Elephant Trunk Nebula

HA 436 @ 30 seconds Gain 200 offset 5

(Color version is using Blue Channel from Digitized Sky Survey HHO blend)

20 darks at 62F

30 flats

Scope: Orion 8" f4 Astrograph with Baader Coma Corrector

Mount: iOptron iEQ45 pro

Camera: ZWO ASI183M non cooled

Guide camera: QHY5Lii

Guide Scope: Stellarvue 60mm

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

Bahtinov mask

Home Observatory

Software: N.I.N.A., PHD2, Sharpcap, CdC, Pixinsight, Photoshop, Nic Dfine 2, Team Viewer

I decided to remove the Hyperstar for once to try my hand at some prime focus imaging with the 11" Celestron EdgeHD. I was after some planetary captures (Venus), but I had software issues(Sharpcap). Unitl I had them fixed, Venus had set in the West. So before the clouds moved in, I decided to capture some quick Luminance filtered images of NGC7023, the Iris Nebula

Luminance filter image combined with older RGB.

28x2 minute exposures(binned 2x2)

30 Flats

20 Darks

30 Bias

Gain 10

Offset 57

Equipo Principal: ZWO ASI 1600 mm-pro + Long Perng S400G + LP Field Flattener + EQ6-R-Pro

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

*Gain 139, -20º C, Ha 7nm 2" Optolong, 140 Lights x 180"

*Gain 139, -20º C, Oiii-CCD 6.5nm 2" Optolong, 110 Lights x 180"

*Gain 139, -20º C, Sii-CCD 6.5nm 2" Optolong, 94 Lights x 180"

100 Flats por filtro

100 Darks

Adquisición y Procesado: SharpCap Pro 3.2, SGP v3, Pixinsight 1.8.6, PS

hh-262x30-g37-o200-46x180-g20-o100-qhy183c_-20C-lnh-85f5_6

Two sets of data combined, one from last Halloween night during a full moon and one taken the night of December 17/18th, 2020. 262x30 sec at gain 37, offset 200 and 46x180 sec at gain 20, offset 100 for a total of nearly 4.5 hours exposure. Taken with a QHYCCD QHY183c camera at -20C cooling, an Optolong L-eNhance filter and a Televue TV-85 at F/5.6. One was landscape orientation and one was portrait orientation, which is why the diffraction spikes are a cross, which makes it kinda cool. :-)

Location was a metro area, Bortle 7-8 red zone, clear and transparent skies each night. Acquired and stacked in SharpCap 3.2 (LiveStacking) with dark subtraction.

Equipo Principal: ZWO ASI 1600 mm-pro + Long Perng S400G + LP Field Flattener + EQ6-R-Pro

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

*Gain 139, -20º C, Ha 7nm 2" Optolong, 103 Lights x 180"

*Gain 139, -20º C, Oiii-CCD 6.5nm 2" Optolong, 60 Lights x 180"

*Gain 139, -20º C, Sii-CCD 6.5nm 2" Optolong, 50 Lights x 180"

100 Flats por filtro

100 Darks

Adquisición y Procesado: SharpCap Pro 3.2, SGP v3.1, Pixinsight 1.8.6, PS

On either end of the Sinus Iridum (Bay of Rainbows) are two capes, or points, called Promontorium Laplace and Promontorium Heraclides that were right near the sun-shadow line on the moon. This area has also been called the “jeweled scimitar” because of its resemblance to the scimitar sword (or sabre).

Tech Specs: Meade 12” LX90, Celestron CGEM-DX mount, ASI290MC, best 2.5k of 5k frames, AutoStakkert! V3.0.14 (x64), FireCapture v2.5.10 x64 and Registax v6. Software used included Sharpcap v2.9 and AutoStakkert! Alpha Version 2.3.0.21. Photographed on July 4, 2017 from Weatherly, Pennsylvania.

