Wide field view of Active Region 12674 and 12673 taken on September 7, 2017.

Tech Specs: Canon EF 400mm f/5.6L USM + Canon 2x Extender III + ZWO ASI290MC camera piggyback mounted on a Meade 12” LX90 telescope on a Celestron CGEM-DX mount. Best 50% of 5000 frames collected using SharpCap v3.0 and AutoStakkert! V3.0.14 (x64). A 77mm Thousand Oaks Optical Solar Filter was on the business end of the lens. Date: September 7, 2017.

A colorful area in the center of the constellation Cygnus, showing the Crescent Nebula and open cluster Messier 29. Long exposures reveal a rich starfield otherwise hidden by light pollution, and the filter preferentially passes the red light emitted by vast clouds of hydrogen space dust.

Tech Stuff: Borg 55FL/ZWO ASI 1600MC/IDAS LPS-V4 filter. 42 minutes of 4 second unguided exposures captured as SharpCap livestacks, processed with PixInsight, Topaz AI Denoise; and ACDSee Gemstone 12. From my yard in Westchester County, red zone Bortle 7 sky.

This image of NGC 7293, the Helix Nebula, was taken at a Bortle 4 site in Landers, CA, USA on a New Moon night. Telescope: Explore Scientific ED102 FL 714mm F7. Guiding was with Orion 50mm Guide Scope FL 242mm with a ZWO ASI290MC for the guide camera. PHD2 auto-guiding software used the guide camera output to precisely guide the mount as the stars marched across the heavens. Mount: Celestron Advanced VX. Main imaging camera: ASI294MC PRO cooled to -5C. Exposures: 22 x 240s with Gain at 120 and Bin 2 x 2. No darks, flats or bias frames. Sequence acquisition was through Astrophotography Tool (APT) software. The images were aligned and processed to a TIF image in PixInsight software. Then the final image was translated to JPG format in Photoshop Creative Cloud software prior to uploading. The image has been moderately cropped. Polar alignment was with SharpCap Pro.

Jupiter reached opposition on August 19-20 so we imaged the planet on 23rd August close to the moment when it is at its biggest and brightest to us. Two of Jupiter's moons are visible in this shot, Io (closest to the planet) and Europa. We took numerous shots with different settings but this is the first of the batch to be processed.

Captured with SharpCap

Processed in PIPP and AutoStakkert

Post-processed in Photoshop

Image made from 2003 video frames

Gain - 50%

Exposure - 0.014258 seconds

Equipment:

Telescope: Sky-Watcher Explorer-150PDS

Mount: Skywatcher EQ5

Imaging Camera: ZWO ASI120 MC

x2 Barlow with extension tube (equivalent to x3.3)

SCHEDA TECNICA

Tubo ottico riflettore: Newton Skywatcher 150/750 PDS Explorer

Telescopio guida: 60/280

Montatura: EQ - Celestron AVX Advanced VX

Riprese: Camera CCD ZWO Asi 1600 mono PRO (raffreddata a -10°)

Filtro: H-alfa

Inseguimento: Camera CCD ZWO Asi 120 mono

Software riprese: SharpCap 3.2

Software inseguimento: PHD Guiding 2

Integrazione: 75 pose (.fits) × 60 secondi + dark frame

Elaborazione: Deep Sky Stacker + Photoshop

M: iOptron EQ45-Pro

T: WO GTF81 Refractor

C: ZWO ASI1600MC

G: OAG

GC: ZWO ASI120MC

Gain: 200; RAW16; FITs

Temp: -15 DegC

Frames: 13 Lights; 10 Darks; 40 flats; 40 DarkFlats

Exp: 13 x 200s

50% Crop

Capture: Sharpcap

Processed: APP; PS, Gradient Exterminator.

Distance: ~30.4 Million light years.

M45 - The Pleiades open star cluster. 02.02.19

57x 180sec lights

50x Flat 50x Dark generated Master Flat and Master Dark.

Unity Gain = 400

TEC set at -15C

Black level = 20

Captured with SharpCap 3.2 Pro

Integration with Astro Pixel Processor

Post processing Adobe Photoshop CC2019

Altair Astro StarWave 102ED x0.8 Reducer fitted

AA IMX183C PROTEC Hypercam

SkyWatcher AZ-EQ6 GT mount

Altair Astro 60mm guider GPCAM1 mono camera

Guiding PHD2.6.5

An awesome clear night last night, and my gear was playing nicely with the updated version of PHD2 Guiding, in which I utilized the multistar guiding option.

