After a long break from doing astrophotography, I decided to spend some time last night and use the new gear I recently got shooting a popular and relatively easy target, The Pleiades. It does appear the lens was slightly off on focus, but whatever. Most people will never pixel-peep it anyways. It all worked great, and it felt good to capture the heavens again.

Equipment:

SkyWatcher EQ6-R

Nikkor 500mm f/4 P AI-S at f/5.6

Sony a7RIII (unmodified)

ZWO 30mm Guide scope

GPCAM2 Mono Camera

Acquisition:

Taos, NM: my front yard - Bortle 3

68 x 121" for 2 hours, 17 min, and 8 sec exposure time.

10 dark frames

15 flats frames

15 bias frames

Guided

Software:

SharpCap

PHD2

DeepSkyStacker

Photoshop

Lightroom

I polar aligned my mount using SharpCap Pro. My Sony a7RIII and adapted Nikkor 500mm f/4 P AI-S were mounted on an ADM vixen rail and secured to the SkyWatcher EQ6-R mount. The guide scope/camera was attached to the camera's hot shoe. I used PHD2 to autogude during the imaging session. DeepSkyStacker was used to combine all frames, and then I processed the TIFF file in Photoshop. I stretched the 32-bit file and used Gradient XT on the image. I then made it a 16-bit file and stretched it in levels, then curves. I used the color sampler tool and levels to do my best to help keep colors accurate. I then used my skillset and relied on Astronomy Tools Action Set and Topaz Denoise and Sharpening to give the image a polished look. I brought it into Lightroom to do final color corrections and add EXIF data.

Running Man Nebula on the left, Orion Nebula on the right.

Always have to try for this every winter as it's such a gorgeous part of the night sky. This year I used the new BlurXTerminator module for PixInsight. It does a great job of reducing star size while enhancing DSO details. Still fighting star halos but it's improving my images nicely.

Image Details:

- Imaging Scope: William Optics 61mm ZenithStar APO

- Imaging Camera: ZWO ASI183MC Color with IR Cut filter

- Guiding Scope: William Optics 31mm Uniguide

- Guiding Camera: Orion Starshoot Auto Guider

- Acquisition Software: Sharpcap

- Guiding Software: PHD2

- Light Frames: 25*4 mins @ 50 Gain, Temp -10C

- Dark Frames: 25*4 mins

- Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker

- Processed in PixInsight, Adobe Lightroom and Topaz Denoise

M31 with the WO Redcat and Zwo ASI183MC Pro cooled color camera

Was trying out the software for the focuser from DeepSkydad, Works flawless

Had high thin clouds, tracking not soo great

Zwo 1 1/4" IR/cut filter

#SharpCap Pro, PoleMaster

Ioptron i45 Pro EQ mount, PHD2 guiding

Orion 60mm guidescope SSAG

120 Gain offset 20, -10c cooling,

M31 was 50 minutes, 1 minute exposure each

30 darks 30 flats and 30 bias frames

Astro Pixel Processor and PS

Animation of the south limb of the sun on 5/24/2022

Details:

-Telescope - Lunt LS100MT internal etalon and B1200 blocking filter - HA spectra/Chromosphere

-Hutech Hinode Solar Guider

- Camera: ASI174MM

- 2x Meade Barlow

Made from 49 tif files, each stacked from the best 40% of 1000 frames.

Animated in PS5 and converted to AVI

Software:

-SharpCap Pro (Version=4.0.8667.0)

-AutoStakkert (3.1.4 x64)

-ImPPG (v0.6.4)

-PS5

Nébuleuse d'Amérique du Nord (NGC7000) en palette de Hubble - Mai 2023

Monture Sky-watcher EQM-35 GOTO PRO

Mise en station : Polemaster

Lunette TS PHOTOLINE 80 / 560 APO Doublet FPL53 et Lanthane + Correcteur TS 0,79x

Caméra ; Altair-Astro Hypercam 183 MM ProTec refroidie

Capture : Sharpcap Pro

Pointage All Sky Plate Solver

Guidage : TS 60 x240 mm + camera ZWO ASI 120 mini + PHD2

Filtres HSO BAADER :

H-alpha 7nm : 53 x 180s à -15 °C soit 02H39’

O3 8.5nm : 40 x 180s à -15 °C soit 02H00

S2 8nm : 28 x 180s à -15 °C soit 01H24

Exposition totale 6H05

Traitement : Siril + Photoshop

Le Soleil aujourd'hui / The Sun today (Spaceweatherlive.com)