Rupes Recta, a linear fault line, or rille, was casting quite the shadow on March 11, 2022. The name is Latin for straight cliff, although it is more commonly called the Straight Wall. This fault has a length of about 68 miles (110 kilometers). The small (11 miles wide) crater Birt lies just to the west.

Tech Specs: Orion 8" f/8 Ritchey-Chretien Astrograph Telescope, Celestron CGEM-DX pier mounted, ASI290MC, ZWO AAPlus, ZWO EAF, best 20% of 30k frames at full resolution, processed using SharpCap Pro and Registax. Image Date: March 11, 2022. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).

First attempt at NGC1499 California Nebula. Scope: TSAPO65Q. Mount: SkyWatcher EQ6-R Pro. Camera: ZWO ASI294MC Pro. Guide: Altair GPCAMv2 130M with Orion 50mm. 30 x 3 Mins in SharpCap Pro. Processed in APP. Finished and cropped in Adobe CC.

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, -20 º C, Ha 7nm 2" Optolong, 78x180"

*Gain 139, -20 º C, Oiii-CCD 6.5 nm 2" Optolong, 80x180"

100 Darks

100 Flats por filtro

Polar Align: SharpCap 3.2

Adquisición: SGP 3.1

Procesado: Pixinsight 1.8.8, PS

Equipo Principal: ZWO ASI 1600 mm-pro + Long Perng S400G + LP Field Flattener + EQ6-R-Pro

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

*Gain 139, -20º C, Ha 7nm 2" Optolong, 103 Lights x 180"

*Gain 139, -20º C, Oiii-CCD 6.5nm 2" Optolong, 60 Lights x 180"

*Gain 139, -20º C, Sii-CCD 6.5nm 2" Optolong, 50 Lights x 180"

100 Flats por filtro

100 Darks

Adquisición y Procesado: SharpCap Pro 3.2, SGP v3.1, Pixinsight 1.8.6, PS

Telescopio: Celestron C8 Edge HD

Montatura: iOptron CEM60

Camera di ripresa: ZWO ASI 174 mono Cooled

Filtro: Optolong Red CCD 50,8 mm

Software:SharpCap 3.2 Pro, Emil Kraaikamp Autostakkert 3.0.14, Zoner Photo Studio X v. 19, Pleiades Astrophoto PixInsight 1.8, Astra Image 4 SI

Focuser: Moonlite CF 2,5" focuser with high resolution stepper DRO

Pose: 2390 a 150 ftgs

Lunghezza focale: 2032 mm

Seeing: 3 Trasparenza: 5

From last night M52 & NGC7635 (Bubble Nebula)

WO SkyCat 51mm 250mm FL

Zwo 071MC Pro cooled color camera

#SharpCap Pro PHD2

Gain 100 Temp 0c 1 minute exposure 128 total

Darks flats and Bias frames

Ioptron i45 Pro EQ mount Orion 60mm guidescope SSAG

Stacked and processed in Astro Pixel Processor StarTools and PS

Telescopio: Celestron C8 Edge HD

Montatura:iOptron CEM60

Camera: QHY 178 mono cooled

Filtro:Optolong Red CCD 50,8 mm

Software:SharpCap 3.2 Pro, Emil Kraaikamp Autostakkert 3.0.14, Zoner Photo Studio X v. 19, Stark Labs Nebulosity 4.2, Pleiades Astrophoto PixInsight 1.8

Pose: 150 FPS: 24,00000

Lunghezza focale: 2032 mm

Seeing: 3 Trasparenza: 8

added 3+ hours to the 2 I had from the other night. Seeing was really bad so I was never happy with the sharpness but what are you going to do? I do see a difference with the added data but still think I need more. Each night was stacked separately due to temp differences then combined using Pixel Math.

5.3 hours total in HA

24@300 seconds HA Temp 45F

40@300 seconds HA temp 15F

30 flats each

30 darks each

AT65EDQ Scope, ASI183 mono uncooled camera, iEQ45 mount, guided.

