STX-16803

GUIDER: Astrodon Mega MOAG

GUIDE CAMERA: Starlight Xpress UltraStar

REDUCER: na

SOFTWARE: The SkyX, SGP, PhD2, Pixinsight, Photoshop

FILTERS: Astrodon LRGBHα

ACCESSORIES: na

LOCATION: SRO

To see more of my work and to buy prints visit www.jklovelacephotography.com/pages/space

A few years ago when I was very green (still am showing shades of pine) I decided to attempt to photograph Corona Australis' dusty and nebulous parts. Needless to say I failed miserably, due in part to equipment limitations but mostly due to processing limitations (not enough experience). This past weekend I was on Haleakala, and I decided that I wanted to redo, or do a take two, of Corona Australis.

It took 2 nights to collect this data, from the summit of Haleakala.

AT65EDQ

Canon EOS 6D

49 x 600sec

ISO 800

PixInsight

A little over 8 hours total integration

The “Ghost Nebula” (designated Sh2-136, VdB 141) is a reflection nebula located in the constellation Cepheus.

It lies near the star cluster NGC 7023. The Ghost Nebula is referred to as a globule (catalogued CB230) and over 2 light-years across. There are several stars embedded, whose reflected light make the nebula appear a yellowish-brown color giving it the eerie “ghost-like” appearance. The surrounding region is filled with interstellar dust and gas.

Capture info:

Location: SkyPi Remote Observatory, Pie Town, NM US

Telescope: Orion Optics UK AG14 F3.8

Mount: 10 Micron GM3000

Camera: SBIG STXL 16200

Data:

LRGB 7,6,5,6 hours respectively

Processing: Pixinsight

A two panel wide-field mosaic of the Blue Horsehead Nebula (IC 4592), a faint reflection nebula in the constellation Scorpius. The nebula is lit by the multiple Star System Nu Scorpii.

Gear:

William Optics Star 71mm f/4.9 Imaging APO Refractor Telescope.

QHY163M (Sensor cooled to -20°C).

Optolong L-Pro, R, G, B filters.

Technical Card:

Integration Time:

24 hours total (12 hours per panel).

L = 6 hours x 2 mosaic panels (Binning 1x1).

R = 2 hours x 2 mosaic panels (Binning 2x2).

G = 2 hours x 2 mosaic panels (Binning 2x2).

B = 2 hours x 2 mosaic panels (Binning 2x2).

Calibration frames:

Bias, Darks & Flats.

Image Acquisition:

Guiding in Open PHD.

Image acquisition in Sequence Generator Pro.

Plate Solving in Platesolve 2 via SGP Framing & Mosaic Wizard.

Processing:

Pre-Processing and Linear workflow in PixInsight,

and finished in Photoshop.

Astrometry Info:

Center RA, Dec: 244.286, -19.402

Center RA, hms: 16h 17m 08.686s

Center Dec, dms: -19° 24' 08.014"

Size: 4.46 x 2.97 deg.

Radius: 2.681 deg.

Pixel scale: 10 arcsec/pixel.

Orientation: Up is 186 degrees E of N.

View an Annotated Sky Chart of this image.

View this image in the WorldWideTelescope.

This image is part of the Legacy Series.

Photo usage and Copyright:

Medium-resolution photograph licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Terms (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). For High-resolution Royalty Free (RF) licensing, contact me via my site: Contact.

Martin

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**Note**

I've reprocessed the Ha luminance to tone down the stars and soften the image while keeping the detail around the cave.

Well I managed to image this over one night between 22:45 and 3:45. I was going to add more Ha/Oiii to reduce the noise but by the time I got a another clear night the moon was back. The Oiii was very faint and I had to stretch it to destruction which made it very noise. As there was no detail in the Oiii (all detail comes from the Ha) I used a Gaussian Blur of 20 which solved the problem.

Object Description:-

SH2-155 (Sharpless 155) the Cave Nebula is made up of a combination of areas of emission/reflection/dark Nebula. It lies in the constellation of Cepheus at a distance of approximate 2,400 ly with a visual mag of 7.7. The Cave refers to the area of ionized Ha where star formation is actively ongoing.

Notes:-

1. This is not very strong in Oiii so I used a gain of 200 to obtain the Oiii subs.

2. To get the colour neutral stars without halos I used a "Starless" Oiii and Ha images but used an Ha Luminance which include the Stars.

