Taken from Oxfordshire, UK with a William Optics 70mm refractor, 2x Barlow and ASI120MC camera, when the Moon was a 40% illuminated Waxing Crescent.

This is a 3 pane mosaic, each pane was a 2,000 frame video shot with SharpCap Pro, the best 75% of the frames were stacked with Autostakkert! 3. The images were stitched using Microsoft ICE, then processed in Lightroom and Fast Stone Image Viewer

Moon 60.5% Waning Gibbous. LRGB (270 Frames Each) Captured in SharpCap Pro. ASI1600MM, SharpStar 107PH Triplet. Processed in Siril. Wavelets in Registax. Enhanced Colour in Lightroom CC.

Messier 78 Reflection Nebula in the Constellation Orion

Messier 78 or M 78, also known as NGC 2068, is a reflection nebula in the constellation Orion. It was discovered by Pierre Méchain in 1780 and included by Charles Messier in his catalog of comet-like objects that same year.

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. M78 is easily found in small telescopes as a hazy patch and involves two stars of 10th and 11th magnitude. These two B-type stars, HD 38563 A and HD 38563 B, are responsible for making the cloud of dust in M78 visible by reflecting their light.

(Wikipedia.org)

Technical Information for Image

Telescope: William Optics Zenithstar 81 Refractor

Mount: iOptron CEM25P

Imaging Camera: ZWO ASI294MC. Gain 120. Cooled to -5C.

Filter: Optolong L-Pro

Guiding: William Optics 50mm, 200mm FL, ASI290MC camera

Exposures: 6 x 240s Bin 2x2

Capture: APT

Guiding: PHD2

Polar Alignment: SharpCap Pro

Site: Borrego Springs, CA USA, Bortle 4

Processing: Pixinsight with Final Touchup in Photoshop CC

IC410, NGC2244 and NGC2264 with the ES 80mm ED triplet refractor and Zwo ASI294MC Pro cooled color camera

Was trying out the focuser from Zwo EAF, Works flawless with SharpCap Pro

Had high thin clouds, tracking soo soo, better on NGC2244

Optolong L eNhance 2' filter

#SharpCap Pro, PoleMaster

Ioptron i45 Pro EQ mount, PHD2 guiding

Orion 60mm guidescope SSAG

220 Gain offset 10, -10c cooling,

IC410 was 90 minutes, 1 minute exposure each

NGC2244 was 90 minutes, 1 minute each

NGC2264 was 15 minutes, 1 minute each

50 darks 50 flats and 50 bias frames

For NGC2264 was 8 darks, 8 flats and 8 bias frames

Astro Pixel Processor and PS

Ecco un mosaico di Luna Gibbosa Crescente al 78% del 1° gennaio 2023.

Usando la tecnica della "Mineral Moon", ho aumentato la saturazione in ognuna delle parti per evidenziare le piccole differenze cromatiche, le quali indicano una diversa concentrazione di elementi chimici sulla superficie del nostro satellite. Quindi il blu dei mari lunari indica una maggiore presenza di ferro e titanio, le zone di colore arancio o giallo sono ricche di ferro ma povere di titanio e quelle rosse sono povere di entrambi gli elementi. I crateri da impatto più recenti tendono all’azzurro o blu chiaro, mentre quelli più antichi al rosso e blu scuro. Il colore marrone indica la presenza di antico materiale vulcanico.

Dati:

Telescopio Celestron 114/910 Newtoniano

Montatura Eq2 motorizzata Sky-Watcher

Camera planetaria QHY5L-ll-C

Filtro UV IR cut

Sharpcap 3.2 per l’acquisizione di 25 video ognuno da 30 secondi e contenente 443 fotogrammi

Autostakkert! 3.1.4 e Astrosurface T5-TITANIA per le elaborazioni

GIMP per aumentare la saturazione dei colori

Autostitch per assemblare le 25 parti

Astrosurface per il bilanciamento del bianco e per regolare luminosità e contrasto

Condizioni del cielo: ottima trasparenza e seeing sufficiente

Luogo: Cabras, Sardegna, Italia

Data e ora delle riprese: 01-01-2023 dalle 22:30 UTC alle 22:55 UTC

Copernicus – diameter is 96 km, named after the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus. It typifies craters that formed during the Copernican period in that it has a prominent ray system.

From Wikipedia: The Copernican Period in the lunar geologic timescale runs from approximately 1.1 billion years ago to the present day. The base of the Copernican period is defined by impact craters that possess bright optically immature ray systems.