PA in sharpcap

Auto focus in NINA

Platesolve in APT

capture using APT and NINA

Processed in Pixinsight and PS CC

An iconic edge on spiral galaxy at approx. 12 megaparsecs distance. Marked by a very prominent dust band stretching right across its diameter as well as bright blue stellar regions at the two end tips.

Equipment-

900/120mm f/7.5 Starwatcher Equinox EDrefractor.

Starwatcher x 0.85FR with 2 inch IDAS LPS D1 filter

ZWO ASI2600MC; 22 x 6 minute subs + (132 minute total integration).

NEQ6 Pro Mount with Rowan modified belt drives. Plate solving GOTO.

Laptop with SharpCap 4.0 for focusing and acquisition.

Calibration-

30 dark frames

75 flat frames (Electroluminescent panel @ 1 second, Gain 0)

QHY Polemaster alignment -

Error measured by PHD2= 1.2 arc minute.

RA drift +1.43 arcsec/min

Dec drift -0.31 arcsec/min

Guiding-

PHD2 guiding with ZWO ASI290mm/Altair lightwave 209/50mm secondary scope. Alternate subs dithered.

RA RMS error 0.70 arcsec, peak error -2.65 arcsec

Dec RMS error 0.53 arcsec, peak error -4.13 arcsec

Astrometry-

Center (RA, hms): 12 36 08.136

Center (Dec, dms): +25 55 58.99

Field of view: 49 58.4 x 30 53.5

Pixel scale: 0.97 arcsec/pixel

Light Pollution-

SQM (L) at middle of session (2354hrs UT) 20.2 mag/arcsec2 .

Typical of outer suburbs - Bortle scale = 5/9 Yellow

Environmental-

Temp = 8.1c

Humidity = 99%

Dew point = 8.0c

Clear throughout .

Post processed in PixInsight 1.8.9

55 million light years away!

Messier 100 is a grand design intermediate spiral galaxy in the southern part of the mildly northern Coma Berenices. It is one of the brightest and largest galaxies in the Virgo Cluster and is approximately 55 million light-years from our galaxy, its diameter being 107,000 light years, and being about 60% as large.

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*5 mins @ 100 Gain, Temp -20C

- Dark Frames: 10*5 mins

- Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker

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

Telescopio: Celestron C8 Edge HD

Montatura:iOptron CEM60

CMOS di ripresa: ZWO ASI 174 mono Cooled

Lunghezza focale: 2032 mm

Filtro: Optolong Red CCD 50,8 mm

Software:SharpCap 3.2 Pro, Emil Kraaikamp Autostakkert 3.0.14, Pleiades Astrophoto PixInsight 1.8, Astra Image 4 SI

Focuser: Moonlite CF 2,5" focuser with high resolution stepper DRO

Pose: 200 a 65 fotogrammi al secondo

Seeing: 2 Trasparenza: 3

252 1/52s exposures.

Telescope: - Skywatcher 130PDS Newtonian.

Camera: - Nikon D3100.

ISO: 400. Automated white balance

Filters: - Baader Mark-III MPCC Coma Corrector. IDAS D2 Light Pollution Suppression Filter. (Not sure if this is needed but was doing some deep sky stuff straight after so didn’t see any harm)

Wireless Remote: PIXEL TW-283 DC2 2.4G.

Mount: - Skywatcher EQ6R.

Polar Aligned with SharpCap Pro. (Again, was doing some deep sky work after so probably not essential)

Control Software: - Stellarium Scope, Stellarium, Poth Hub, EQMOD and All Sky Plate Solver.

Processing Software: Stacked jpg’s in Registack and cropped in PS Lightroom. No stretching or fiddling of other sliders done.

Light Pollution and Location: - Bortle 8 in Davyhulme, Manchester.

Seeing: - Average.

Notes: - I know you can film the moon or planets instead of taking so many pictures but the equipment I have doesn’t fit the Moon into frame. Also its easy enough just to let it snap lots of pictures using the remote timer.