* 178 = Nb de taches solaires / Sunspots number

* 12 = Régions de taches solaire / Sunspot regions

* 2 = Plages H-alpha sans taches / H-alpha plages without spots

Risingcam IMX571 color

William Optics Zenithstar73ii

iOptron CEM26

Filtre SVBony UV/IR cut

Filtre Thousand Oaks Solarlite ND5

Exp. 18ms / Gain 100 / caméra refroidie à 10 degrés

Best 10% de 3000

Aquisition: Sharpcap

Traitement: PIPP, AutoStakkert 4.0, Registax et Affinity Photo 2

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

AstroM1

Went out 2 nights, IC1396, NGC6888, NGC2244, NGC7293, IC1805 and IC434

Orion 80mm ED refractor, Zwo 183MC Pro cooled color camera

Optolong L eNhance filter

#SharpCap Pro, PoleMaster

Ioptron i45 Pro EQ mount, PHD2 guiding

Orion 60mm guidescope SSAG

220 Gain offset 20 0c cooling,

IC1396 was 90 minutes, 1 minute exposure each

IC434 was 60 minutes, 1 minute exposure each

NGC2244 was 15 minutes, 1 minute exposure each

IC1805 was 60 minutes total, 1 minute exposure each

NGC7293 was 60 minutes total 1 minute exposure each

NGC6888 was 90 minutes total 1 minute exposure each

Weather was good all night for me, Getting colder too with some dew forming

50 darks 50 flats and 50 bias frames

Astro Pixel Processor and PS

Saturn as imaged using a ZWO ASI224MC astronomy camera through a vintage-1998 Celestron Celestar 8 Deluxe 2032mm f/10 Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope plus a Celestron Ultima SV-Series 2x Barlow lens. After pre-processing in PIPP, the best 8% of nearly 23000 frames captured in SharpCap 4.0 were aligned and stacked using Autostakkert! 3 with wavelets processing in Registax 6. Final adjustments using Paintshop Pro 2020 and noise reduction in Topaz.

This is a "telescope" view.

21_27_42_pipp_lapl5_ap39_conv-DeNoiseAI-standard

Sunspot AR3463 in the Sun's Chromosphere

H-alpha image of the Sun's southwestern region using a ZWO ASI 174MM Astronomy Camera and a Daystar Quark Combo Chromosphere H-alpha filter with a Questar 3.5 50.5-inch focal length Maksutov-Cassegrain telescope with a TeleVue 2.5x PowerMate. Best 50 of 500 frames each of both the surface and the prominences were captured with SharpCap 4.0 and aligned and stacked using Autostakkert! 3 with wavelets applied in Registax 6. Final adjustments in CS5.

11_41_33_lapl6_ap4714 R6 Final-DeNoiseAI-standard V2

Mars is at it's closest approach to Earth until 2035. It's still 39 million miles away though. This is my second attempt at capturing a planet and while its not as good as others I've seen I'm happy with the amount of detail I was able to pull out of the bright red dot in the sky.

Equipment:

Celestron CGEM Mount

Celestron Edge HD 800 Scope

ZWO ASI290MC Camera

Altair 60mm Guide scope

GPCAM2 Mono Camera

Acquisition:

Taos, NM: my backyard - Bortle 3

11:45pm, Mars high in the sky.

I shot 100,000 frames at 3 milliseconds averaging ~333fps throughout the imaging session.

Software:

SharpCap

Autostakkert!3

Registax

Photoshop

I began the evening polar aligning my scope with my guide scope/cam and SharpCap. After viewing some objects, and waiting for Mars to rise high in the sky, I put on a jacket, hat and set out to get everything ready. After locating Mars with the camera on my computer screen I fiddled with settings to try to get to 3 milliseconds for my exposures. I realized my focus wasn't perfect so I slewed the scope to a nearby star, Hamal. I used a bahtinov mask to get it as focused as I could and took the scope back to Mars. I got my setting dialed in and began to record. I did several sessions each being just under a minute of recording to get the 100,000 frames at 333fps. I then packed up and went to bed. - Today I used Autostakkert!3 to analyze each frame in my videos. I settled on one session that had high quality frames, since I shot so many I decided to really narrow it down to the best and told the program to stack the best 10%, or 10,000 frames. After stacking was complete I brought the outputted file into Registax. Using their processing tools I tweaked the histogram, color and then used the most powerful set of tools in the program, wavelets. I don't really know what I'm doing, but I know what makes an image "good". So I messed with each layer adding sharpness and de-noise until I got what I feel is a balance between resolution and not making the whole thing look like a digital artifact. I saved that as a TIFF and brought it into photoshop for some color tweaks, a bit of structure in Viveza and a last little bit of sharpness.

I present to you my take on Mars at opposition, 2020.

Mars will be at opposition on October 13th, but its already so bright in our sky and only getting brighter. I planned to use my planetary camera to get an up close view, but I had some technical difficulties last night. So I did what I often do, shoot the heavens with my 500mm lens!

Equipment:

Celestron CGEM Mount

Nikkor 500mm f/4 P Ai-s at f/5.6

Sony a7RIII (unmodified)

Altair 60mm Guide scope

GPCAM2 Mono Camera

Acquisition:

Taos, NM: my backyard - Bortle 3

14 x 60" for 14 min of exposure time.