Tech Specs: ZWO ASI290MC camera and Meade 12” LX90 telescope mounted on a Celestron CGEM-DX mount. Software used included Sharpcap v2.9, AutoStakkert! Alpha Version 2.3.0.21, ImagesPlus v5.75a, and Registax v6.1.0.8. Photographed on January 7, 2017 from Weatherly, Pennsylvania.

Composite including full moon data for the ‘dark side’ of the moon from 27.02.21

Shot using a 70-200 + 1.4 extender for 280mm on a ZWO 533

Capturing using Sharpcap

50% of 10,000 frames, stacked in Autostakkert3

While I have the equipment disarmed to make some improvements especially on the focuser to avoid tilts on the imaging train and guidescope mount to avoid differential flexing, I set about reprocessing some recent images, trying to apply everything I have learned lately.

I Hope you enjoy it, clear skies!

Ariel

Equipo Principal: ZWO ASI 1600 mm-pro + SW Explorer 200p + SW Coma Corrector 0.9x + EQ6-R-Pro + Long Perng 2" Dual Speed Low Profile Crayford Focuser + ZWO EAF

Equipo guía: guidescope 60/240 mm, camara guia ZWO ASI 120mm mini

*Gain 139, -20 º C, Ha 7nm 2" Optolong, 71x180"

*Gain 139, -20 º C, Oiii-CCD 6.5 nm 2" Optolong, 71x180"

100 Darks

100 Flats por filtro

Polar Align: SharpCap 3.2

Adquisición: SGP 3.1

Procesado: Pixinsight 1.8.8, PS

Pinwheel galaxy M101 is a bright and large galaxy. It is larger than our Milky way galaxy 170,000 light years across. It’s distance from Earth is about 27 Million light years. The image also shows the newly discovered supernova SN2023ixf in the upoer arm. Gear setup: Celestron HD 8 @ f/7, iOptron GEM45 guided by OAG & ZWO174MM, ZWO 2600MC @ 0, Optolong L-Pro 2”. Light subs 25 x 300 sec, Flats 20, Darks 10, Bias 50. Total integration 2 hours. Captured by APT, Sharpcap pro, PHD2. Processed by PI & PS. Imaged from Bortle sky class 4.

NGC 2194 is a rich moderately concentrated open cluster found in the arm of Orion. It has a magnitude of 8.5 and is about 12,300 light years away from Earth. The cluster has 140+ stars down to magnitude 15. The bright star on the lower left is 73 Orionis, a main sequence star, magnitude 5.43.

Tech Specs: Sky-Watcher Esprit 120mm ED Triplet APO Refractor, Celestron CGEM-DX mount (pier mounted), ZWO ASI071MC-Pro running at -25C, 20 x 60 second exposures, GAIN 200, guided using a ZWO ASI290MC and Orion 60mm guide scope. Captured using SharpCap v3.2. Image date: January 1, 2020. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, PA, USA.

L'activité solaire est très forte ces jours-ci...la région action AR3664 est retour selon les analyses de Spaceweather, maintenant sous l'appellation AR3697

Soleil du 1er juin avec 8 régions actives et 135 taches solaires.

The Sun is very active these days. The famous active area AR3664 seems to be back, not tagged as AR3697.

==

Risingcam IMX571 color

William Optics Zenithstar73ii

iOptron CEM26

Filtre UV/IR cut

Filtre Thousand Oaks Solarlite ND5

Exp. 18ms / Gain 100

Best 500 de 3000

Aquisition: Sharpcap

Traitement: PIPP, AutoStakkert 4.0, Registax et Gimp

@Astrobox 2.0 / St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Québec

AstroM1

more data 4 hours total in HA

first go around in processing. If I was not getting up to drive to Stellafane at 3 AM, I'd be out getting another 2-3 hours of data.

30@ 300 seconds HA filter

15 darks

Scope: AT65EDQ

Mount: iOptron iEQ45

Camera: ZWO ASI183M non cooled

Guide camera: QHY5Lii

Guide Scope: Meade 60mm achro fl 300

Orion 5 position manual filter wheel

ZWO LRGB

Schuler HA 9nm, Schuler 9nm Sii

MyFocuer Pro v2 (Robert Brown)

Bahtinov mask

Software: APT, PHD2, Sharpcap, CdC, Pixinsight, Photoshop, Nic Dfine 2, Astronomy Tools plug in, Google Chrome Remote Desktop, autostakert!3, Registax

Core of the Orion Nebula-The Trapezium

It has been over a month since skies were clear enough to image. I usually don't image while the moon is so bright, but

I decided to try live stacking in Sharpcap. I'm impressed with the results.

This was 30-10second frames taken with a QHY462C & 11" Celestron Edge HD@F/10.