Explore Scientific AR152 refractor @125mm aperture, with Baader x2.25 Barlow and ZWO 290MM-PRO (f17.8 0.27"/pixel) on EQ6. Baader OD 3.8 solarfilm, solar continuum + UV/IR cut filters. 250 of 2500 frames captured in SharpCap, processed in AutoStakkert. False colour Photoshop Duotone.

best 30% of 5000 frames using HA filter

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

While I thought we would have clear skies last night, we had some high clouds move overhead constantly. Anyway, grabbed a bunch of two-minute exposures on this amazing globular cluster and I think the result is fine.

M13 lies around 25,000 light years away. The English astronomer Edmond Halley, best known for recognizing the periodicity of the comet that bears his name, discovered M13 in 1714. When Charles Messier added M13 to his catalog in 1764, he was convinced that the nebulous object did not contain any stars at all. Because they are so densely packed together, the cluster’s individual stars were not resolved until 1779. Near the core of this cluster, the density of the stellar population is about a hundred times greater than the density in the neighborhood of our sun. These stars are so crowded that they can, at times, run into each other and even form a new star. The resulting “blue stragglers” appear to be younger than the other stars in their immediate vicinity and are of great scientific interest to astronomers.

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 @ 50 Gain, Temp -16C

- Dark Frames: 30*2 mins

- Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker

- Processed in PixInsight, Adobe Lightroom and Topaz Denoise AI

Nice solar prominence on yesterday’s sun! Earth was added to give a rough idea of the size.

Tech Specs: Williams Optics Redcat 51, ZWO ASI290MC, Daystar Quark Chromosphere + ZWO 2" UV/IR filter, SharpCap, best 25% of 5k frames, AutoStakkert, Registax. Image date: 2 July 2020. Location: The Dark Side Observatory in Weatherly, PA, USA.

The Western Veil (NGC 6960) aka The Witch's Broom, Finger of God, Lacework Nebula or Filamentary Nebula. This is part of the Cygnus Loop which is a supernova remnant. The source supernova was a star 20 times more massive than the Sun, and it exploded between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago. The remnants have since expanded to cover an area of the sky roughly 3 degrees in diameter (about 6 times the diameter, and 36 times the area, of the full Moon). While previous distance estimates have ranged from 1200 to 5800 light-years, a recent determination of 2400 light-years is based on direct astrometric measurements. The Veil Nebula is expanding at a velocity of about 1.5 million kilometers per hour. (Wikipedia)

57 180s lights (2 hours and 50 minutes) with flats and bias. Dithered.

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. (Used for flats and bias)

Mount: - Skywatcher EQ6R.

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

Polar Aligned with SharpCap Pro.

Control Software: - NINA connecting to EQMOD, PHD Guiding 2, Stellarium and Plate Solve 2. EZ Share to automatically push pictures to the laptop.

Processing Software: Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker and edited in Star Tools.

Moon: About 80% waxing gibbous.

Light Pollution and Location: - Bortle 8 in Davyhulme, Manchester.

Seeing: -Starting out terrible but possibly OK by the end of the night.

Notes: Its been a massive learning curve but I have finally got NINA astrophotography to work controlling pretty much everything. I am extremely impressed with this software. Furthermore my trusty old D3100 shutter was controlled by the software through the mount and using the file camera it was able to pick up the pictures just like connecting more expensive Nikons or Cannons to APT(or several other apps that I looked into but came to dead end with the D3100). I was able to bring up the schedule, load the Western Veil which was currently focused on in Stellarium, set the amount of subs I wanted, turn on dithering, then NINA just did its thing by attempting to find the object then correcting itself through plate solving. It even did a meridian flip and recentred the object afterwards. Watching it do its thing was a thing of beauty and is miles away from my original attempts at astrophotography using a AZ goto mount and a star chart.

