Sky Watcher Star Adventurer
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Messier 106 oder NGC 4258, eine Balken-Spiralgalaxie mit den Abmessungen 18′,6 × 7′,2 Bogensekunden und der scheinbaren Helligkeit von 8,3 mag im Sternbild Jagdhunde.
Ts 80/480mm Triplet-APO
Skywatcher AZ-EQ5-GT
Sony A6000 (Mod)
56x120sek (112min)
10 Darkframes
20 Flatframes
This is an image of our natural satellite taken on a warm August morning last year.
Some prominent lunar maria (plural of mare, sea, lava filled plains) on the near side are (see annotated image for identifying these and other prominent features): Mare Imbrium (Sea of Showers, second larger lunar sea), Mare Serenitatis (Sea of Serenity), Mare Nubium (Sea of Clouds) and Oceanus Procellarum (Ocean of Storms, largest lunar basin). Prominent craters among others are Copernicus (diameter 93 Km), Plato (100 Km), Archimedes (83 Km), Aristarchus (40 Km, brightest lunar feature), Aristoteles (87 Km) and Tycho (86 Km, center of a large ray system).
Features close to the lunar terminator (day-night division) are seen better due to low angle illumination by the sun - that’s why the Full-Moon phase is the worse time to observes, as there are no shadows cast by lunar features.
Not the best image quality, since this is just one single exposure on a night with mediocre seeing (Moon altitude was also low, about 25o). Much better results are achieved by stacking lots of video frames on nights of good seeing conditions, still I was totally absorbed by simply observing through the eyepiece(s) with a bino-viewer, a very rewarding accessory for visual study of the Moon and the planets. I can also verify for those interested that the Sky-Watcher Mak 150 is a great scope for planetary observing and photography.
Thanks to everyone for looking. Clear skies to all!
Tech Details:
Camera Model: Canon EOS 550D
Telescope: Sky-Watcher Maksutov 150 PRO (6-inch, f/12)
Single shot, ISO 400, 1/40 sec
Processing: Adobe Photoshop 2020, Adobe Lightroom Classic
Common buzzard (Buteo buteo) from Lagoon El Taray in community Castilla-La Mancha in Spain; 30-11-2019.
The image was taken from a photo hide owned by a company "Hides de El Taray" (Hides de El Taray).
Thanks a lot, everyone, for stopping by, for looking my work, for your comments and likes! Always appreciated!
This is just over an hours worth of data.
Telescope - skywatcher Quattro s 8 f/4
Mount - NEQ6
Camera - Canon 60da
Exp - various exposures adding up to 1 hr
ISO - 1600
Canon EOS 6D @ ISO 6400
Stack of the best 108x30 sec subs with calibration frames added.
Celestron C11 at f7 Cropped.
Tracked on a Skywatcher AZ-EQ6 mount with no guiding.
Polar aligned : Polar Scope.
Acquisition : Intervalometer.
Imaged from suburbia.
Processed in APP and finished off in LR.
I finally got my equipment working as it should; not entirely happy with the image but pleased to grab something for a change. The next job is clean the optics; the contamination was very evident in the flats.
Messier 3 (M3) is a globular cluster located in Canes Venatici's constellation, the Hunting Dogs. It is one of the brightest, largest globular clusters in the sky. M3 has an apparent magnitude of 6.2 and is approximately 33,900 light-years distant from Earth. It has the designation NGC 5272 in the New General Catalogue.
M3 contains an estimated half a million stars. The brightest stars in the cluster are of magnitude 12.7, and the average brightness of the 25 brightest stars is 14.23 mag. The overall spectral type of M3 is F2. The cluster has a total mass of about 450,000 solar masses.
Text from Messier objects, read more: www.messier-objects.com/messier-3/
Date: 26/03/22
Sky quality:l Bortle 5 (approx.)