EQUIPMENT:-

Telescope Meade 6000 115mm and AZ-EQ6 GT

ZWO ASI1600mm-Cool cmos camera

Orion Mini Auto Guide

Astronomik 12nm Ha Filter

Astronomik 6nm Oiii Filter

Chip Temp Cooled to -20 degC

IMAGING DETAILS:-

SH2-155 Cave Nebula (Cepheus)

Ha Gain 139 (Unit Gain)

Oiii Gain 200

32 Ha subs@300sec (2h 40min)

22 Oiii subs@300sec (1h 50min)

Total imaging Time 4h 30min

Dithering

20 Darks

20 Flats

PROCESSING/GUIDING SOFTWARE:-

APT "Astro Photograph Tools"

DSS

PS CS2

The Running Man Nebula or NGC 1977 is a reflection nebula that is found in the Orion constellation ... almost 1500 lightyears away. It is called the Running Man because the shape looks exactly like that ... ie a man running. It is to the left in this photo ... a purple shape on a field of blue. But in the night sky the Running Man is actually above Orion, but here in this photo I rotated it so that you could see it better.

The Orion Nebula (Messier 42 or NGC 1976) on the right here in this photo is a diffuse nebula just south of Orion's Belt in the constellation of Orion. It is a bright nebulae and is visible to the naked eye in the night sky ... but only as a faint fuzzy smudge unless you have the help of a telescope.

This image is composed of only 11 images stacked and processed in PixInsight and Photoshop. With more images there would be much more detail visible.

The Pleiades also known as the Seven Sisters and Messier 45, is an asterism of an open star cluster containing young B-type stars in the northwest of the constellation Taurus. The cluster is dominated by hot blue luminous stars that have formed within the last 100 million years.

After lot's of clouds, rain and storms in Spain, I am really happy to be able to image this open cluster and reflection nebula in two short nights. A very simple capture and edit to kick off imaging during some moonless skies.

115 x 300s exposures totalling 9 hours 30 minutes.

Full details and a full resolution image available at astrob.in/kz8q2q/0/

“Reprocessed Image of NGC7023 Iris Nebula”

Original image link:- flic.kr/p/2panefq

This is a rework of NGC7023 Iris Nebula taken with the “Explore scientific 16mp OSC” back in October 2023, this camera was kindly on loan/test from Kerin at Telescope House.

This time I used GraXpert AI to remove the noise. This help me to stretch the image further, this meant I could pull out more of the interstellar dust. I also used Siril “General Hyperbolic Stretch” transformation but this time along with “Human Weighted Luminance” to preserve the colour. I finished the image of using “Affinity Photo 2”. Although this software is similar to Photoshop CS2 and does everything I require and more, it’s going to take me time to work out where everything is.

This is a bright reflection Nebula in the constellation of Cepheus. The nebula, which shines at magnitude +6.8, is illuminated by a magnitude +7.4 star and lies 1,300 light-years away and is 6 light-years across. Its Apparent Dimension is 18' x 18'. The designated No. NGC7023 actually refers to the open cluster within the nebulosity which has it own designation of LBN487.

EQUIPMENT:-

Explore Scientific 102mm F7 APO Carbon

Explore Scientific 0.7 Focal Reducer

Skywatcher AZ-EQ6 GT

Explore Scientific 16mp cooled OSC

Orion Mini Auto Guide

Chip Temp Cooled to -10 degC

IMAGING DETAILS:-

NGC7023 Iris Nebula (Cepheus)

Gain 500 (Unit Gain) in APT

Offset 91

Dithering

32 RGB subs@480 (4h 16min)

20 Darks

25 Flats

PROCESSING/GUIDING SOFTWARE:-

APT "Astro Photograph Tools”

PHD2

DSS

GraXpert AI

Siril

Affinity photo 2

48x300sec.

Acquisition details: Fujifilm X-T10, Samyang 135mm f/2.0 ED UMC @ f2.0, ISO 1600, 48 x 60 sec, tracking with iOptron SkyTracker Pro, stacking with DeepSkyStacker, editing with Astro Pixel Processor and GIMP, taken just before astronomic dawn on Apr. 20, 2020 from Bortle 2 skies. At my latitude, 47 deg. N, this region of the sky is at about 20 deg above the horizon at its highest.

The Orion Nebula, M42, with its companion nebula M43 to the north, and the blue Running Man Nebula at top (aka NGC 1975), all in a clear but moonlit sky, illuminated by a first quarter Moon, making the sky blue. So this can’t be a very deep image, but it shows the main features visible in a large telescope. The loose open cluster, NGC 1981, is at top — I should have framed this scene a little more north to better include the cluster.