The Trifid Nebula is located in Sagittarius. It was discovered by Charles Messier on June 5, 1764. Its name means 'divided into three lobes'. The object is an unusual combination of an open cluster of stars; an emission nebula, a reflection nebula and a dark nebula. It lies approximately 5,200 light years 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: 25*5 mins @ 50 Gain, Temp -15C

- Dark Frames: 25*5 mins

- Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker

- Processed in PixInsight and Adobe Lightroom

Saturn - 13 August, very early AM !!!

Still learning - Shots last night without a Barlow (Image magnifier)

I'm really struggling to achieve any sort of decent focus with a Barlow - This makes the file size very small and a bit grainy/pixellated !!

Celestron C8 and ASI462MC on an NEQ6Pro mount.

Captured in Sharpcap Pro and processed in AS3, Registax and PS/Lightroom !!

Another test of my new ZWO Duo Band Filter. Just 3 minute subs. Brings out some interesting detail. Come January, I'll learn to put this all together properly using regular data.

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: 25*3 mins @ 100 Gain, Temp -20C

- Dark Frames: 25*3 mins

- Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker

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

Balcony astrophotography imaging M27, the Dumbell Nebula in Vulpecula.

Rough PA with the M-Zero and perfect stars at 3 min subs

ASI294MC, gain 200, temp 0 deg

55 * 180 seconds

2.75 hrs total integration time.

Calibrated in AstroPixel Processor, lights, darks, flats and dark flats. Captured in Sharpcap. Should have used NINA so I could dither. Guiding PHD2.

De gauche à droite ; Japet - Rhéa - Dioné - Titan et Téthys

Les anneaux s’aplatissent lentement, le 23 Mars 2025 ils seront vus par la tranche, pourvu que le ciel soit dégagé !

Instrument de prise de vue: Skywatcher T250/1000 Newton F4

Caméra d'imagerie: Player-One Uranus-C IMX585

Monture: Skywatcher AZ-EQ6 Pro Goto USB

Instrument de guidage: sans

Caméra de guidage: sans

Logiciels acquisition: Stellarium - SharpCap

Logiciels traitement :AutoStakkert - Astrosurface - Darktable - Gimp - FastStone Images Viewer

Filtres: Optolong L-PRO

Accessoires: Focuseur ZWO EAF - Barlow Kepler x2.5

Dates: 4 Nov. 2024- 20h46 GMT

Planète: Images unitaires: SER (2197x49.5ms)

Gain: 466

Lunes: Images unitaires: Fits 103s (100x1.03s)

Gain: 498

Échantillonnage: 0.164 "/pixel

Focale résultante: 3638mm

F/D: 15

Seeing: 1.24 "Arc

Bortle: 5

Phase de la Lune (moyenne):--

Rosette Nebula (or skull nebula) from last night, yes last night @ -15F temps :)

Blended data from Digitized Sky Survey to reduce noise and add a touch better resolution.

148 @ 60 seconds gain 100 offeset 8 HA filter.

Scope: AT65EDQ

Mount: iOptron iEQ45

Camera: ZWO ASI183M non cooled

Guide camera: QHY5Lii

Guide Scope: Stellarvue 60mm

ZWO 8 position 1.25 filter wheel filter wheel

Schuler HA 9nm,

MyFocuer Pro v2 (Robert Brown)

Bahtinov mask

Home Observatory

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

NGC 2126 is a small open cluster found in the constellation Auriga. It has a magnitude of 10.2 and is about 3,600 light years away from Earth. The cluster is dominated by the magnitude 6.1 star SAO 40801 which is the bright star in the center of the image.

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.

60 minutes of image capture.

60 * 1 minute.

No cooling, ambient temp, 16 degrees

Lens: Voigtlander 25mm

Mount: Star Adventurer

Polar Alignment: Polemaster

Sharpcap

Calibration: AstroPixel Processor (darks, flats, lights)

Tracking: PHD2 / Orion 50mm / ASI 120MC

Ecco una foto della Luna in fase crescente composta da 6 pannelli.

Dati:

Telescopio Celestron 114/910 Newton

Montatura Eq2 motorizzata Sky-Watcher

Camera planetaria QHY5L-ll-C

Filtro UV-IR cut

Sharpcap 4 per acquisire 6 video da 200 fotogrammi ciascuno

AS!4, Astrosurface V1 per le elaborazioni

GIMP 2.10 per assemblare manualmente le parti e per regolare luminosità e contrasto nel risultato finale

Data e ora: 18 dicembre 2023 18:37 UTC (19:37 ora locale)

Percentuale illuminata della Luna: 39%

Seeing medio e ottima trasparenza

Luogo: Cabras, Sardegna, Italia

Région de Seleucus et Schiaparelli dans l'océan Procellarum.