Resolution ............... 0.218 arcsec/px

Rotation ................. 18.006 deg

Focal distance ........... 2740.10 mm

Pixel size ............... 2.90 um

Field of view ............ 3' 45.5" x 6' 52.8"

Image center ............. RA: 5 35 16.873 Dec: -5 23 09.11

M42 Orion Nebula Core & De Mairan's Nebula M43

This is a 3 panel mosaic using "Live Capture" in Sharpcap.

QHY462C(w/1.25" x.5 reducer) & 11" Celestron Edge HD @F/10

Each panel consists of 60-5 second images. Stacked in Live Stack, hand-aligned, merged & tweaked in Photoshop & Pixinsight

Center (RA, Dec): (83.821, -5.385)

Center (RA, hms): 05h 35m 16.941s

Center (Dec, dms): -05° 23' 04.819"

Size: 11.2 x 17.7 arcmin

Radius: 0.175 deg

Pixel scale: 0.379 arcsec/pixel

Aberkenfig, South Wales

Lat +51.542 Long -3.593

A sequence of images taken over a period of 9 years which display the proper motion of this well known binary star system. It's apparent movement is about 5" (arc seconds) per year.

Images captured using a Skywatcher 254mm Newtonian with a modified Philips SPC 900NC Webcam. Exposure time 10s on LX Mode. The telescope was initially mounted on an EQ6 HD then EQ6 Syntrek for the later captures.

I am pleased to say that the webcam used is still in working order after all these years.

Hot pixels removed before final levels slightly adjusted with G.I.M.P.

G.I.M.P. layers tool used to align, slightly crop, arrange images and add annotations.

Another page from my observations log.

Best viewed in intermediate expanded mode.

Webcam Settings using an old version of Sharpcap:

[Philips SPC 900NC PC Camera (LX Mode)]

Resolution=640x480

Colour Space / Compression=YUY2

Exposure (s)=10.0466495818267

Output Format=PNG files (*.png)

Brightness=90

Contrast=40

Saturation=72

Gamma=3

ColorEnable=255

BacklightCompensation=0

Gain=30

crab-122x30-g37-o15_-20C-qhy183c-uhcs-85f5_6-v3a.jpjg

Taken on Feb 22, 2020. 122x30 seconds, Gain 37, Offset 15, QHY183c cooled to -20C, UHC-S filter, Televue TV-85 at F/5.6. SharpCap 3.2 LiveStacking with Dither for acquisition. Metro area location (Bortle Red Zone.)

You have to zoom in on this one to appreciate the amount of detail an 85 mm objective can deliver when aggressively enhanced with modern image processing software.

While scanning the night sky in search of Saturn in August of 1665, the German amateur astronomer Abraham Ihle made an amazing discovery: the globular cluster M22. It was one of the first objects of its kind ever detected. Located 10,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Sagittarius, the cluster’s relatively bright apparent magnitude of 5.1 makes it a popular target for today’s amateur astronomers.

Image Details:

- Imaging Scope: Astrotelescopes ED 80mm Refractor

- Imaging Camera: ZWO ASI183MC Color with UV/IR Blocking filter

- Guiding Scope: William Optics 66mm Petzval

- Guiding Camera: Orion Starshoot Auto Guider

- Acquisition Software: Sharpcap

- Guiding Software: PHD2

- Light Frames: 14*3 mins @ 100 Gain, Temp -15C

- Dark Frames: 14*3 mins

- Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker

- Processed in PixInsight and Adobe Lightroom

Luna 2018-08-21 - 22:10 T.U.

Mare Imbrium, Plato, Sinus Iridum

Telescopio: Celestron C6-A XLT 150/1500 f10

Cámara: ZWO ASI120MM

Montura: EQ5 Bresser EXOS2 motorizada sin goto

Filtros: Astronomik ProPlanet 742 IR-pass filter

Software: SharpCap, AutoStakkert, Registax y Fitswork

Fecha: 2018-08-21

Hora: 22:10 T.U.

Fase lunar: 82.2% 10.7 días Creciente

Lugar: 42.615 N -6.417 W (Bembibre Spain)

Vídeo: 4 minutos

Resolución: 1280 x 960

Gain: 50

Exposure: 0,006726

Frames: 4383

Frames apilados: 20%

FPS: 18

Ecco il pianeta Giove del 15 dicembre 2023 con i satelliti Europa, Ganimede e Io visibili sulla sinistra. In una serata con turbolenza elevata ho approfittato dei pochi momenti di calma per fare qualche ripresa. L'immagine comunque sembra di buona qualità e sono visibili alcuni dettagli sulle bande e la grande macchia rossa.