This is a blend, using luminosity masks, of three sets of exposures: 8 x 8 minutes for the main image content + 4 x 2 minutes for a mid-level exposure for the core area + 1 x 30-second for the Trapezium area right at the core.

This sort of “high dynamic range” blending is necessary for M42 as it contains such a range of brightness that no single exposure can record it all. However, I did not use HDR methods to do the blending, but luminosity masks which are easy to make with one click in Photoshop — Command/Control click on the RGB Channel of each image to select the highlights then add a mask to that image — and they allow far greater control of the blending.

All were with the Astro-Physics Traveler apo refractor at f/6 with the Hotech field flattener and Nikon D750 (not modified) at ISO 200!

Sh2-155 or Sharpless 155 is a diffuse nebula in the constellation Cepheus, within a larger nebula complex containing emission, reflection, and dark nebulosity. It is widely known as the Cave Nebula, presumably derived from photographic images showing a curved arc of emission nebulosity corresponding to a cave mouth (roughly center of image). Sh2-155 is an ionized H II region with ongoing star formation activity, at an estimated distance of 725 parsecs (2400 light-years) from Earth.

Capture info:

Location: Orion’s Belt Remote Observatory, Mayhill NM

Telescope: Takahashi 180ED

Mount: Paramount MX+

Camera: SBIG STXL 16200

Data: 4.75,4.25,4,4.75,4.5 hours LRGB , Ha respectively

Processing: Pixinsight

A farewell to one of the most imaged objects in the night sky. A project I started in February on the Esprit 100ED telescope at the complex, but didn’t manage to get round to edit it until now. I used it to practice some new scripts in PixInsight for image blending. I am happy with the details in this image, the Esprit 100ED really is a great telescope for wide field imaging. The focal length of this image is 564mm after using the Skywatcher field flattener.

A much higher resolution image with imaging details can be found on my Astrobin page at: astrob.in/ev6jv9/0/

Thank you for looking.

Technical summary:

Captured: 9 Nights in February 2024

Location: Turismo Astronómico, Los Coloraos, Gorafe, Spain

Bortle Class: 3

Total Integration: 26h 54m

Filters: Baader Moon & Skyglow, Optolong L-Ultimate

Pixel Scale: 1.4 arcsec/pixel

Telescope: Skywatcher Esprit 100ED

Image Camera: ZWO ASI2600MC Pro

Mount: Skywatcher EQ 6R Pro

Capture software: NINA, PHD2

Editing software: PixInsight, Adobe Lightroom

A wide-field HDR image of the Pleiades (also known as the Seven Sisters, or Messier 45 (M45).

The Pleiades is an open star cluster containing middle-aged hot B-type stars, located in the constellation of Taurus. It is among the nearest star clusters to Earth, and is visible with the naked eye. The cluster is dominated by hot blue and luminous stars that have formed within the last 100 million years. Reflection nebulae around the brightest stars were once thought to be left over material from the formation of the cluster, but are now considered likely to be an unrelated dust cloud in the interstellar medium through which the stars are currently passing.

About this image:

A combination of old RGB and new LRGB data imaged with 2 different telescopes about 2 years apart.

Image Acquisition & Plate Solving:

SGP Mosaic and Framing Wizard.

PlaneWave PlateSolve 2 via SGP.

Integration time:

6 hours DSLR RGB (RGGB).

12 hours Monochrome LRGB (L-Pro, R, G, B).

18 hours total integration time.

Processing:

Pre-Processing and Linear workflow in PixInsight,

and finished in Photoshop.

Astrometry Info:

Center RA, Dec: 56.501, 24.176

Center RA, hms: 03h 46m 00.162s

Center Dec, dms: +24° 10' 32.409"

Size: 4.6 x 3.18 deg.

Radius: 2.795 deg.

Pixel scale: 10.3 arcsec/pixel.

Orientation: Up is 92.2 degrees E of N.

View an Annotated Sky Chart for this image.

View this image in the WorldWideTelescope.

Martin

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NGC 1333 is a combination reflection/emission/dark nebula found in the constellation Perseus.

Telescope: AT130EDT, with AT 0.8x FF/FR

Camera: Nikon D5500 H-alpha

25 x 360s light frames

This peculiar portrait from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope showcases NGC 1999, a reflection nebula in the constellation Orion. NGC 1999 is around 1350 light-years from Earth and lies near to the Orion Nebula, the closest region of massive star formation to Earth. NGC 1999 itself is a relic of recent star formation — it is composed of detritus left over from the formation of a newborn star.