Instrument de prise de vue: Skywatcher T250/1000 Newton F4

Caméra d'imagerie: Player-One Uranus-C IMX585

Monture: Skywatcher AZ-EQ6 Pro Goto USB

Instrument de guidage: sans

Caméra de guidage: sans

Logiciels acquisition: Stellarium - SharpCap

Logiciels traitement :AutoStakkert - Astrosurface - Darktable - FastStone Images Viewer

Filtres: IR-Cut / IR-Block Player-One

Accessoires: Focuseur ZWO EAF - Barlow Kepler x2.5 + Projection par oculaire 9mm

Dates: 25 Nov. 2023- 20h45 GMT

Images unitaires: SER (500x109ms) 30% retenues

Gain: 284

Échantillonnage: 0.04 arcsec/pixel

Focale résultante: 14760mm

F/D: 59

Seeing: 2.10 "Arc

Bortle: 5

Phase de la Lune (moyenne): 96%

The Andromeda Galaxy, or Messier 31 (M31) is approximately 2.5 million light-years from earth. It is estimated that there are twice as many stars in this galaxy as there are in our home galaxy, the Milky Way.

This is about 3.5 hours of data I captured on the Andromeda Galaxy in October 2019 at the Staunton River Star Party in Staunton River State Park, Virginia. The image is comprised of only broadband, visible light with no filters. I cropped the image in pretty far to see the detail of the galaxy.

Equipment Used:

-Mount: Skywatcher Heq5-Pro

-Imaging Scope: William Optics Zenithstar 61 f/5.9

-Imaging Camera: Canon Rebel t7i (stock)

-Guide Scope: ZWO 30mm f/4 Mini Guide Scope

-Guide Camera: ZWO ASI120MM-S

-Software: Sharpcap, PhD 2, APT, Deep Sky Stacker, Photoshop

Image Details:

-Lights: 63x180"

-Darks: 15

-Bias: 147

-No Flats

Rosette Nebula 03

M: iOptron EQ45-Pro

T: WO GTF81 Refractor

C: ZWO ASI1600MC-Cooled

G: OAG and PHD2

GC: ZWO ASI120MC

Gain: 260; RAW16; FITs

Temp: -15 DegC

Filter: No Filters

Frames: 50 Lights; 20 Darks; 50 flats; 50 Dark Flats

Exp: 50 x 50s

Square Crop

Capture: Sharpcap

Processing: APP; LR; PS

Distance: 5,219 light years

Last week I posted the Crescent Nebula shot at 600mm. Here it is shot with my other rig at 700mm. Images were acquired over the past 3 months over 12 nights. Cygnus was just clearing our roofline around 2:30 AM when I began shooting these Crescent images.

I processed this image in HOO adding the SII using ImageBlend. I had noticed that there is not much SII data in the crescent nebula itself, but that there is some in the background essentially mimicking the Ha data.

Total Integration: 38 hours 49 mins

High Res Version: app.astrobin.com/u/jratino?i=uylxo3#gallery

Equipment:

Stellarvue SVX102T and Flattener

#zwo ASI533MM, ZWO AM5, EAF, EFW, ASI120 guide cam

#wandererastro Rotator Lite

#stellarvue 50mm Guide Scope F050G

#chroma 3nm Ha, OII, SII, R, G, B

Acquisition: NINA, Sharpcap for PA

Stacked in APP, bias, flats, flatdarks, darks

Processed/edited in PI

IG: jlratino

Here is a view of at least seven of Saturn's moons taken on August 4, 2018. Two different over-exposed images were used using the ZWO ASI290MC camera and SharpCap software package.

Tech Specs: Sky-Watcher Esprit 120mmED Triplet Refractor, Celestron CGEM-DX mount, ASI 290MC. Captured with SharpCap software and Corel Paintshop Pro. Image Date: 4 August 2018. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, Pennsylvania, USA.

Re-Processed in PS.

Seen in the constellation of Cassiopeia.

M: iOptron EQ45-Pro

T: William Optics GTF81

C: ZWO ASI1600MC-Cooled

F: L-eNhance filter (Dual Ha,Hb & Oiii Narrowbands)

G: PHD2

GC: ZWO ASI120mini

RAW16; FITs

Temp: -20 DegC

Gain 200;

10 x Exp 200s

3 x Exp 300s

7 x Exp 400s

Frames: 20 Lights; 0 Darks; 20 flats

100% Crop

Capture: SharpCap

Processed: DSS; PS

Sky: 80% Gibbous moon, calm, minimal cloud, cold, fair seeing.