Telescopio Celestron 114/910 Newton

Montatura eq2 motorizzata Sky-Watcher

Camera QHY5L-II-C

Barlow 2,5X Tecnosky

Filtro UV IR cut

Sharpcap 4 per la ripresa

PIPP, AS!4, Registax 6, Astrosurface V1 per l'elaborazione

Data e ora: 15-12-2023 19:31 UTC

Luogo: Cabras, Sardegna, Italia

Messier 31 The Andromeda Galaxy. Our Closest Galaxy Neighbor. This object never gets old to me. The things it reveals to us are amazing. The small lighter colored area in the left side of the galaxy is NGC 206. It is a star cloud of more than 300 large blue stars. Zooming in to the feature can reveal some of the individual stars. M31 has many such intriguing discoveries to explore.

Technical Information: This image was taken from a Bortle 4 site in Landers, CA, USA on a New Moon night. Telescope: Explore Scientific ES80 APO Refractor with a FL 480mm and an Orion .67 Reducer. Guiding was with Orion 50mm Guide Scope FL 242mm with a ZWO ASI290MC for the guide camera. Mount: Celestron Advanced VX. Main imaging camera: ASI294MC PRO cooled to -5C. Exposures: 24 x 120s with Gain at 120. No darks, flats or bias frames. Processed in PixInsight with use of Masked Stretch, Star Masks, Inverted and Non-Inverted Range Masks. Slight crop. Polar alignment was with SharpCap Pro.

The strongly shining, waxing gibbous moon was too hard to ignore last night. I had again intended to do some deep sky work but a combination of strong moonlight and annoying clouds made this very difficult!

So I decided I had to image our beautiful natural satellite which was now over 97% illuminated.

Towards the left of the image the blue colour of the bright crater Aristarchus is very noticeable.

I have slightly boosted the natural colour of the lunar surface to highlight the different mineral composition present in the lunar regolith. Trying to keep the colour variations and transitions as subtle as possible.

Regions which are a muddy brown are more rich in iron compounds in comparison to those areas which have a more blue cast being richer in titanium compounds.

The prominent lunar highland crater Tycho's huge ray system is well displayed.

Many thanks for looking!

Imaged with a Skywatcher Esprit 120ED scope and a ZWO 2600MC camera.

Captured using SharpCap PRO. Sharpened in Registax with final processing being done in Photoshop 2021.

= Acquisition info =

William Optics Zenithstar 73ii (FL 430mm)

Risingcam IMX571 color

iOptron CEM26

Sharpcap

= Séance photo =

13 juillet 2024 à 20h10

Filtre UV/IR

Best 450 de 3000 x 10ms

= Traitement/processing =

PIPP, Autostakkert, Registax & Gimp

@Astrobox 2.0

St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Québec

Bortle 9

AstroM1

This galaxy lies approximately 21 million light years away. It is interacting/colliding with another galaxy (smaller object to the top, NGC 5195) which has been continuing for millions of years. Several supernovas have been spotted here in recent years.

Several hours of data taken over two nights. I tweaked PHD2 Guiding to be a little more aggressive and really worked on focusing for both sessions. A pleasing result.

Image Details:

- Imaging Scope: Astrotelescopes ED 80mm Refractor

- Imaging Camera: ZWO ASI183MC Color with UV/IR Blocking filter

- Guiding Scope: William Optics 66mm Petzva

- Guiding Camera: Orion Starshoot Auto Guider

- Acquisition Software: Sharpcap

- Guiding Software: PHD2

- Light Frames: 41*5 mins @ 50 Gain, Temp -25C

- Dark Frames: 41*5 mins @ 50 Gain, Temp -25C

- Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker

- Processed in PixInsight and Adobe Lightroom

First attempt at this object from last night, which was clear and wonderful! Another tricky one to process but a decent end result. Some nice dusty action here.

This beautiful, blushing nebula is unique amongst its counterparts. While many of the nebulae visible in the night sky are emission nebulae — clouds of dust and gas that are hot enough to emit their own radiation and light — Caldwell 4, otherwise known as the Iris Nebula or NGC 7023, is a reflection nebula. This means that its color comes from the scattered light of its central star, which lies nestled in the abundant star fields of the constellation Cepheus. Located some 1,400 light-years away from Earth, the Iris Nebula’s glowing gaseous petals stretch roughly 6 light-years across.