5 dark frames

15 flats frames

15 bais frames

Guided

Software:

SharpCap

PHD2

DeepSkyStacker

Photoshop

My mount was polar aligned with SharpCap (what an amazing system for aligning). I'm not comfortable using my SCT as my lens yet. My solution is to piggyback my Sony a7RIII and adapted Nikkor 500mm f/4 P Ai-s on a ADM dovetail rail on the top of my optical tube. I used DeepSkyStacker to combine all frames and then processed the TIFF file in Photoshop. I stretched the 32 bit file just a bit, and sharpened quite a bit to make the diffraction spikes stand out. I brought it into Lightroom and used the selective hues to make Mars the color I wanted, a bit of texture added and then export.

= Acquisition info =

William Optics Zenithstar 73ii (FL 430mm)

Risingcam IMX571 color

iOptron CEM26

Sharpcap

= Séance photo =

15 juin 2024 à 21h35

Filtre UV/IR

Best 250 de 1000 x 6ms

= Traitement/processing =

PIPP, Autostakkert, Registax & Gimp

@Astrobox 2.0

St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Québec

Bortle 9

AstroM1

First light with new Zwo 071MC Pro cooled color camera, Orion 80mm ED refractor, 60 sec exposure 40 minutes total, SharpCap Pro DSS, PS Gain 100 offset 20 Ioptron I45 EQ mount, no guiding just tracking

Active Region 3825 is present in the upper left corner.

H-alpha image of the Sun's southern region using a ZWO ASI 174MM Astronomy Camera and a Daystar Quark Combo Chromosphere H-alpha filter with a Questar 3.5 50.5-inch focal length Maksutov-Cassegrain telescope with a Baader Energy Rejection Filter and a TeleVue 2.5x PowerMate. Best 50 of 500 frames each of both the surface and the prominences were captured with SharpCap 4.0 and aligned, stacked using Autostakkert! 3 with wavelets applied in Registax 6. Combining of the surface and prominences and final adjustments were made in Adobe CS5 and Luminar Neo.

11_37_42_lapl4_ap5140 R6 V3

NGC 1976 , M42 The Orion Nebula is a diffuse nebula situated in the Milky Way, being south of Orion's Belt in the constellation of Orion. It is one of the brightest nebulae and is visible to the naked eye in the night sky. It is 1,344 ± 20 light-years away and is the closest region of massive star formation to Earth. My 1st play at this Nebula with QHY 183 C PRO Camera and using Sharpcap live stacking software. Made up of 25 x 30 sec frames.

Went out Monday night, IC5070, IC405 and M42&M43

Orion 80mm ED refractor, Zwo 294MC Pro cooled color camera, Used an electronic focuser, Nice to have!!

Optolong L eNhance filter

#SharpCap Pro, PoleMaster

Ioptron i45 Pro EQ mount, PHD2 guiding

Orion 60mm guidescope SSAG

220 Gain offset 10 -10c cooling,

IC5070 was 90 minutes, 1 minute exposure each

IC405 was 90 minutes, 1 minute exposure each

M42&M43 was 55 minutes, 1 minute exposure each

Weather was good, Getting cooler too with some dew forming.... High thin clouds trying to cover up M42

75 darks 100 flats and 75 bias frames

Astro Pixel Processor and PS

A widefield look at the Constellation Orion. I've been meaning to do this for awhile and I'm pretty happy with the results!

Equipment:

Skywatcher EQ6-R Mount

Noct-NIKKOR 58mm f/1.2 Ai-S

Sony a7RIII (unmodified)

Altair 60mm Guide scope

GPCAM2 Mono Camera

Acquisition:

Taos, NM: my backyard - Bortle 3

10 x 300" for 50 min and 20 sec of exposure time.

4 dark frames

15 flats frames

15 bias frames

Software:

SharpCap

DeepSkyStacker

Photoshop

My mount was polar aligned with SharpCap (what an amazing system for aligning). I then mounted my a7RIII and adapted Noct-NIKKOR 58mm f/1.2 Ai-S lens at f/2/8 to the top rail of my scope. I used SharpCap to achieve "excellent" polar alignment. I shot ISO 400, f/2.8 and 300" exposures. I stacked lights/darks/flats/bias frames in deepskystacker. I then processed the TIFF file in photoshop stretching the file, minimal cropping and I used Astronomy Tools Action Set to help bring back star color and to enhance the brighter star colors. Topaz Labs Sharpen and Denoise used as well.

Images taken on March 2, 2021

Mars reflects the sun's light and is ~22 light minutes from Earth. The Pleiades is an open star cluster that is ~ 442 light years away from us. While these two are so different, both of them are prominent and easy to spot in the night sky. It’s very cool to witness the two so close to each other. I knew this was happening, but my life and job have been so busy lately it slipped my mind until it was basically happening already.

Step outside tonight and take a lookup. You can find this event just ahead of the constellation Orion. The next time these two will be near each other in our night sky again in 2038!

Equipment:

Celestron CGEM Mount

Canon FD 300mm f/4 L at f/5.6

Sony a7RIII (unmodified)

Altair 60mm Guide scope

GPCAM2 Mono Camera

Acquisition:

Taos, NM: my backyard - Bortle 3

10 x 121" for 20 min and 10 sec of exposure time.