NGC 7000

The North America Nebula is large, covering an area of more than four times the size of the full moon; but its surface brightness is low, so normally it cannot be seen with the unaided eye. Binoculars and telescopes with large fields of view (approximately 3°) will show it as a foggy patch of light under sufficiently dark skies. However, using a UHC filter, which filters out some unwanted wavelengths of light, it can be seen without magnification under dark skies. Its prominent shape and especially its reddish color (from the hydrogen Hα emission line) show up only in photographs of the area.

The portion of the nebula resembling Mexico and Central America is known as the Cygnus Wall. This region exhibits the most concentrated star formation.

Had terrible guiding issues which I am sure are mount related. Did not frame this too well but was afraid to touch anything once I had the target since the first image was 1.5 hours after set up. Wanted more integration but hey, whatever...

AT65EDQ

Nikon D5300

QHY5LII-M guide camera

Orion Mini Guide scope 50mm

Celestron CG5 with OnStep GOTO electronics

18@5 minutes ISO 400

100 Bias

APT, PHD2, ASCOM POTH, Sharpcap, C2C

Stacked and processed in Pixinsight

Finish in PS/ACR

m27-97x8-g2098-imx224-85f5_6-v2

A quick shot of the Dumbbell before it went behind the trees. I setup in a spot specifically to catch it before it was too low and gone for the season for me here at this location.

Technical:

97x8 sec @ 2098 Gain (100-5000 range.)

Televue TV-85 at F/5.6

Rising Tech Sony IMX224 Eyepiece/Guider Cam

Atlas EQ-G w/EQMOD

Orion 30mm Ultra-Mini/Orion Starshoot, PHD Guiding2

Sharpcap 2.9

Bortle Red zone conditions.

Taken with a Celestron C6 SCT, Celestron AVX mount, 2x Barlow, and ASI120MC. Captured with SharpCap, stacked with AutoStakkert, and processed with Astra Image Pro and Photoshop.

Decided to photograph the moon before switching to deep sky objects for the rest of the night. **This photo has had the saturation increased to highlight the differences in the lunar soil**, which are *barely* noticeable to the eye when viewed through larger telescopes (usually in Mare Serenitatis or Mare Imbrium for me, at least). Tan/orange indicates iron rich minerals, and blue indicates titanium rich minerals. Captured at 9pm on April 10th, 2022.

---

**[Equipment:](i.imgur.com/ejpKkwU.jpg)**

* TPO 6" F/4 Imaging Newtonian

* Orion Sirius EQ-G

* ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro

* Skywatcher Quattro Coma Corrector

* ZWO EFW 8x1.25"/31mm

* Astronomik LRGB+CLS Filters- 31mm

* Astrodon 31mm Ha 5nm, Oiii 3nm, Sii 5nm

* Agena 50mm Deluxe Straight-Through Guide Scope

* ZWO ASI-120MC for guiding

* Moonlite Autofocuser

**Acquisition:** (Camera at Unity Gain, -15°C)

* R - 1000 x 1.541ms

* G - 500 x 1.206ms

* B - 500 x 1.797ms

**Capture Software:**

* Captured using Sharpcap and [N.I.N.A.](nighttime-imaging.eu/) for mount/filterwheel control

**Stacking:**

* Stacked the best 15% of frames in Autostakkert (autosharpened, 3X Drizzle)

**PixInsight Processing:**

* DynamicCrop

* ChannelCombination to combine monochrome images into RGB image

* ChannelMatch to align G and B colorchannels to red

* ColorCalibration

* HistogramTransformation (slight stretch, also applied to red stack)

* LRGBCombination using red stack as luminance

* CurvesTransformations to adjust lightness, contrast, colors, saturation, etc.

* SCNR green (a little)> invert > SCNR (a lot) > invert

* UnsharpMask for additional sharpening

* LocalHistogramTransformation

* more curves

* Annotation

The first sliver of moon on a new lunar cycle.

M: iOptron EQ45-Pro

T: WO GTF81 Refractor

C: ZWO ASI1600MC-Cooled

Gain: 240; RAW16; Ser Format Movie File

Temp: -20 DegC

Frames: Best 25% of 1000

Exp: tbd

Cropped

Capture: Sharpcap

Processed: PIPP cropped and converted to AVI; Stacked in Registax-6 with minimal wavelet sharpening, Levels and curves adjusted PS CC.

Discovered in 1702 by the German astronomer Gottfried Kirch, M5 is one of the oldest globular clusters in the Milky Way galaxy. With an apparent magnitude of 6.7 and a location 25,000 light-years away in the constellation Serpens, M5 appears as a patch of light with a pair of binoculars and is best viewed during July.

This cluster contains between 100,000-500,000 stars!

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: 30*2 mins @ 100 Gain, Temp -15C

- Dark Frames: 10*2 mins

- Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker

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

Aristoteles lies at the edge of Mare Frigoris (Sea of Cold) and is of course name after the Greek philosopher Aristotle.