Image Details:

- Imaging Scope: Astrotelescopes ED 80mm Refractor

- Imaging Camera: ZWO ASI183MC Color with UV/IR Blocking filter

- Guiding Scope: William Optics 66mm Petzval

- Guiding Camera: Orion Starshoot Auto Guider

- Acquisition Software: Sharpcap

- Guiding Software: PHD2

- Light Frames: 20*5 mins @ 100 Gain, Temp -15C

- Dark Frames: 20*5 mins

- Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker

- Processed in PixInsight and Adobe Lightroom

Messier 1 ... The Crab Nebula Supernova Remnant

The Crab Nebula (catalogue designations M1, NGC 1952, Taurus A) is a supernova remnant and pulsar wind nebula in the constellation of Taurus. The common name comes from William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse, who observed the object in 1842 using a 36-inch (91 cm) telescope and produced a drawing that looked somewhat like a crab. The nebula was discovered by English astronomer John Bevis in 1731, and it corresponds with a bright supernova recorded by Chinese astronomers in 1054. The nebula was the first astronomical object identified that corresponds with a historical supernova explosion. (Wikipedia.org)

Technicals:

Telescope: Orion 8 inch f4 Astrograph

Mount: Skywatcher HEQ5

Imaging Camera: ASI294MC Pro cooled to -5C . Gain 120. Captured 34 exposures of 180 seconds each.

Used the excellent Televue Paracoor Type-2 corrector.

Guiding: PHD2 with ASI178MC Camera on a ZWO 30mm, 120mm focal length, guidescope.

Filter Used: STC Astro Duo Narrowband

No Darks or Calibration Frames.

Processed in Pixinsight with Finishing Touches in Corel Paintshop Pro. Captured with APT. Polar Aligned with Sharpcap Pro.

Site: Landers, California, USA. Bortle 4 zone.

Did a little comet hunting last night. This chap is currently magnitude 14, so a tricky target. It's approximately 211,500kms away from Earth.

Image Details:

- Imaging Scope: Astrotelescopes ED 80mm Refractor

- Imaging Camera: ZWO ASI183MC Color with UV/IR Blocking filter

- Guiding Scope: William Optics 66mm Petzval

- Guiding Camera: Orion Starshoot Auto Guider

- Acquisition Software: Sharpcap

- Guiding Software: PHD2

- Light Frames: 14*3 mins @ 100 Gain, Temp -15C

- Dark Frames: 14*3 mins

- Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker

- Processed in PixInsight and Adobe Lightroom

Here is a view of the most distant globular cluster in the Milky Way, NGC 2419, some have postulated that this may be an extra-galactic object. I have seen distances listed as high as 285,000 light-years away from Earth. It appears small and dim, but it is actually very large and very bright (if it was a bit closer to us), there are estimates of 300-400 million solar masses in this cluster.

You can also make out the galaxy NGC 2424, a barred spiral galaxy with a magnitude of 12.6. The view is dominated by the red giant star HD61294 in the lower right, magnitude 5.75, and 41 times larger than our Sun.

Tech Specs: Sky-Watcher Esprit 120mm ED Triplet APO Refractor, Celestron CGEM-DX mount (pier mounted), ZWO ASI071MC-Pro running at -25C, 30 x 60 second exposures, GAIN 200, guided using a ZWO ASI290MC and Orion 60mm guide scope. Captured using SharpCap v3.2. Image date: December 20, 2019. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, PA, USA.

The Great M13 Hercules Globular Cluster. This cluster contains over 300,000 stars and lies around 25,000 light years away, situated just outside of our galaxy. It is about 11.65 billion years old, making it almost three times older than our Earth.

This is one of my sharpest images of this object I have made so do zoom in and check out the resolution of the stars in the cluster itself.

Image Details:

- Imaging Scope: Astrotelescopes ED 80mm Refractor

- Imaging Camera: ZWO ASI183MC Color with UV/IR Blocking filter

- Guiding Scope: William Optics 66mm Petzval

- Guiding Camera: Orion Starshoot Auto Guider

- Acquisition Software: Sharpcap

- Guiding Software: PHD2

- Light Frames: 20*3 mins @ 100 Gain, Temp -40C

- Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker

- Processed in PixInsight and Adobe Lightroom

Messier 47 (M47) is a bright open cluster that can be found in the constellation Puppis, to the upper left of the star Sirius in Canis Major. The cluster is about 1,600 light years away from Earth and has an apparent magnitude of 4.2, there are about 50 members in this cluster.

Tech Specs: Sky-Watcher Esprit 120mm ED Triplet APO Refractor, Celestron CGEM-DX mount (pier mounted), ZWO ASI071MC-Pro running at -25C, 7 x 120 second exposures, GAIN 200, guided using a ZWO ASI290MC and Orion 60mm guide scope. Captured using SharpCap v3.2. Image date: January 21, 2020. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, PA, USA.