10 dark frames

15 flats frames

15 bais frames

Guided

Software:

SharpCap

PHD2

DeepSkyStacker

Photoshop

My mount was polar aligned with SharpCap (what an amazing system for aligning). I'm not comfortable using my SCT as my lens yet. My solution is to piggyback my Sony a7RIII and adapted Canon FD 300mm f/4 L on a ADM dovetail rail on the top of my optical tube. I used DeepSkyStacker to combine all frames and then processed the TIFF file in Photoshop. I stretched the 32 bit file and used Gradient XT on the image. I then made it a 16 bit file and stretched in level, then curves. I used the color sampler tool and levels to do my best to keep the background space black. I then using my skillset and relied on Astronomy Tools Action Set, and dodging and burning a bit to give the image the finishing touches.

Went out 2 nights, IC1396, NGC6888, NGC2244, NGC7293, IC1805 and IC434

Orion 80mm ED refractor, Zwo 183MC Pro cooled color camera

Optolong L eNhance filter

#SharpCap Pro, PoleMaster

Ioptron i45 Pro EQ mount, PHD2 guiding

Orion 60mm guidescope SSAG

220 Gain offset 20 0c cooling,

IC1396 was 90 minutes, 1 minute exposure each

IC434 was 60 minutes, 1 minute exposure each

NGC2244 was 15 minutes, 1 minute exposure each

IC1805 was 60 minutes total, 1 minute exposure each

NGC7293 was 60 minutes total 1 minute exposure each

NGC6888 was 90 minutes total 1 minute exposure each

Weather was good all night for me, Getting colder too with some dew forming

50 darks 50 flats and 50 bias frames

Astro Pixel Processor and PS

I took 200 captures and stacked the best 25%.

Techdata: TSRC 8" @ 1090mm, Sharpcap.

Processed in AstroSurface, GIMP, LR

You can download original size 5301x2982px and use as desktop wallpaper (16:9 wide format).

It's taken me two years to try to get this, (equipment issues, processing issues, can-t-be-bothered-~itis issues) and with clear skies and all my gear working nicely last night, I managed to pull it off. The biggest issue was the deployment of a new ZWO Duo Band filter. I had a lot of issues with placement within my imaging chain while keeping a flat field. Seemed to get it taken care of last night. You need longer exposures, but the result is worthwhile and interesting.

The Crescent Nebula (also known as NGC 6888, Caldwell 27, Sharpless 105) is an emission nebula in the constellation Cygnus, about 5000 light-years away from Earth. It was discovered by William Herschel in 1792. It is formed by the fast stellar wind from the Wolf-Rayet star WR 136 (HD 192163) colliding with and energizing the slower moving wind ejected by the star when it became a red giant around 250,000 to 400,000 years ago. The result of the collision is a shell and two shock waves, one moving outward and one moving inward. The inward moving shock wave heats the stellar wind to X-ray-emitting temperatures.

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

best 10% of 1000 frames LUM

Scope: Orion 8" f4 Astrograph with Baader Coma Corrector

Mount: iOptron iEQ45 pro

Camera: ZWO ASI183M non cooled

ZWO 8 position 1.25 filter wheel filter wheel

ZWO LRGB

Moonlite focuser CR2

Moonlight Hi Res stepper motor

MyFocuer Pro v2 (Robert Brown) controller

Home Observatory

Software: Sharpcap, CdC, Pixinsight, Photoshop, Team Viewer, autostakert!3, Registax

Been busy Saturday night, IC1396, Sadr Complex, NGC7000 and IC434

WO SkyCat 51, Zwo 183MC Pro cooled color camera

Optolong L eNhance filter

#SharpCap Pro PoleMaster

Ioptron i45 Pro EQ mount, PHD2 guiding

Orion 60mm guidescope SSAG

220 Gain offset 20 0c cooling, 1 minute exposure, 1 hour 45 minutes for IC1396, IC434 was 45 minutes, 1 minute exposure each, NGC7000 was 30 minutes, 1 minute each, Sadr complex was 4 panel 15 minutes each, 1 hour total,

Weather was good all night for me, I didnt get home till 3 in the morning

50 darks 50 flats and 50 bias frames

Astro Pixel Processor and PS

Saturn as imaged using a ZWO ASI224MC astronomy camera through a vintage-1998 Celestron Celestar 8 Deluxe 2032mm f/10 Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope plus a Celestron Ultima SV-Series 2x Barlow lens. After pre-processing in PIPP, the best 29% of 30620 frames captured in SharpCap 4.0 were aligned and stacked using Autostakkert! 3 with wavelets processing in Registax 6. Final adjustments using Adobe CS5, Luminar Neo, and noise reduction in Topaz.

This is a "telescope" view.