Equipment
Telescope: Skywatcher Evostar 120ED
Focal Reducer: 0.85
Camera: Atik 314L+
Filters: Baader LRGB
Guidescope: PrimaLuceLab 60mm
Guide camera ZWO ASI 120mm
Mount: Skywatcher HEQ5 Pro (Belt drive)
Computer: PrimaLuceLab Eagle 2
Light frames
Luminescence 10 at 180s
Red 10 at 180s
Green 10 at 180s
Blue 10 at 180s
Total integration time - 2 hours
Software
Polemaster
N.I.N.A
PHD2
AstroPixelProcessor
Photoshop
Topaz DeNoiseAI
SH2-115
Caméra 2600mm zwo
ROUE EWF zwo
filtres
Astrobin sho 3mm
Croma LRVB
Caméra guide 120mc-s zwo
Lunette guide évoguide skywatcher 242mm
focuser EAF zwo
Asiair pro
Monture AZEQ6 skywatcher
Lunette FSQ85 TAKAHASHI
intégration 21H15mn
H:118X 300S
S: 67X300S
0:67X300S
Lune de 50 à 85%
DARK 64
FLAT 18
traitement pixinsight
Cette nébuleuse émet brillamment en lumière rouge, : l’hydrogène. La dominante rouge et les contours extérieurs sont tous deux dus à l’ionisation de l’hydrogène par un petit groupe d’étoiles situé près du centre de la nébuleuse, l’amas ouvert Melotte 15.
Cet amas stellaire ouvert comprend une poignée de brillantes étoiles 50 fois plus massives que notre Soleil, beaucoup d’étoiles faibles ne représentant qu’une fraction de la masse du Soleil
La Nébuleuse du Coeur se trouve à quelque 7500 années-lumière de nous dans la constellation de Cassiopée.
Caméra 2600mm zwo
ROUE EWF zwo
filtres
Astrodon sho 5mm
Chroma LRVB
Caméra guide 120mc-s zwo
Lunette guide évoguide skywatcher 242mm
focuser EAF zwo
Asiair pro
Monture AZEQ6 skywatcher
Lunette FSQ85 TAKAHASHI
R 17X300S
G 18X300S
B 15X300S
S 30X300S
H 51X300S
O 34 X300S
Total intégration 13H45mn
traitement pixinsight
Blue Moon - 31st July 2015.
A "True Colour" image of the moon to the extent that the hues are as close as I can get to the actual colours, however the staturation has been increased to bring out the subtle colours not normally seen in most photographs.
Skywatcher Quattro 10" f4 Newtonian telescope ("full moon" dust cap in place).
Skywatcher AZ Eq6 GT Mount.
Baader MPCC Mark 3 Coma Corrector.
UHC-S 'nebula' filter.
Nikon D5300 (unmodified).
ISO200, 14bit NEF, Long Exp. NR off.
487 sub exposures @ 1/50th .
Subs taken over 45min period covering Full Moon @ 10:42 UT (8.42pm local time).
Processed using Registax and Photoshop.
Additional processing Pixinsight (deconvolution)
Links:
500px.com/mikeoday
.
Skywatcher Esprit 80/400, ASI2600MM-Pro, Astronomik SHO 6nm et HEQ5.
H : 81 x 300" = 6h45
O : 84 x 300" = 7h00
S : 94 x 300" = 7h50
@ Gain 100/Offset 50
21h35' au total.
NINA + Pixinsight, merci à Bill Blanshan !
This is a starless image of the Great Orion Nebula (M42) with the reflection nebula Sharpless Sh2-279 the "Running Man Nebula" situated above.
The "little" coma-shaped nebula above and separated from M42 by a dark dust lane is M43 or De Mairan's Nebula.
All form part of the sword region in the magnificent constellation of Orion.
I used Starnet to remove the attendant stars in the image and then concentrated on the nebulae in order to highlight the huge clouds of glowing gases and dusty details within this fascinating region.
M42 is an emission/reflection nebula and this huge cloud of glowing gas and dust is a great stellar nursery where new stars are being born. The pink/red glowing colour is due to the excitation of hydrogen gas and the chief visible emission line appears red to our eyes.