Very happy with this image! I have been focusing on removing noise from my images over the last couple of weeks. My images are okay but have been plagued with noise even right after initial stacking, which has been annoying and seemed to get worse the further along the processing flow I got. So I revised my approach. First, more exposures! I have always been tempted to use just one night and get whatever images I can, so I'm now forcing myself to get as much data as possible over multiple nights. This image is a composite of 64 raw files taken over two nights. I also learned about dithering, which helps remove noise from time of capture and is frankly something I should have been doing all along. It slows down the acquisition timeframe but is worth it. I also purchased and utilized Topaz Denoise AI, which does a terrific job of removing noise and preserving detail. A combination of these three factors has made for a very clean image here, and I'm looking forward to revisiting with some other objects soon.

The Pleiades, also known as The Seven Sisters and Messier 45, is an open star cluster containing middle-aged, hot B-type stars in the north-west of the constellation Taurus. The cluster is located 444 light years away and is about 17.5 light years across.

Image Details:

- Imaging Scope: William Optics 61mm Zenithstar II Doublet

- Imaging Camera: ZWO ASI183MC Color with UV/IR Blocking filter

- Guiding Scope: William Optics 66mm Petzval

- Guiding Camera: Orion Starshoot Auto Guider

- Acquisition Software: Sharpcap

- Guiding Software: PHD2

- Capture Software: SharpCap Pro (LiveStack mode with dithering)

- Light Frames: 30*2 mins @ 100 Gain, Temp -20C, 36x3 mins @ 150 Gain, Temp -20C

- Dark Frames: 32*4 mins, 40x2 mins

- Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker

- Processed in PixInsight, Adobe Lightroom and Topaz Denoise AI

The Trifid (M20) is a combination emission (red) and reflection (blue) nebula that is located in the constellation Sagittarius. It gets its name because the main section of the nebula is divided by dust lanes into roughly three parts.

Taken over two nights from a relatively dark site on the slopes of Palomar mountain, this image consists of 1022 sub-exposures that were each exposed for 5 seconds using an uncooled QHY5-III 178C camera and a Stellarvue SV80ST2 telescope (the latter operating at f/4.8 using a 0.8X reducer/corrector, total exposure integration time about 85 minutes). Using such short exposures greatly simplifies the image capture process since there was no need to guide the Celestron AVX mount that carried the scope and camera.

Image capture was done with SharpCap, image processing was done in PixInsight and Photoshop CC2015.

This photo is best seen against a dark background or in the Flickr light box at full size (1920 x 1242 pixels).

Here is a link to the full-sized image:

Full-sized Image

All rights reserved.

It's always something right? Why can't we just go out, polar align and start snapping away? Guide camera kept cutting out, traced back to the new el cheapo usb hub I got from the dollar store lol. Also, APT would not platesolve this image at all, had to run in the house to check it. Stayed up later than I should have but earlier than usual image nights.

Elephant Trunk Nebula

Got 5 @ 10 minute subs ISO 400. Nikon D5300/AT65EDQ/QHY5LII-M guide camera/Orion mini guidescope/CG5 mount with OnStep upgrades/homemade auto-focuser.

Software: APT/PHD2/Sharpcap/CdC/Pixinsight/PS-ACR.

Surprised I got anything as the subs were just a bunch of stars.

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 187; Exp 300s

Frames: 19 Lights; 4 Darks; 50 flats

100% Crop

Capture: Sharpcap

Processed: DSS; LR, PS, Gradient Exterminator.

Sky: Last Quarter moon, no breez, no cloud, good seeing.

23.16 million light years distant.

Ghost of Cassiopeia

HA 145@ 60 seconds Gain 200 offset 5

30 darks

Blue channel from Digitized Sky Survey

Scope: Orion 8" f4 Astrograph with Baader Coma Corrector

Mount: iOptron iEQ45 pro

Camera: ZWO ASI183M non cooled

Guide camera: QHY5Lii

Guide Scope: Stellarvue 50mm

ZWO 8 position 1.25 filter wheel filter wheel

Schuler HA 9nm,

Moonlite focuser CR2

Moonlight Hi Res stepper motor

MyFocuer Pro v2 (Robert Brown) controller

Home Observatory

Software: N.I.N.A., PHD2, Sharpcap, CdC, Pixinsight, Photoshop, Team Viewer

Something a little different today! This is a composite image of the sun, showing the surface detail and prominences, while being photobombed by a passing plane.

The image was taken using an Altair GPCAM 290M with a 0.5x focal reducer, attached to a Lunt LS50Tha 600B PT solar scope. The image was captured using SharpCap Pro, pre-processed using AutoStakkert2 and Registax6, with final processing done using Photoshop CC.

Taken with Canon 400mm lens and ASI2600MC camera with Optolong L-Pro filter to manage my Bortle 7 skies. Consists of 60 x 3 minute exposures Live Stacked in SharpCap Pro.