Being completely up front, like everything in astrophotography you must take several steps backwards before taking a step forward. I have dabbled with NINA for a while but struggled to get to grips with it. I tried taking this same object a few weeks ago but did not have a good session. For some reason, the plate solving was not accurate enough and the object was only half was in frame. This is either because I hadn’t loaded my coordinates in PS2 or the file camera was picking the last picture instead of the current one. Looking back 52 Cygni is very bright star front and centre and it should have been obvious to me that something was not right.

Incidentally that same night, about 4-5 subs in my pictures suffered from dew, pretty much writing them off. I have since bought a cheap camping mat and Velcro to make a home-made dew shield. Handily the camping mat camp with a perfectly sized bit of elastic; I have cut up some cheap cycling shorts and used the elastic to block out any light from the bottom of the telescope. I am hoping this will also help with the dew. I have also made a dew shield for the guider.

I took a gamble on this picture as the weather forecast had me believe that it was going to be cloudy all night. Up until this session it had been predicting a clear night all week and it looked relatively clear when I looked out of the window before setting up. It then cloudy over but only for about an hour and a half which gave me time to make sure everything was set up properly. It then became clear, although seeing was bad, but this did improve over the course of the night. Thankfully, my gamble paid off and is point back in the battle between me and the weather, I have been done so many times with the forecast predicting clear skies but them not materialising.

I add this comment to the end of every one of my pictures but the amount of green being picked up in the Star Tools colour module is insane. I think the D3100 bayer filter is 2 green to every red and blue, it seems like its 10 greens to every red and blue. I hope the colour in this is OK however I had to bump the green bias correction right up and max out the cap green slider. I am slowly but surely saving up for a proper cooled camera which am sure will again take me several steps back before bringing me forward!

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, ZWO ASI 120mm mini

*Gain 100, -25 º C, L 2" Optolong, 360x15"

*Gain 100, -25 º C, R-CCD 2" Svbony, 120x15"

*Gain 100, -25 º C, G-CCD 2" Svbony, 120x15"

*Gain 100, -25 º C, B-CCD 2" Svbony, 120x15"

*Gain 139, -25 º C, Ha 7nm 2" Optolong, 20x180"

100 Darks

100 Flats / filter

100 DarkFlats

Polar Align: SharpCap 4.0

Adquisición: SGP 3.2

Procesado: Pixinsight 1.8.9, PS

I had horrible guiding after a Meridian flip and decided to try 30 second exposures. Sure didn't come out well. This is the Live Stack save out of Sharpcap... no darks applied. Just wanted to share that failures are part of the game in astrophotography!

I just couldn't process this into quality.

NGC6992 Eastern Veil Nebula. Scope: Altair Astro Starwave 102ED-R with Lightwave 0.8X Reducer, Mount: SkyWatcher EQ6-R Pro, Camera: ZWO ASI294MC Pro, Filter: ZWO IR/UV Cut. 25x3 Mins captured in SharpCap Pro 3.2. Processed in APP 1.065. Finished in Adobe CC.

Telescopio 9.25" con cámara QHY 5 III 462. Montura AVX Celestron. Dos fotos sacadas cada una de un video de 8000 fotogramas cada uno . Un video con la exposición para sacar Saturno y otro con la exposición para sacar los satélites.

Sharpcap , Astrosurface, Pix y PS

Main Equipment: ZWO ASI 183MC-pro + ZWO 2” Filter Drawer + SW Explorer 200p + SW Coma Corrector 0.9x + ZWO EAF + EQ6-R-Pro

Guiding Equipment: ZWO OAG, QHY5-iii 462c

Location: Córdoba Capital, Argentina. Sky Bortle 9

*Gain 111, Offset 20, -15 °C, L-Ultimate 2" Optolong, 194x300"

150 Darks

60 Flats

60 Dark-Flats

Polar Align: SharpCap 3.2

Acquisition: SGP 3.2

Processing: Pixinsight 1.8.8, PS

Clavius is a large crater found on the southern side of the moon, it measures approximately 136 miles across. The crater was named after Christoph Klau (or Christophorus Clavius) a 16th century German mathematician and astronomer.