Eudoxus is named after the Greek astronomer Eudoxus of Cnidus who was a student of Plato.

Egede, named after Dano-Norwegian natural historian Hans Egede has been flooded by lava leaving only the rim.

Galle is named after Johann G Galle who was a German astronomer who was the first to view the planet Neptune.

Sheepshanks, named after Anne Sheepshanks, born 1794. She was a British astronomical benefactor who gave £10,000 to Cambridge Observatory for a photographic telescope

C Mayor is named after Christian Mayor, a Moravian-German Catholic priest, astronomer and teacher.

Meton is a compound formation of several merged craters. Meton was a Greek mathematician and astronomer.

Barrow, named after Isaac Barrow who was a Christian theologian and mathematician. He is credited with developing infinitesimal calculus.

Goldschmidt is a large walled plain named after Hermann Goldschmidt who was a German-French astronomer and painter. He discovered 14 asteroids.

Location:01-12-2023 St Helens UK, Phase Day 19, 75%.

Acquisition:Best 25% of 1000x 20ms IR625.

Equipment:Skywatcher 100P Newt (Modified), EQ6Rpro; ZWO EAF, EFWmini; Optolong IR625; Altair H183Mpro.

Software:Sharpcap Pro, EQMOD.

Processing:PIPP, AutoStakkert, Registax 6, Affinity Photo 2 with NoiseXTerminator plug-in.

August Full Moon

Often called the called Sturgeon Moon because of the large number of sturgeon fish that were found in the Great Lakes in North America this time of year.

My first successful Mineral moon. Saturday evening after returning home from the Super Star Party at Lake Metroparks Penitentiary Glen Reservation that our Astronomy Club attended, I looked up at that full moon we had just been viewing and thought I need to shoot it. At first I used my DSLR/telephoto lens in my driveway. But then thought let's try my rig at Starfront in Texas,

Turned out the FOV was perfect. So I captured 1 two minute video each of LRGB. The seeing was great and the rig tracked perfect.

Equipment:

Stellarvue SVX102T and Flattener

#zwo ASI533MM, ZWO AM5, EAF, EFW

#chroma L, R, G, B

Acquisition: Sharpcap

Processed/Stacked/Edited in PIPP, Autostakkert, Photoshop

‎سديم الحجاب الشرقي، هو سديم غازي يقع في كوكبة الوزة. هذا السديم الفضائي هو من بقايا مستعر اعظم ناتج عن انفجار نجم اكبر من شمسنا ب٢٠ مرة قبل ١٠،٠٠٠ الى ٢٠،٠٠٠ سنة. يبعد هذا السديم الغازي ٢٤٠٠ سنة ضوئية عن الارض. و يتألف السديم من غازي الهايدروجين و الاوكسجين الساخنه و المحفزة . حيث يبعث غاز الهايدروجين اللون الاحمر و يبعث الاوكسجين اللون الازرق. من الجدير بالذكر، ان هذا السديم يتمدد بسرعة ١،٥ مليون كم بالساعة.

Eastern Veil Nebula NGC 6992 (Network nebula) is part of Cygnus loop in the constellation of Cygnus. This filamentary nebula is remanent of a supernova that happened due to star explosion before 10,000 to 20,000 years ago. It lies about 2,400 ly from Earth. It’s composed of Hydrogen and Oxygen hot ionised gases. Hydrogen gas emits in Red & Oxygen in Blue. Those gases are expanding @ a rate of 1.5 million km per hour. Gear setup: ES 102 Triplet APO CF f/7 @713mm, OPT 2” Triad filter, ZWO 2600MC @0, iOptron GEM 45, unguided, Pegasus FocusCube. Captured by APT, Sharpcap pro. Lights 88 x 120sec, Darks 20, Bias 20, Flats 20, total integration is 2.9 hours from Bortle 4 sky. Stacked in APP and Processed by PI and finished in PS.

I embarked on a mammoth lunar imaging session on 10th February so I could produce an animation showing the sunrise over some prominent craters. I've already shared the video I created with the data but am now sharing the still images. If you didn't see the animation you can watch it here:

flic.kr/p/2n38rfm

I was imaging from15:45 UT until 22:30 UT and during that time the Moon changed its illumination from 69% to 72%.

Taken from Oxfordshire with a William Optics 70mm refractor and ASI120MC camera through a Celestron 3x Barlow. A 2,000 frame video was shot with SharpCap and depending on the quality graph I stacked either 50 or 25% of the frames using Autostakkert! 3. Processing with Lightroom and Fast Stone Image Viewer.

Celestron NexStar 6SE

Zwo Asi224mc with IR cut filter

Zwo ADC

Tele Vue 2.5x Powermate

FireCapture for ADC tuning.