The Sadr Region is the diffuse emission nebula surrounding Sadr at the center of Cygnus's cross. The Sadr Region is one of the surrounding nebulous regions; others include the Butterfly Nebula and the Crescent Nebula. It contains many dark nebulae in addition to the emission diffuse nebulae.

The ZWO Duo Band (Ha and OII) wavelength filter is really helping to draw out some nebulosity in various parts of the sky. Love it!

Image Details:

- Imaging Scope: William Optics 61mm Zenithstar II Doublet

- Imaging Camera: ZWO ASI183MC Color with ZWO Duo Band filter

- Guiding Scope: William Optics 66mm Petzval

- Guiding Camera: Orion Starshoot Auutoguider

- Acquisition Software: Sharpcap

- Guiding Software: PHD2

- Capture Software: SharpCap Pro (LiveStack mode with dithering)

- Light Frames: 20*7 mins @ 100 Gain, Temp -20C

- Dark Frames: 20*7 mins

- Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker

- Processed in PixInsight, Adobe Lightroom, Photmatix Pro HDR and Topaz Denoise AI

Took these pictures last night, M13 and NGC6888

Orion 80mm ED refractor, Zwo 294MC Pro cooled color camera

Zwo IR/cut filter

#SharpCap Pro PoleMaster

Ioptron i45 Pro EQ mount PHD2 guiding

Orion 60mm guidescope SSAG

120 Gain offset 10 0c cooling, 1 minute exposure, 75 minutes, for M13, NGC6888 was 90 minutes,1 minute exposure each

50 darks 50 flats and 50 bias frames

Astro Pixel Processor and PS

86% moon....

Today was the day. 20191111

Solar transit.

Short video of the capture at

youtu.be/mSDb7ExcoGU

Technical card

Imaging telescopes or lenses:Lunt Solar Systems LS60FHa (Double Stack), Lunt Solar Systems LS60THa/B1200C

Imaging camera:ZWO ASI174 Mini

Mount:Skywatcher AZ-GTi

Software:Emil Kraaikamp Autostackert! 3, SharpCap

Resolution: 1828x1543

Date:Nov. 11, 2019

Time: 14:00

Frames: 4000

Data source: Backyard

Went out Wednesday night, M45, M57 and IC434

WO SkyCat 51, Zwo 183MC Pro cooled color camera

Zwo IR/cut filter

#SharpCap Pro PoleMaster

Ioptron i45 Pro EQ mount PHD2 guiding

Orion 60mm guidescope SSAG

120 Gain offset 20 0c cooling, 1 minute exposure, 60 minutes for M57, IC434 was 22 minutes, 1 minute exposure each, M45 was 2 hours, 1 minute each, Had problems with the wind, clouds and storms north of me

50 darks 50 flats and 50 bias frames

Astro Pixel Processor and PS

A reprocessed image with stars removed using Starnet V2. Makes for an eerie yet beautiful view of this amazing nebula.

The Rosette Nebula spans a distance of about 100 lightyears across and is located 5,000 lightyears from Earth in the Monoceros constellation.

Image Details:

- Imaging Scope: William Optics 61mm Zenithstar II Doublet

- Imaging Camera: ZWO ASI183MC Color with UV/IR Blocking filter

- Guiding Scope: William Optics 66mm Petzval

- Guiding Camera: Orion Starshoot Auto Guider

- Filter: ZWO Duo Band (HA & OIII)

- Acquisition Software: Sharpcap

- Guiding Software: PHD2

- Capture Software: SharpCap Pro (LiveStack mode with dithering)

- Light Frames: 15x5 mins @ 100 Gain, Temp -20C

- Dark Frames: 15*5 mins

- Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker

- Processed in PixInsight, Adobe Lightroom and Topaz Denoise AI

Reprocessed in Astro Pixel Processor 1.063. Scope: TSAPO65Q, Mount: SkyWatcher EQ6-R Pro, Cam: ZWO ASI294MC Pro, Filter: CLS-CCD. Captured in SharpCap Pro: 10 x 5 mins guided. Processed in APP 1.063 and Adobe CC.

Narrowband image captured September 2024, tawdry Hubble palette variation.

Tech Stuff: Borg 71FL/Borg 1.08 flattener/ZWO ASI 533Mono/ Astronomik NB filter set HA 8 second exposures X 150 min; SII 15 second exposures X 115 min; OIII 8 seconds X 180 min. Unguided RST 135E mount with SharpCap Livestacking, captured over 5 nights from my yard in Westchester County, NY.