The Running Man Nebula above in contrast shines by reflection. It is visible to our eyes because of illumination from within by embedded stars.
Extensive dust clouds can be seen throughout the image being illuminated to varying degrees.
Imaged with a Skywatcher Esprit 120ED with focal reducer and a ZWO 2600MC camera at gain 100 and cooled to -10C.
115 (60s) and 10 (10s) guided exposures.
Temp. matched Darks
Flats & Dark Flats
Completed using Astro Pixel Processor, Photoshop 2022 and Starnet.
Mount: Skywatcher Star Adventurer
Imaging Camera: Canon 60Da
OTA: Canon 200mm f2.8 @ f3.2
Guiding: None
Total Integration: 15min (15 subs, ISO 1600, 60secs each)
Calibration Frames: Dark: 10, Bias: 10
It is Milkyway season again and here is an image I recently captured from the back garden using my Skywatcher Star Adventurer 2i tracker with my Nikon D750 with a Tamron 24-70mm lens attached. It was created with a total of 10 subs at 90 secs and no calibration frames. You can clearly point out some nebula and dust clouds which I have marked up for reference.
Thank you for looking.
SkyWatcher 70mm SK707AZ2 + Filter Thousand Oaks + super 25mm + barlow 2X.
Edited with MS Picture Manager and Photofiltre.
It's possible to see the 3010, 3014, 3015, 3016 and 3017 spots this time.
M17, NGC 6618.
Image exposure: 120 minutes.
Image field of view: 91.1 x 59.7 arcminutes.
Image date: 2021-08-12.
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Skywatcher Esprit 120 refracting telescope.
ZWO ASI 071 astro camera.
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first light with my Skywatcher P200 Newton telescope. i am far far - really far! - away from being satisfied with the result (bad guiding, bad focus, problems with the mount of the flat mirror - hence the artifacts at the brighter stars), at least i now understand the technical challenges better and today is my next chance :)
telescope: Skywatcher P200 (1000/200)
camera: Canon 50Da
mount: Skywatcher HEQ5Pro
guiding: 180/50 scope with ToupTek mono cam
60x180sec ISO1000 RGB
no calibration (so far :))
shot with N.I.N.A., edit in APP and PS under a bortle 5+ sky at 40% waxing moon.
I spent Sunday night setting up my scope again, aligning it, and tracking the Triangulum Galaxy. 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
Photoshop
Lightroom
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. I polar aligned my mount using SharpCap Pro. 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 continued to stretch the file 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, including some dodging & burning, and relied on Astronomy Tools Action Set and Topaz Denoise to give the image a polished look. I brought it into Lightroom to do final color corrections and add EXIF data.
The Horsehead Nebula is a small dark nebula in the constellation Orion. The nebula is located just to the south of Alnitak, one of the bottom stars in Orion's Belt, and is part of the much larger Orion Molecular Cloud Complex.
Equipment Details:
•8 Inch Skywatcher Quattro Carbon Fibre F4.0 Newtonian Reflector
•Skywatcher NEQ6 Mount
•SBIG STT 8300m CCD Camera cooled to -20'c
•SBIG FW8G-STT Filter Wheel
•Baader Ha, Oiii and Sii Filters
•SKywatcher BD 102mm Guide Scope
•Meade DSIii CCD Guide Camera
•Polemaster for polar alignment
Exposure Details:
•Ha 10X300 seconds - Bin 1x1
•Oiii 10X300 seconds - Bin 1x1
•Sii 6X300 seconds - Bin 1x1
Total Integration Time: 2 hours and 10 minutes
Skywatcher 80mm F6 Refractor, 760D, CLS Filter, EQ6 go to mount.
Panstarrs M81 M82 3200 36m 44s 37 frames.
ASI 294 MC PRO.
72 ED Skywatcher con reductor/aplanador 0.85.
Star Adventurer.
Guiado Asi 120mm Mini.
Ganancia 200/ Offset 30 -10ºc
Ganancia 123/ Offset 30 -10ºc
104x120s
23x300s
L-Pro
Bortle 8.