Just like fog curling around a street lamp, reflection nebulae like NGC 1999 only shine because of the light from an embedded source. In the case of NGC 1999, this source is the aforementioned newborn star V380 Orionis which is visible at the centre of this image. The most notable aspect of NGC 1999’s appearance, however, is the conspicuous hole in its centre, which resembles an inky-black keyhole of cosmic proportions.

This image was created from archival Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 observations that date from shortly after Servicing Mission 3A in 1999. At the time, astronomers believed that the dark patch in NGC 1999 was something called a Bok globule — a dense, cold cloud of gas, molecules, and cosmic dust that blots out background light. However, follow-up observations using a collection of telescopes including ESA’s Herschel Space Observatory revealed that the dark patch is actually an empty region of space. The origin of this unexplained rift in the heart of NGC 1999 remains unknown.

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, ESO, K. Noll; CC BY 4.0

The Rho Ophiuchi and the Antares region are incredible glimpses of the night sky. They are full of multicolor reflection and dark nebulae.

Blue, orange, cyan and red nebulae decorate one of the most beautiful constellation of the boreal sky: the Scorpius (one of my favourites).

In this photo on the left you can see the cyan/blue Rho Ophiuchi nebula near a scythe-like dark nebula on the right. Two of the three stars inside the Rho Ophiuchi nebula are actually double stars.

Antares is on the right, just a little bit over the frame (south). That's why everything looks golden in that area (Antares is a red giant).

Unfortunately the sky was not perfectly clear that day so the photo is not like I imagined it.

Canon EOS 60D (unmodded) and TS APO 80/480 Triplet on a HEQ5 guided mount (QHY5L-II + 60/200).

Photos were acquired with Astrojan Tools and PHD Guiding.

Calibration and stacking with MaximDL and post processing with PixInsight LE and Photoshop.

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⚙️ TECHNICAL DETAILS:

480mm - f/6.0 - ISO800

Light Frames: 24x300''

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This is a mosaic that I had mostly constructed in 2019. The area around Antares (brightest star, in the lower left) was too challenging for a straightforward approach, so I hoped to try some different optics or other approaches in 2020.

I did not get out to a dark sky site with my rig in 2020. Hmmmm...

A magnitude 1 star like Anatares star will bring out any oddities in your optical path. Regardless of where I put the star in the field, I got these strange Lissajous figures of light somewhere else in the frame. After trying to shoot with an 80mm refractor, I thought about taking a bunch of images with Antares in different places on the sensor. Then, maybe I could build the mosaic around where these odd ghosts were appearing.

Thankfully, that worked. All sub-frames for this mosaic are 90 s exposures with an Atik 314L+ color CCD on a HyperStar on a Celestron Edge HD 925. Stacks were used to construct 23 separate panels. Preprocessing was done in Nebulosity. Registration, stacking, and plate solving was in PixInsight, then Mosaic by Coordinates to put the panels together. Some additional processing in PI before moving over to Photoshop for the final tweaks.

What all is in this image? The lower left corner is Antares - a Type M1.5 Iab-Ib supergiant star. The brightest star in the constellation Scorpius, it is massive enough that it will end its existence with a core collapse supernova. It is actually a double star, with its companion being a B2.5 main sequence star. I have no chance of resolving the companion with this setup. To the right of Antares is M4 - the globular cluster that is nearest to the Earth, at about 2200 pc away. This is one way of understanding how you can't tell distances from brightness or visual appearances in space. Antares is only about 170 pc away - about 12 times closer. M4 (NGC 6121) is a gravitationally bound association of tens of thousands of older stars. Another globular cluster - NGC 6144 - is above and to the right of Antares. At 8500 pc, it is roughly 4 times more distant than M4. This cluster is also partially obscured by all of the dust in this region.

That dust appears bright blue around the star i 22 Sco in the upper left. This is a reflection nebula - the dust particles are the right size to preferentially scatter the blue light from the star. Portions of this dust complex fill most of the left half of this image.

The bright star in the upper right is Alniyat (σ Sco). The red glow associated with it is an emission nebula. The hydrogen in this nebula is hit with high energy photons that separate the electrons from their nuclei. As they recombine, the strongest visible wavelength produced is this characteristic red glow.