19_49_41_pipp_lapl4_ap293_conv R6 V4-DeNoiseAI-severe-noise

Full-disk image of the Sun's chromosphere in the H-alpha wavelength using a ZWO ASI 174MM Astronomy Camera (with a 0.5x focal reducer) and a Daystar Quark Combo Chromosphere H-alpha filter with a 40mm f/4 SvBONY SV165 guidescope and a TeleVue 5x PowerMate. Best 50 of 500 frames each of both the surface and the prominences were captured with SharpCap 4.0 and aligned, stacked using Autostakkert! 3 with wavelets applied in Registax 6. Combining of the surface and prominences and final adjustments were made in Adobe CS5 and Luminar Neo.

11_29_33_lapI4_a p3255 R6 v4

The Copernicus, Eratosthenes, and Reinhold craters of the Moon as imaged using a Questar 3.5-inch Maksutov-Cassegrain telescope and a vintage Celestron Ultima SV-Series 2x Barlow lens with a ZWO ASI224MC planetary astro CMOS camera.

5000 frames were captured in SharpCap 4.0, with the best 32% aligned and stacked in Autostakkert!3, with wavelet sharpening in Registax 6. Final touches were made in Adobe CS5 and Luminar Neo.

20_35_05_pipp_lapl6_ap756_conv V4

Been busy Saturday night, IC1396, Sadr Complex, NGC7000 and IC434

WO SkyCat 51, Zwo 183MC Pro cooled color camera

Optolong L eNhance filter

#SharpCap Pro PoleMaster

Ioptron i45 Pro EQ mount, PHD2 guiding

Orion 60mm guidescope SSAG

220 Gain offset 20 0c cooling, 1 minute exposure, 1 hour 45 minutes for IC1396, IC434 was 45 minutes, 1 minute exposure each, NGC7000 was 30 minutes, 1 minute each, Sadr complex was 4 panel 15 minutes each, 1 hour total,

Weather was good all night for me, I didnt get home till 3 in the morning

50 darks 50 flats and 50 bias frames

Astro Pixel Processor and PS

Genova, Italy (18 Oct 2022 21:47 UT)

Planet: diameter 48.9", mag -2.9, altitude ≈ 44°

Telescope: Orange 1977 vintage Celestron C8 (203 F/10 SC)

Mount: EQ5 with ST4 hand controller (no GoTo)

Camera: QHY5III462C Color

Barlow: GSO APO 2.5x

Filter: QHY UV/IR block

Recording scale: 0.150 arcsec/pixel

Equivalent focal length ≈ 3990 mm F/19.7

Image resized: +50%

Recording: SharpCap 4.0

(640x480 @ 60fps - 120 sec - RAW16 - Gain 120)

Best 25% frames of 7253

Alignment/Stacking: AutoStakkert! 3.1.4

Wavelets/Deconvolution: AstroSurface T5

Final Elaboration: GIMP 2.10.30

A hidden treasure in Orion's Belt. I was only able to get ~48 minutes of integration time. I hope the next time I can gather more data. This was my first time gathering data for these objects. This data was taken on 12.16.2020. When I first attempted to process it I became frustrated. I attempted again with PixInsight and it has made me want to shoot it again with more time.

Equipment:

Celestron CGEM Mount

Nikon 500mm f/4 P AI-s - shot at f/5.6

Sony a7RIII (unmodified)

Altair 60mm Guide scope

GPCAM2 Mono Camera

Acquisition:

Taos, NM: my backyard - Bortle 3

15 x 195" for 48 min and 45 sec of exposure time.

5 dark frames

15 flats frames

15 bias frames

Software:

SharpCap

PHD2

PixInsight

Lightroom

Photoshop

My mount was polar aligned with SharpCap I then mounted my a7rIII and adapted Nikon 500mm f/4 P AI-S lens to the top rail of my scope. I used SharpCap to achieve "excellent" polar alignment. I shot ISO 1600, f/5.6 and 195" exposures. I brought the lights/darks/flats/bias frames into PixInsight for stacking and aligning and then used: STF, Cropping, Dynamic Background Extraction, BlurXTerminator, plate solving, color correction, NoiseXTerminator and then the DSO was separated from the stars, and both files processed and stretched separately and then recombined using PixelMath. That file was brought into Lightroom for Metadata and EXIF tags, light post-processing, and cropping to the final image..

Seen in the constellation Sagittarius, the Lagoon Nebula, and Trifid Nebula shine even against the brilliance of the Milky Way bands they are near. The Lagoon Nebula was discovered before 1654, and later the Trifid Nebula was first observed in 1764. They both are ~5,000 light-years away from us here on Earth. They are both easily observed with the naked eye from dark areas, a pair of binoculars or telescope really brings out the details though!

Shot from my back yard near Taos, New Mexico.

Equipment:

Celestron CGEM Mount

Nikon 500mm f/4 P AI-s - shot at f/5.6

Sony a7RIII (unmodified)

Altair 60mm Guide scope

GPCAM2 Mono Camera

Acquisition:

Taos, NM: my backyard - Bortle 3

26 x 136" for 58 min and 56 sec of exposure time.