Sunspot AR2846

Images with a ZWO ASI120MC Astro Camera (in monochrome mode) with a Baader Solar Continuum filter, mounted on a Questar 3.5-inch (89mm) f/14.4 Maksutov-Cassegrain telescope.

Best of 500 frames captured in SharpCap 2.9 and stacked using Autostakkert!2. Wavelets applied using Registax 6.

Un piccolo mosaico composto da 5 pannelli che mostra la Luna in fase crescente illuminata al 17%.

Telescopio Celestron 114/910 Newton

Montatura eq2 motorizzata Sky-Watcher

Camera QHY5L-II-C

Filtro UV IR cut

Sharpcap 4 per 5 video contenenti 500 fotogrammi ciascuno

AS!3 e Astrosurface U3 per le elaborazioni

Autostitch per assemblare le parti

Luogo: Cabras, Sardegna, Italia

Data e ora delle riprese: 23 maggio 2023 dalle 21:10 alle 21:16 UTC

Aberkenfig, South Wales

Lat +51.542 Long -3.593

Skywatcher 254mm Newtonian, EQ6 Syntrek Mount & Modified Philips SPC 900NC Webcam.

Captured using Sharpcap

25 frames @ 25s

10 Dark frames

Processed using Deep Sky Stacker.

Levels slightly adjusted with G.I.M.P.

Sharpcap Settings:

[Philips SPC 900NC PC Camera (LX Mode)]

Resolution=640x480

Colour Space / Compression=YUY2

Exposure (s)=25.2476670702873

Brightness=90

Contrast=40

Saturation=72

Gamma=3

ColorEnable=255

BacklightCompensation=0

Gain=30

81% Moon.

Camera: ZWO ASI120MC-s Colour camera

Telescope: TS Imaging Star 63mm F/6.5 420mm Focal Length 420 mm

Capture software: SharpCap

Process Software: Autostakkert, Microsoft ICE, Photoshop

This was made up of 2x20 second video. 1 north and 1 south. For some reason Registax would not process the video. Begining to feel I will use Autostakkert as the prime stacking software from now on. The sharpening in Autostakkert was way to strong so I turned that feature off. Stacking set to use best 50% of frames. Both panes put into ICE to stich. This software is brilliant, It just works! Stiched image adjusted in PS using adjustment layers. Exposure, Brigtness, Curves and Saturation.

Different processing with data I captured a few weeks ago.

This galaxy looks very similar to how our own Milky Way galaxy would look from the same distance, which is about 2.5 million light years away. Actually, this galaxy is naked-eye visible from darker skies, and if the human eye could detect it completely, it would appear 5-6 moon-lengths in size! Another interesting tidbit is that this galaxy is on a collision course with the Milky Way, expected to “touch” in about 4.5 billion years from now!

.

Image Details:

- Imaging Scope: William Optics 66mm Petzval

- Imaging Camera: ZWO ASI183MC Color with UV/IR Blocking filter

- Guiding Scope: AstroTelescopes 80mm ED Refractor

- Guiding Camera: Orion Starshoot Auto Guider

- Acquisition Software: Sharpcap

- Guiding Software: PHD2

- Light Frames: mins @ 100 Gain, -25F

- Dark Frames: 24*5 mins

- Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker

- Processed in PixInsight and Adobe Lightroom

Just about 1.4 hours. High clouds cut night short but having the semi permanent set up makes things so much easier.

28@180seconds Gain 50 LUM

50 darks, 50 bias, 30 flats.

Scope: AT65EDQ

Mount: iOptron iEQ45

Camera: ZWO ASI183M non cooled

Guide camera: QHY5Lii

Guide Scope: Meade 60mm achro fl 300

Orion 5 position manual filter wheel

ZWO LRGB

Schuler HA 9nm, Schuler 9nm Sii

MyFocuer Pro v2 (Robert Brown)

Software: APT, PHD2, Sharpcap, CdC, Pixinsight, Photoshop, Nic Dfine 2, Astronomy Tools plug in, Google Chrome Remote Desktop

monkeyhead-100x30-g42-o42-qhy183c_-20C-lenh-85f5_6-v2

"NGC 2174 (aka, Monkey Head Nebula) is an H II emission nebula located in the constellation Orion. Is associated with the open star cluster NGC 2175. It is located about 6,400 light-years away from us."

I used an Optolong L-eNhance filter to shoot through bad LP in a metro area for this shot. Live Stacking in SharpCap 3.2 with dithering, 100 x 30 seconds sub-images. Gain was 42 (1 to 54 scale,) offset was 42, and the camera, a QHY183c, was cooled to -20C. Televue TV-85 at F/5.6, Atlas EQ-G w/EQMOD.