Tech Specs: Meade 12” LX-90 Telescope, Celestron CGEM-DX pier mounted, ASI290MC, ZWO AAPlus, ZWO EAF, best 15% of 10000 frames. Processed using SharpCap, Autostakkert, Registax and Luminar Neo. Image Date: June 9, 2022. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).

This is a wide field view of the area around Tycho Crater on Earth's moon. Tycho has a diameter of 53 miles and it is nearly 3 miles deep.

TECH SPECS: Meade 12” LX-90, Celestron CGEM-DX pier mounted, ZWO ASI290MC, Antares Focal Reducer. Captured using SharpCap v3.2, stacked in Autostakkert (best 15% of 2500 images), sharpened in Registax, final image processed in Corel Paintshop Pro. Image Date: March 22, 2021. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4 Zone).

Added another hour of data:

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

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

Equipo Principal: ZWO ASI 1600 mm-pro + SW Explorer 250pds + SW Coma Corrector 0.9x + EQ6-R-Pro + ZWO EAF + ZWO 7x2" EFW

Equipo guía: ZWO M68 OAG, ZWO ASI 120mm mini

Tesela 1:

*Gain 139, -15 º C, Ha 7nm 2" Optolong, 80x180"

*Gain 139, -15 º C, Oiii-CCD 6.5 nm 2" Optolong, 60x180"

*Gain 139, -15 º C, Sii-CCD 6.5 nm 2" Optolong, 60x180"

Tesela 2:

*Gain 139, -20 º C, Ha 7nm 2" Optolong, 82x180"

*Gain 139, -20 º C, Oiii-CCD 6.5 nm 2" Optolong, 60x180"

*Gain 139, -20 º C, Sii-CCD 6.5 nm 2" Optolong, 60x180"

100 Darks

80 Flats / 80 Darkflats por filtro

Polar Align: SharpCap 3.2

Adquisición: SGP 3.2

Procesado: Pixinsight 1.8.8, PS

Venus from last night is now only 22% illuminated and now past peak brightness.

Tech Specs: Meade 12” LX-90, ZWO ASI290MC, best 10% of 10,000 frames, UV/IR filter, unguided. Captured using SharpCap Pro. Image date: May 3, 2020. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, PA, USA.

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, 99x180"

*Gain 139, -20 º C, Oiii-CCD 6.5 nm 2" Optolong, 68x180"

*Gain 139, -20 º C, Sii-CCD 6.5 nm 2" Optolong, 72x180"

100 Darks

100 Flats por filtro

Polar Align: SharpCap 3.2

Adquisición: SGP 3.1

Procesado: Pixinsight 1.8.8, PS

This trio of galaxies in Leo lie some 30 million light years away and form a great spring target for midsized telescopes. The 90 minutes I shot last night was neither better nor worse than this version from last year:

www.flickr.com/photos/124244349@N07/40734269251/in/photos...

So I combined the two, simply averaging this year's image into last year's (literally -- the Pixel Math function in PixInsight enabled me to add the values of each pixel and divide by two). There's no dramatic increase in detail but the averaged image has a cleaner, less noisy look when you click in for maximum resolution.

Tech Stuff:

Camera: ZWOASI1600 MC

2019: Borg 71FL/1.08X multi-flattener/IDAS LPS-D2 filter/ iOptron CubePro 8200 mount unguided; 88 minutes of 8 second exposures

2018: TV-85/Baader MPCIII corrector/Astronomik CLS filter/Skywatcher Star Adventurer portable mount, guided and unguided; 120 minutes of 30 and 15 second exposures

Captured with SharpCap Pro from my yard 10 miles north of New York City, and processed with PixInsight.