PixInsight, Topaz Denoise AI.
First attempt at imaging M31 ever and with guided exposures using PHD2. My 120ED telescope can't cope with the full size of this galaxy even with the focal reducer going so this could end up a number of panes eventually.
32 mins total integration so far, data collected 25 Nov 2016. I intend to gather more and add to this when weather permits, it was -6 degrees this night and everything was covered in hard frost by the time I packed away.
What can I say, it's been a long road getting to this point with my own rig and I'm still not totally happy with the PHD graph. Also I was getting horrendous amp glow from my Canon 700D in both the light frames and the dark frames, it is still a little evident on the right side of the image even though I've tried to process it out and crop a little, there's a difficult balance between stretching the image too far which increases the glow noise and reducing the gradient glow in that spot alone. Next time I gather more data I will try a different method of taking dark frames after each light frame to get the temperatures a little more even.
16 x 180 sec lights
8 x 180 sec darks
10 flats
20 bias
Stacked in DSS (kappa-sigma) processed in CS5
Equipment:
Skywatcher 120ED Esprit (840mm FL)
0.85x focal reducer/field flattener
Celestron AVX mount
PHD2 guiding with 50mm Orion SSAG
Canon 700D unmodded with CLS clip filter on AC power
Revelation Pro dew control setup
SkyWatcher 70mm SK707AZ2 + Filter Thousand Oaks + super 25mm + barlow 2X.
Edited with MS Picture Manager and Photofiltre.
It's possible the 2991, 2993, 2994, 2995 and 2996 spots this time.
After a bit of a fraught start last night (accidentally turned of the mount mid slew - it lost it's position and plate solving threw a hissy fit and wouldn't re-synch) I finally came away with this.
Often overlooked because of the proximity of the Orion nebula this is NGC 1977 or the Running Man Nebula in Orion. I love nebula with both reflection (blue) and emission (red) components.
Hardware: Skywatcher Quattro CF 25cm f4. QHY8L. EQ6 mount & autoguider.
Software: APT. PHD2. AstroPixelProcessor. Affinity Photo. Topaz DeNoise.
7 x 8 minute exposures stacked with calibration frames.
Timeblending zweier Aufnahmen am Sylter Ellenbogen.
Himmel: 326 Sek. ISO 3200 (nachgeführt mit Skywatcher Star Adventurer, entwickelt in PixInsight)
Landschaft: 12 Sek. ISO 800
Timeblending of two images at Sylter Ellenbogen.
Sky: 326 sec. ISO 3200 (followed up with Skywatcher Star Adventurer, developed in PixInsight)
Landscape: 12 sec. ISO 800
Website: www.heiko-roebke-photography.de
SkyWatcher 70mm SK707AZ2 + Filter Thousand Oaks + super 25mm + barlow 2X.
Edited with MS Picture Manager and Photofiltre.
It's possible to see the 3361, 3362, the huge 3363 (nearly 10x the size of Earth), 3364, 3366, 3367, 3369, 3370 and 3372 spots.
Sometimes the night sky springs pleasant surprises!
One such event took place during my session on imaging the rising waxing moon, dubbed the Snow moon in North America, on Thursday night (25th February).
During an early imaging run an aircraft flew right through my field of view and transited the moon virtually at midpoint!
I couldn't believe it.
Consulting the Flightradar app. identified the aircraft as an Easyjet A320 enroute from Belfast (BFS) to London Gatwick (LGW)
Really happy to catch this by pure chance - not knowing the flightpath lol!!
My camera was operating at full res. at around 3.5 to 4fps and has captured 3 frames in total showing the aircraft entering and exiting.
Fascinating to see the disturbance on the moon's image caused by the hot exhaust gases.
Imaged with a Skywatcher Esprit 120MM refractor and a ZWO 2600MC.
This image is a single frame extracted from my video run.
A lovely unexpected bonus to the evening's session!
Andromeda Galaxy a.k.a. Messier 31
……………..............................................