5 dark frames

15 flats frames

15 bais frames

Software:

SharpCap

DeepSkyStacker

Photoshop

PHD2

My mount was polar aligned with SharpCap (what an amazing system for aligning). I then mounted my a7RIII and adapted Nikon 500mm f/4 P AI-s lens to the top rail of my scope. I used SharpCap to achieve "excellent" polar alignment. I shot ISO 1600, f/5.6 and 135" exposures. I stacked lights/darks/flats/bias frames in deepskystacker. I then processed the TIFF file in photoshop stretching the file, minimal cropping and I used Astronomy Tools Action Set to help bring out details and colors.

Jupiter as imaged using a ZWO ASI224MC astronomy camera through a vintage-1998 Celestron Celestar 8 Deluxe 2032mm f/10 Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope plus a Celestron Ultima SV-Series 2x Barlow . The best 29% of 14,243 frames captured in SharpCap were pre-processed in PIPP then aligned and stacked using Autostakkert! 3 with wavelets processed using Registax 6 with a slight noise reduction in Topaz.

20_22_10_pipp_lapl6_ap149_conv R6 V2-DeNoiseAI-low-light

حشد هرقل النجمي هو من اكثر العناقيد النجمية سطوعاً في النصف الشمالي للكرة الارضية. يعتقد علماء الفلك ان هذا الحشد يضم اكثر من نصف مليون نجم في منطقة صغيرة ضمن ١٥٠ سنه ضوئية فقط ويبعد عن الارض ٢٤،٠٠٠ سنه ضوئية. Great Hercules Star Cluster (M13) is the brightest star cluster in the northern hemisphere. It consists of 500,000 stars packed in a 150 lights years only. It is about 24,000 light years from us. Gear setup: Celestron Edge HD 8 w/0.7 Reducer, iOptron GEM45 guided by Celestron OAG and ZWO 174MM, Optolong L-Pro 2”, ZWO 2600MC @-5. Light subs 39 x 60”, Darks 40, Flat 20, No Bias. Total exposure 39 min from Bortle 4 sky. Captured by APT, PHD2, Sharpcap pro. Stacked by APP & Processed by PI (PHCC, STX, BXT, STF, CS, UM for stars image, For background NXT, STF, SCNR, TGV, ACDNR). Pixel Math both image to produce the final image.

Still around 39 million miles from Earth, 4 days before its Perihelion Opposition on October 13th.

Image captured using a 1965 quartz Questar 3.5-inch Maksutov Cassegrain telescope, a ZWO ASI120MC camera

90-second capture of 1988 frames using SharpCap 3.0 and Registax 6 for stacking and processing, minor adjustments with PS Elements.

I previously imaged the Orion and Running Man Nebulas in November. My exposure was only about an hour. With the new moon last night, I got my gear out and did just shy of three hours on this target.

Equipment:

Celestron CGEM Mount

Nikkor 500mm f/4 P Ai-s at f/5.6

Sony a7RIII (unmodified)

Altair 60mm Guide scope

GPCAM2 Mono Camera

Acquisition:

Taos, NM: my backyard - Bortle 3

80 x 120" for 2 hr 41min and 20 sec of exposure time.

20 dark frames

15 flats frames

15 bais frames

Guided

Software:

SharpCap

PHD2

DeepSkyStacker

Photoshop

My mount was polar aligned with SharpCap (what an amazing system for aligning). I'm not comfortable using my SCT as my lens yet. My solution is to piggyback my Sony a7RIII and adapted Nikkor 500mm f/4 P Ai-s on a ADM dovetail rail on the top of my optical tube. I used DeepSkyStacker to combine all frames and then processed the TIFF file in Photoshop. I stretched the 32 bit file and used Gradient XT on the image. I then made it a 16 bit file and stretched in level, then curves. I used the color sampler tool and levels to do my best to keep the background space black. I then using my skillset and relied on Astronomy Tools Action Set, and dodging and burning a bit to give the image the finishing touches.

Side-on galaxies rule!

NGC 4565 is an edge-on spiral galaxy about 30 to 50 million light-years away in the constellation Coma Berenices. It lies close to the North Galactic Pole and has a visual magnitude of approximately 10. It is known as the Needle Galaxy for its narrow profile.

Image Details:

- Imaging Scope: Celestron C8 SCT

- Imaging Camera: ZWO ASI183MC Color with ZWO IR cut filter

- Guider: Celestron Starsense Autoguider

- Mount: Celestron CGEM

- Acquisition Software: Sharpcap

- Guiding Software: Celestron

- Light Frames: 25*3 mins @ 100 Gain, Temp -10C

- Dark Frames: 10*3 mins

- Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker

- Processed in PixInsight, Adobe Lightroom, and Topaz Denoise AI

Clouded out where you live? Enjoy this five panel mosaic view of tonight's crescent moon from Pennsylvania.

Tech Specs: Sky-Watcher Esprit 120mm ED Triplet APO Refractor, ZWO ASI290MC, SharpCap Pro v3.2, five panel mosaic, each panel best 15% of 2000 images. Image date: September 4, 2019. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, PA, USA.