SharpCap for Capturing.

Saturn

2.5 minute video, exposure-5.0ms, gain-360

Processed in AutoStakkert, RegiStax and Lightroom.

Here is an animated GIF showing the rotation of Jupiter on July 19, 2018. The view shows 28-minutes of rotation time.

Tech Specs: Sky-Watcher Esprit 120mmED Triplet Refractor, Celestron CGEM-DX mount, ASI 290MC, each image in the animation was the best 25% of 20k frames. Captured with SharpCap, processed in AutoStakkert, refined in Registax and Lightroom. Image Date: 19 July 2018. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, Pennsylvania, USA.

Imaging from a Bortle class 2 site makes all the difference but still had a 1/3 moon to contend with. Problems with guiding, could not get ASIair to work, problems with the hand controller.. the list goes on but that's astrophotography for ya, Just push on.

35*30 seconds, total integration time 17 minutes

Gain: 300

Temp: 0

Mount: CEM40

Polar Alignment: Pole Mster

Capture software: SharpCap

Processing: AstroPixel Processor : lights only

Taken with RC8 to test collimation. Using ASI2600MC camera. A total of 43 X 3 minutes exposures using SharpCap in live stacking mode.

Genova, Italy (17 Oct 2020 - 01:24 GMT+2)

Orange vintage C8 (203 F10 SC Telescope) on EQ5 Mount + QHY5L-II Color Camera @ F25 (Barlow APO 2.5x).

Best 15075 frames of 50250 (30%)

Recording: SharpCap 3.2 (320x240 @ 130fps)

Stacking: AutoStakkert! 3.1.4

Wavelets: Registax 6.1

Final: GIMP 2.10.8

Taken around 2am on February 14th with a Celestron C6 SCT, Celestron AVX mount, 2x Barlow, and ASI120MC. Captured with SharpCap, stacked with AutoStakkert, and processed with Astra Image Pro and Photoshop.

I embarked on a mammoth lunar imaging session on 10th February so I could produce an animation showing the sunrise over some prominent craters. I've already shared the video I created with the data but am now sharing the still images. If you didn't see the animation you can watch it here:

flic.kr/p/2n38rfm

I was imaging from15:45 UT until 22:30 UT and during that time the Moon changed its illumination from 69% to 72%.

Taken from Oxfordshire with a William Optics 70mm refractor and ASI120MC camera through a Celestron 3x Barlow. A 2,000 frame video was shot with SharpCap and depending on the quality graph I stacked either 50 or 25% of the frames using Autostakkert! 3. Processing with Lightroom and Fast Stone Image Viewer.

The Moon captured in a clear evening sky on May 22nd 2021

Altair Astro Lightwave 72EDR f/6 refractor.

Altair Astro IMX178C Hypercam

SkyWatcher AZ-GTI goto mount.

The best 25% of frames stacked with AutoStakkert3 of an initial 3000 frames captured with SharpCap Pro 4.0

Post processed in Photoshop 2021

The Triangulum Galaxy is a spiral galaxy 2.73 million light-years (ly) from Earth in the constellation Triangulum. It is catalogued as Messier 33 or NGC 598. The Triangulum Galaxy is the third-largest member of the Local Group of galaxies, behind the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy. It is one of the most distant permanent objects that can be viewed with the naked eye.

The galaxy is the smallest spiral galaxy in the Local Group and is believed to be a satellite of the Andromeda Galaxy or on its rebound into the latter due to their interactions, velocities, and proximity to one another in the night sky. It also has an H II nucleus. (Wikipedia.org)

Technical Info for Image: This image was taken with my Explore Scientific ED102 APO f7, FL 714mm, refractor telescope mounted on a Celestron Advanced VX Equatorial Mount. A ZWO ASI294MC Pro camera was attached to the prime focus of the telescope and cooled to -5C while set to a Gain of 120. An Orion 50mm guide scope (FL 242mm) was connected to a ZWO ASI290MC camera which communicated with PHD2 auto-guiding software to give precision guiding to the rig as the stars marched across the heavens. 18 images of 120 seconds each were taken at Bin 2x2. Image acquisition was through Astrophotography Tool (APT) software. Post processing and editing were done with Pixinsight software. Polar alignment was done with SharpCap Pro. Final touchup of the image and translation into the JPG format was done with Adobe Photoshop Creative Cloud software prior to uploading to Flickr. This sequence, was taken under the excellent dark skies of Landers, California USA at the time of a new moon so the stars were shining brightly.