Andromeda, the largest galaxy in the so-called Local Group of Galaxies to which our galaxy also belongs, is 2.5 million light-years away and can be seen (even with the naked eye) in the constellation Andromeda. As general information, Andromeda is about 1.5 times larger than the Milky Way, with a diameter of 220,000 light-years (compared to the Milky Way which is 120-140,000 light-years in diameter) and contains more than 2 times as many stars. Although the first mention of this celestial object dates from 960, the first to give a more detailed description was the German astronomer Simon Marius, in the 1600s.
It should also be mentioned that Andromeda and the Milky Way are approaching with about 100 miles per second, experts estimate that in about 3-4 billion years the 2 galaxies will collide and thus form a new giant galaxy.
Equipment and settings:
Mount: Skywatcher EQ6R Pro
Telescope: Skywatcher Evostar 72/420 + 0.85 reducer
Camera: ASI 533MM Pro
Filters: Astrodon LRGB+Ha
Integration: 4h40'
Edit in Pixinsight.
Location: my Bortle 6+ backyard
The 7 Sisters M45
Telescope: Skywatcher Esprit 100
Camera: ZWO ASI2600MM
Mount: EQ6
Filters: Baader RGB
Guiding Systems: QHY5L Color
Taken : 04 Nov 2021
Location: Cork, Ireland
Exposure : 20 x 180s R,G,B
Acquisition: SG Pro
Processing: PixInsight
SkyWatcher 70mm SK707AZ2 + Filter Thousand Oaks + super 25mm + barlow 2X.
Edited with MS Picture Manager and Photofiltre.
It's possible to see the 3361, 3362, the huge 3363 (nearly 10x the size of Earth), 3367, 3370, 3371 and 3372 spots.
Comet Panstarrs,
Skywatcher MN190.
NEQ6 equatorial mount unguided.
Canon 760D, CLS filter ( city light suppression)
ISO 6400 63m 21s 32 frames.
If you look at the comet with your eyes slightly averted left or right, the comet tail pops out a little more. This is a well known method for seeing feint objects in the night sky. Seems to work here for me, let me know if you can see the feint detail.
A first run at this object with my own setup, guided exposures. Guiding graph was quite exceptional with RMS error at 0.03" then later 0.07" but I tossed away 1/2 my lights over 2 nights due to some trailing at the edges. Discovered this was due to the reducer slightly unscrewed. Some high cloud in a couple of the shots made the seeing wobbly so guiding wasn't perfect all night. Will add more data next time we have clear skies. Everything was iced up after 2 nights outside in -4 deg C temps, but dew band heaters kept going. So did I by sitting indoors and watching it all on Teamviewer! I still have a little amp glow on the right from the 700D! Updated the HC and MC on the mount too, but still not totally satisfied with the way it is performing. Everything looks pretty tight but the Alt axis is still 'rocking' slightly in its locked position.
15 x 120 sec lights @ISO 1600
15 dark
10 dark flat
10 bias
10 flats
Stacked in DSS
Processing in CS5
Equipment:
Skywatcher 120ED Esprit
0.85x reducer/field flattener
Celestron AVX
Orion 50mm SSAG guidescope
Canon 700D (unmodded)
Image taken with a SkyWatcher 70mm SK707AZ2 + Barlow 3X + 10mm lens (70x).
Until your Total Eclipse comes, here is a record of the previously Full Moon.
The fully eclipsed Moon can be seen here- at 28x: www.flickr.com/photos/100175216@N06/52085491021
The fully eclipsed Moon can be seen here- at 70x: www.flickr.com/photos/100175216@N06/52085987720
Because I had a trouble with the focus, I joined two different images (with the same data) with Photofiltre to get the best result about focus.
I edited and joined them with Photofiltre and MS Picture Manager, to get more details.
Skywatcher Evostar Pro 80 ED (w/.85x reducer/corrector & QHYCCD Polemaster), Skywatcher EQM-35, Nikon D3300.
50 lights x 90 s @ ISO 800, ~45 dark, ~45 flat, ~100 bias, stacked in DSS and post-processed in Photoshop & PixInsight