Equipment:

Celestron CGEM Mount

Nikon 500mm f/4 P Ai-s

Sony a7RIII (unmodified)

Altair 60mm Guide scope

GPCAM2 Mono Camera

Acquisition:

Bortle 3

30 x 212" for 106 minutes for exposure time.

10 dark frames

20 flats frames

20 bais frames

Guided

Software:

SharpCap

PHD2

DeepSkyStacker

Photoshop

I mount my Nikon lens and camera on top of my optical tube at the moment. There was a constant wind of ~5mph last night when I took my images. I did 33 light frames and used the best 90% for 30 frames. I polar aligned with SharpCap and began guiding. The graph looked good so I started imaging. The stars seemed to stay in focus so I upped my exposure to 212 seconds and let it go to work. After stacking the files in DeepSkyStacker I pulled the TIFF file into Photoshop and mostly followed along to AstroBackyard's Rosette Nebula tutorial, making some of my own adjustments where they were needed. I'm still struggling with color of the surrounding stars. My WB was set to automatic, that might be why the color is a bit hard to manage. The Moon did rise while I was imaging and I can see a difference in my light frames, I'm sure I can do better and might try again during a new moon. But for my first time trying M101 and autoguiding I'm pretty happy!

REALLY loving being able to shoot DSOs with my 8" Celestron Schmidt-Cassegrain. The Celestron Starsense Autoguider is a gamechanger in enabling me to shoot with the 8". GoTo and autoguiding is spot on. Utilizing the BlurXterminator tool in PixInsight during processing just polishes it off. Look at those dust lanes!

Discovered by Charles Messier in 1764, M20 is a star-forming nebula located 9,000 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Sagittarius. Also known as the Trifid Nebula, M20 has an apparent magnitude of 6.3 and can be spotted with a small telescope.

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

Hot young stars abound in this region on the boundary between the constellations Cassiopeia and Cepheus. The Bubble emission nebula in the center is formed by the solar wind emanating from one such star, pushing against a cloud of ionized hydrogen which glows a characteristic red. To the right, star formation region NGC 7538 also glows red. At the upper left, open cluster Messier 52 shines brightly.

Tech Stuff: Borg 71FL/1.08x Borg flattener/ZWO ASI 1600MC/IDAS LPS-V4 filter. Captured with SharpCap 3.2 as 8 second exposures collected in 4 minute livestacks. Total integration time 82 minutes, processed with PixInsight and ACDSee. Collected over 4 nights from my yard in Westchester County NY; sky quality meter SQM-L readings 17.4-19.1

Heart Nebula HA data combined with DSLR from last year LRGB

24@ 300 seconds Gain 111 no cooling but 32F ambient (sensor was 42-46F)

30 darks

no flats (needs them), no bias (no need)

Scope: AT65EDQ

Mount: iOptron iEQ45

Camera: ZWO ASI183M non cooled

Guide camera: QHY5Lii

Guide Scope: Stellarvue 60mm

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, Team Viewer, Google Chrome Remote, autostakert!3, Registax

Towards the end of totality. This is a stack of 5x4 sec sub-images taken with a QHY183c camera and an Astro-Tech AT60ED at F/4.8. Acquisition with SharpCap 4 with LiveStack.

This is 144 x 30 second images of the comet aligned on the comet nucleus. It shows the background stars streaking across the comet's path - there are breaks due to pausing acquisition for passing clouds, recentering the image and dithering the guide scope (a technique to reduce hot pixels and other sensor errors). I probably shouldn't dither for comet acquisition!

Any exposures longer than 30 seconds caused unacceptable elongation of the comet nucleus. The comet was moving quite quickly across the night sky at about 9 arcminutes per hour.

The comet's dust tail can be seen but its faint ion tail has been obscured by bright Moon light on the night this image was taken - 4/5 Feb - despite having the equivalent of 72 minutes of data on target.

The colour of the background stars can be readily appreciated.