Uno splendido mosaico di Luna Calante, ripresa la notte del 23 settembre

Dati:

Celestron 114/900 Newton

montatura eq2 con motore AR

camera Qhy5L-IIC

filtro UV IR cut

Sharpcap per l’acquisizione di 13 video da 1 minuto

Autostakkert 3 e Registax 6 per elaborare i video

Autostitch per creare il mosaico

Camera Raw per regolare luminosità e contrasto nel risultato finale

Luogo: Cabras, Italia

Data: 23-09-2021 da 00:29 a 00:48 UTC

Copyright: Roberto Ortu

The Leo Triplet (also known as the M66 Group) is a small group of galaxies about 35 million light-years away in the constellation Leo. This galaxy group consists of the spiral galaxies M65, M66, and NGC 3628.

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: 25*3 mins @ 50 Gain, Temp -16C

- Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker

- Processed in PixInsight and Adobe Lightroom

Taken from Oxfordshire on 1st May 2023 with a William Optics 70mm refractor and ZWO ASI120MC camera fitted with a Powermate 5x Barlow.

The telescope was on an EQ5 Pro mount on a permanent pier, tracking at lunar rate. It was still twilight when I started imaging and I was also dealing with varying amounts of thin cloud. The Moon was 85% Waxing Gibbous. Schiller is on the few genuinely oval shaped lunar craters. Most of the others that appear oval are only that shape because of its position as viewed from Earth, i.e. the crater is foreshortened when located towards the edges so it causes the crater to look slightly squashed.

A 2,000 frame video was captured using SharpCap and the best 25% of the frames were stacked using Autostakkert! 3. Processing was done in Lightroom and Fast Stone Image Viewer, plus a bit of sharpening in Focus Magic.

Jupiter with the Great Red Spot. Imaged @ 00:47 13/09/2022, UK. SW200P Newtonian with Altair H183Mpro. Stacked best 10% of 6000x 6ms for each RGB filter.

Sharpcap, AutoStackert, RegiStax 6, Affinity Photo, DeNoiseAI plug-in.

Genova, Italy (11 Oct 2022 22:14 UT)

Planet: diameter 49.4", mag -2.9, altitude ≈ 45°

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 33% frames of 7250

Alignment/Stacking: AutoStakkert! 3.1.4

Wavelets/Deconvolution: AstroSurface T5

Final Elaboration: GIMP 2.10.30

Aristarco è un cratere da impatto con un diametro di 40 Km situato a nord-ovest della Luna sull'altopiano di Aristarco, nell'Oceano delle Tempeste (Oceanus Procellarum). L'area del cratere è tra le più chiare di tutta la superficie lunare, come si può vedere anche nell'immagine rispetto alle zone circostanti. A ovest di questo si trova Erodoto (35 Km di diametro) e più a nord la Vallis Schroteri, una rima larga fino a 10 km e con una lunghezza di circa 160 Km.

Dati:

Celestron 114/910 Newton

Montatura eq2 con motore AR

Camera planetaria QHY5L-II-C

Barlow 2x Celestron Omni

Filtro UV IR cut

Sharpcap per acquisire un video da 3000 frames

Autostakkert!3 e Registax 6 per elaborare il 40% dei frames totali

GIMP per luminosità e contrasto nel risultato finale.

Luogo: Cabras, Sardegna, Italia

Data: 13 maggio 2022 alle 22:08 UTC (0:08 ora locale del 14 )

Fase della Luna: Gibbosa crescente al 93%

After a few years of no astrophotography I got a wild hair to try some yesterday. After spending the afternoon digging in closets and boxes, I found most of my equipment. It took about an hour to set it up. I spent another hour figuring out where focus was (and looking for my extension tubes) and getting the moon into frame. After getting a rough focus, my wife arrived with a bottle of wine and declared it "happy hour." I hit the capture button on SharpCap and got this capture before popping the cork and calling it a night. It's not the greatest but I was surprised how well it came out considering I didn't know what I was doing.

South is to top of the image. Mare Nectaris is near the center. The Apollo 11 landing site is towards the bottom of the frame and a little to the right, though it’s not visible. I can’t wait until Musk and Bezos put their logos on the moon in bright LEDs. Each will claim theirs is the biggest and brightest.

November 19, 2023; Tallahassee, Florida

HAE29 (alt-az mode); 80mm/f5.6 refractor; ASI120MC (the original;) SharpCap; PIPP; RegiStax; best 500 frames out of 1000.

231119_Moon_Moon age 6 days

One of my favorite open clusters!

Messier 37 is the brightest and richest open cluster in the constellation Auriga. It was discovered by the Italian astronomer Giovanni Battista Hodierna before 1654. M37 was missed by French astronomer Guillaume Le Gentil when he rediscovered M36 and M38 in 1749. It lies approximately 4,500 light years away.