= Acquisition info =

William Optics Zenithstar 73ii (FL 430mm)

Risingcam IMX571 color

iOptron CEM26 + iPolar

Sharpcap

= Séance photo =

19 février 2024 @ 18h15

Filtre 685nm IR Pass

Best 500 de 2500 x 0,2s

= Traitement/processing =

PIPP, Autostakkert & Gimp

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

AstroM1

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 + ZWO 7x2" EFW

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

*Gain 139, -25 º C, Ha 7nm 2" Optolong, 78x180"

*Gain 139, -25 º C, Oiii-CCD 6.5 nm 2" Optolong, 80x180"

*Gain 139, -25 º C, Sii-CCD 6.5 nm 2" Optolong, 82x180"

100 Darks

100 Flats por filtro

100 DarkFlats

Polar Align: SharpCap 3.2

Adquisición: SGP 3.1

Procesado: Pixinsight 1.8.8, PS

The Iris Nebula is a bright reflection, meaning it glows due to the scattering of the light from its central star. It is officially named NGC 7023, and images of it show off the dark regions of cosmic dust its surrounded by.

Shot from my back yard near Taos, New Mexico.

Equipment:

Celestron CGEM Mount

Nikon 500mm f/4 P AI-s

Sony a7RIII (unmodified)

Altair 60mm Guide scope

GPCAM2 Mono Camera

Acquisition:

Taos, NM: my backyard - Bortle 3

85 x 180" for 4 hours 16 min and 25 sec of exposure time.

6 dark frames

15 flats frames

15 bais frames

Software:

SharpCap

DeepSkyStacker

Photoshop

Guided

My mount was polar aligned with SharpCap (what an amazing system for aligning). I then mounted my a7RIII and adapted Nikon 500mm f/4 P Ai-s lens to the top rail of my scope. I used SharpCap to achieve "excellent" polar alignment. I shot ISO 3200, f/4 and 180" exposures. I stacked lights/darks/flats/bias frames in deepskystacker. I then processed the TIFF file in photoshop stretching the file, minimal cropping and I used Astronomy Tools Action Set to help bring out details and colors.

The Lagoon Nebula is a giant interstellar cloud in the constellation Sagittarius. It is classified as an emission nebula and as an H II region. The Lagoon Nebula was discovered by Giovanni Hodierna before 1654 and is one of only two star-forming nebulae faintly visible to the eye from mid-northern latitudes. The nebula lies around 4,077 light years away.

While I love the Great Orion Nebula, I am growing more enamored with this particular nebula. Take a closer look at everything going on here - dust lanes, waves of hydrogen clouds and more. It's a gorgeous nebula!

Stars removed using Starnet 2 in PixInsight.

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*5 mins @ 100 Gain, Temp -20C

- Dark Frames: 20*5 mins

- Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker

- Processed in PixInsight, Adobe Lightroom, and Topaz Denoise AI

I reprocessed this data that I shot in November 2022. I used PixInsight and was able to pull out a lot more detail.

The Triangulum Galaxy lies ~2.7 million light years away from Earth and is part of our local group of galaxies. It lies in the constellation Triangulum, from where it gets its name. Charles Messier cataloged it first in 1764. He published his Catalog of Nebulae and Star Clusters in 1771 and listed it as object number 33, hence the name M33.

Equipment:

SkyWatcher EQ6-R

Nikkor 500mm f/4 P AI-S at f/5.6

Sony a7rIII (unmodified)

ZWO 30mm Guide scope

GPCAM2 Mono Camera

Acquisition:

Taos, NM: my front yard - Bortle 3

28 x 301" for 2 hours, 26 min, and 56 sec exposure time.

3 dark frames

15 flats frames

15 bias frames

Guided

Software:

SharpCap

PHD2

DeepSkyStacker

PixInsight

Photoshop

Lightroom

I polar aligned my mount using SharpCap Pro. My Sony a7rIII and adapted Nikkor 500mm f/4 P AI-S were mounted on an ADM vixen rail and secured to the SkyWatcher EQ6-R mount. The guide scope/camera was attached to the camera's hot shoe. I used PHD2 to autogude during the imaging session. DeepSkyStacker was used to combine all frames, and the outputted TIFF file was brought into PixInsight using: STF, Cropping, Dynamic Background Extraction, BlurXTerminator, plate solving, color correction, NoiseXTerminator and then the DSO was separated from the stars, and both files processed and stretched separately and then recombined using PixelMath. That file was brought into Lightroom for Metadata and EXIF tags, light post-processing, and cropping to the final image.