Technical card as per previous C/2022 E3 (ZTF) image here;

www.flickr.com/photos/16271433@N02/52671792452/in/datepos...

I used SharpCap 4.0 for image acquisition and PixInsight 1.8.9 comet alignment tool to produce this image.

7x4 sec images LiveStacked in SharpCap v4. It was difficult to get the color right on this, since the stacking process for an eclipsed moon does weird things. I tried this last eclipse but only got 4 to stack before I noticed blurring. There was a little with 7, but an unsharp mask filter fixed it.

Telescopio: APM 140 mm f 7 APO

Lente di Barlow Zeiss Abbe 2X

Camera di ripresa: :ZWO ASI 174 mono Cooled

Montatura: iOptron CEM60

Software:Emil Kraaikamp Autostakkert 3.0.14, SharpCap 3.1 Pro, Zoner Photo Studio X v. 19, Pleiades Astrophoto PixInsight 1.8, Astra Image 4 SI

Filtro:Meade Red 31,8 mm

Risoluzione: 2000x1259

Pose: 200 a 33 fps

Lunghezza focale: 1960 mm

Seeing: 3 Trasparenza: 7

Full moon, Oct 17, 2024. I don't "shoot the moon" very often, but thought I'd give it a shot.

Taken with an Esprit 120 scope, FL 840mm, Hydrogen filter to cut down the light, QHY268M camera, SharpCap acquisition, best 150/516 frames. Processed in AutoStakkert, IMPPG, Adobe Lightroom, and Topaz photo AI.

Taken from Starfront Observatory, Texas

Equipo Principal: ZWO ASI 1600 mm-pro + SW Explorer 250pds + SW Coma Corrector 0.9x + EQ6-R-Pro + ZWO EAF + ZWO 7x2" EFW

Equipo guía: starguider 60/240 mm, ZWO ASI 120mm mini

*Gain 139, -25 º C, Ha 7nm 2" Optolong, 71x180"

*Gain 139, -25 º C, Oiii-CCD 6.5 nm 2" Optolong, 70x180"

*Gain 139, -25 º C, Sii-CCD 6.5 nm 2" Optolong, 70x180"

100 Darks

50 Flats por filtro

Polar Align: SharpCap 3.2

Adquisición: SGP 3.1

Procesado: Pixinsight 1.8.8, PS

Dedicated to the Love of my Life in her 41st Birthday!!!!

Back home late last night after taking the stands down at the show and driving home - Well, it was a full Moon and rude not to take a shot !!

Taken with the 200pds scope with my Astro Camera, captured in Sharpcap, processed in AS3!, register and Lightroom/

M45, the Pleiades taken from a metro area (Bortle 7-8 red zone location.) It helped to have a Baader UHC-S filter for the heavy light pollution. A QHY183c high-quantum efficiency camera also helped to get this much nebulousity from a poor location.

32 x 3 minute sub-images live stacked in SharpCap 3.2, Unity gain and the camera cooled to -20C. Televue TV-85 reduced to F/5.6.

m45-32x180-g11-o100-qhy183c_-20C-uhcs-85f5_6-v3c

Aristillus Crater has a diameter of 55 km and a depth of 3.6 km, it was named after the Greek astronomer Aristyllus. In the middle of the crater is a set of three peaks which rise to a height of almost 3000 feet.

Tech Specs: Meade LX-90 12", ZWO ASI290MC, best 25% of 5k frames, captured using SharpCap Pro v3.1. Image date: March 15, 2019. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, PA, USA.

A view of last evening's moon 50% illuminated (First Quarter).

Tech Specs: Meade 12" LX-90 telescope, Celestron CGEM-DX pier mounted, ZWO ASI290MC and ASI071MC-Pro, ZWO AAPlus, ZWO EAF, Antares Focal Reducer, best 15% of 1000 frames at full resolution, Sharpcap Pro, Autostakkert, Luminar Neo. Image Date: May 8, 2022. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).