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: 60*1 mins @ 100 Gain, Temp -20C,

- Dark Frames: 60*1 mins

- Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker

- Processed in PixInsight, Adobe Lightroom and Topaz Denoise AI

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 (770 kiloparsecs) from Earth and the nearest major galaxy to the Milky Way. The galaxy's name stems from the area of Earth's sky in which it appears, the constellation of Andromeda, which itself is named after the Ethiopian (or Phoenician) princess who was the wife of Perseus in Greek mythology. (Wikipedia)

The Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies are expected to collide in around 4.5 billion years. With an apparent magnitude of 3.4, the Andromeda Galaxy is among the brightest of the Messier objects, making it visible to the naked eye from Earth on moonless nights, even when viewed from areas with moderate light pollution. (Wikipedia)

Also in the picture are the satellite galaxies of M32(NGC 221) just above to the left and M101(NGC 205) which is at the bottom of the picture.

160x180s (8 Hours) with flats and bias. Dithered. Taken over 5 nights between 13th and 20th September 2020.

Telescope: - Skywatcher 130PDS Newtonian.

Camera: - Nikon D3100 with a GuDoQi Wireless Wifi SD Card.

ISO: 400. Automated white balance

Filters: - Baader Mark-III MPCC Coma Corrector. IDAS D2 Light Pollution Suppression Filter

Flats taken with a Huion L4S Light Box and a white t-shirt.

Wireless Remote: PIXEL TW-283 DC2 2.4G.

Mount: - Skywatcher EQ6R.

Guiding: Skywatcher EvoGuide 50ED & ZWO ASI120MM-Mini.

Polar Aligned with SharpCap Pro.

Control Software: - NINA connecting to EQMOD, PHD Guiding 2, and Plate Solve 2. EZ Share to automatically push pictures to the laptop for image centralization. Also used PHD Dither Timer.

Processing Software: Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker, edited in Star Tools and Topaz Denoise AI.

Moon: Between 10% Waning Crescent and 10% waxing crescent. All pictures used had no moon in the sky.

Light Pollution and Location: - Bortle 7/8 in Davyhulme, Manchester. Different websites tell me different things about this. It all depends on the time of night and which way I’m pointing.

Seeing: - What an unusual and amazing run of clear sky’s either side of a new moon. Seeing was mostly good, sometimes fair and sometimes great.

Notes:- This was a major project for me spending more time on this picture than any of the pictures that came before it. It is the object that I have most looked forward to doing and was worried that the sky’s would not clear. They cleared.

I used 5 nights of data however I have actually been shooting Andromeda over 8 nights starting in early August with a half waning Moon. I must have about 20-30 hours of pictures, but I have now deemed the majority of these unusable. The gradients with even a half moon meant I stood no chance and 3 nights had to be written off completely. I stepped down to only include frames with below 3% sky background in DSS but this was not enough and it was only when I dumped all frames over 2% that I started to get some success. In fact 8 hours of below 2% was far better than the 13 hours I had below 3%.

I bought a long USB extender so I could control things indoors, this means my time outdoors is much less these days. The problem is that the wifi on the sd card doesn’t reach indoors so I had to use a wifi adapter I already had to receive the signal. This works for a while but after an hour or 2 the thing keeps cutting out which is very frustrating. Being indoors is such a boon so I have decided to still use NINA to set things up, plate solve and centre but I’m back to using the remote shutter and PHD2 dither timer for the main pictures to make sure I get a full session in. Enough is enough. At some point I will be buying a dedicated astronomy camera. The D3100 has served me well over the years but it won’t connect directly to any astro software and I’m tired of trying to work around this.

It was advised to me in the comments section of another picture to try using Topaz Denoise AI so I set up a free trial. Thanks a lot mate, I’m now going to have to depart with more money because I was impressed. Star Tools does a good job but Topaz is better. It can even improve pics from the noisiest camera in the world. A brief note on the colour, at least its not green. That said red seems to dominate, and I seem to pick up none of the blue that other photographers seem to get. Perhaps that will change with a better camera.

At the 2am meridian flip (a lot of the lights go out around here by then) I tried making out Andromeda with my naked eyes. I know where it is and can easily find it with bino’s. I actually think I saw it; the problem is I cant work out whether I am seeing something because there is something or I’m seeing something because I think I should be seeing something.

Previous pictures of Andromeda for comparison: -

Andromeda through 300mm lens on the D3100.Taken 7 years ago with no light pollution filter.

Milky Way and Andromeda over some trees.Standard DSLR shot taken in the Alps in 2013.

Andromeda and Comet C/2011 Panstarrs.Another standard DSLR pic taken is the Yorkshire Dales in 2013.