هذه الصورة لسديم خوذة ثور ( اله الرعد و البرق في علم الاساطير) . يبعد عنا هذا السديم ١٥٠٠٠ سنه ضوئيةو يمتد لمسافة ٣٠ سنه ضوئية في كوكبه الكلب الاكبر. يتكون هذا السديم نتيجة اصطدام الرياح النجمية القوية الناتجة من نجم عالي الطاقة ( يبلغ عشر اضعاف كتلة الشمس ) مع الغازات المحيطة ليجعلها تتوهج في وسط الظلام بهذة الالوان الجميلة. This beautiful emission nebula is about 30 light years across and it lies 15,000 light years away from us in Canis major constellation. The nebula is emerged from the strong interstellar winds that produced from high energetic Wolf-Rayet star. This star is 10 times mass of the Sun and 6 to 10 times hotter. Hence, the interstellar winds energise the surrounding complex molecular clouds to glow in the dark. It resembles helmet with wings like Thor’s Helmet. The God of Thunder & Lightening in Mythology. Gear setup: Celestron Edge HD8 w/0.7 reducer, iOptron GEM45, ZWO 2600MM Cooled @ -10C, ZWO EFW 2”x5, Antlia 3nm Ha and Oiii 2” narrowband filters, Celestron OAG, ZWO 174MM. Captured by APT, PHD 2, Sharpcap pro in Ha 37 x 300sec Bin 2x2, Oiii 79 x 300sec Bin 2x2. subs with total exposure of 9.5 hours. Stacked by APP and Processed in PI, PS & Topaz Denoise. Taken from Bortle 9 class sky.

The comet has not been visible from my yard in a Bortle 7 suburb of NYC, even with binoculars. But as is often the case, astrophotography reveals the invisible. There were enough passing clouds and haze to leave me unsure if this would work at all, but 3 hours of data and patience with PixInsight seems to have done the trick.

Borg 55FL/ZWO ASI 1600MC /IDAS LPS-V4 filter. Data collected in SharpCap livestacks of 4 second exposures saved every 60 seconds 18:30-21:30 EST (with gaps 160 X 1 minute integrated in PixInsight). PixInsight comet processing involves multiple iterations of data integration with frames aligned on the comet and then the stars.

More data added to data captured last month,

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: 25x5 mins @ 100 Gain, Temp -20C

- Dark Frames: 25*5 mins

- Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker

- Processed in PixInsight, Adobe Lightroom and Topaz Denoise AI

= Acquisition info =

William Optics Zenithstar 73ii (FL 430mm)

Risingcam IMX571 color

iOptron CEM26

Sharpcap

= Séance photo =

@Astrobox 2.0

St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Québec

Bortle 9

2 juin 2025 @ 19h39

Filtre L-Pro

Best 250 de 1000 x 30ms

= Traitement/processing =

PIPP, Autostakkert, Registax & Affinity Photo 2

AstroM1

Data - 20/08/2024

Hora - 23:23:50 local

Local - João Pessoa, PB - Brasil

Bortle - Class 8

Telescopio - SW 150mm F8

Câmera - ZWO ASI 120MC

Montagem - EQ5

Motorização - On Step Brasil

Dupla Exposição

1000 frames para Lua (73%)

1000 frames para Saturno (53%)

Software Captura - SharpCap

Softwares Processamento - AS3/Registax/PhotoShop

Equipment:

Celestron CGEM Mount

Canon FD 300mm f/4 L

Sony a7RIII (unmodified)

Altair 60mm Guide scope

GPCAM2 Mono Camera

Acquisition:

Taos, NM: my backyard - Bortle 3

52 x 151" for 2hrs 10min and 50sec of exposure time.

10 dark frames

15 flats frames

15 bias frames

Guided

Software:

SharpCap

PHD2

DeepSkyStacker

Photoshop

My mount was polar aligned with SharpCap (what an amazing system for aligning). I'm not comfortable using my SCT as my lens yet. My solution is to piggyback my Sony a7RIII and adapted Canon FD 300mm f/4 L on a ADM dovetail rail on the top of my optical tube. I used DeepSkyStacker to combine all frames and then processed the TIFF file in Photoshop using my skill set and relying on the famous Astronomy Tools Action Set.

Older data (October 2021) but revised processing techniques in PixInsight given what I have learned over recent weeks. Maybe my best yet.

The Andromeda Galaxy, also known as Messier 31, M31, or NGC 224 and originally the Andromeda Nebula, is a barred spiral galaxy approximately 2.5 million light-years from Earth and the nearest large galaxy to the Milky Way.

It will collide with our own Milky Way in about 4.5 billion years.

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

- Light Frames: 32*4 mins @ 100 Gain, Temp -15C, 40x2 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

These 5 pictures from Monday and Tuesday nights, Sadr region, IC1396, Heart & Soul Nebulas, M8 & M20 and Veil complex...

WO SkyCat 51 Zwo 071MC Pro cooled color camera

Optolong eNhanced filter

#SharpCap Pro

Ioptron i45 Pro EQ mount PHD2 guiding

Orion 60mm guidescope SSAG

200 Gain offset 20 0c cooling all pictures 1 minute exposure

50 darks 50 flats and 50 bias frames

Astro Pixel Processor and PS

Sony IMX571 APS-C format native 16-bit ADC sensor (I do not state camera company unless it's a Canon.) SCT-11" @ F/10: The seeing was great for 30*C temperatures, the camera was not cooled. still in the process of trying to get perfect culmination but not easy when it's so hot out. would prefer 20*C: SHARPCAP to capture 3 minutes SER stacked in AS2 Tweaked with registax and photoshop. no WinJupos: