I’ll be honest, I really never viewed Polaris under any magnification before. I’ve always used it as a guidepost to align a telescope or other piece of astronomical equipment. While recently setting up my pier and Meade telescope for the first trial runs, I focused the scope on Polaris to begin alignment, and snapped a few quick pictures. That is when I noticed a little companion star right next to it! Low and behold, Polaris is a multiple star system with an 8.7 magnitude companion (see image in the two o’clock position). Polaris actually has another, closer star, designated Polaris Ab that amatuer scopes can’t resolve. You can see a Hubble view of this star at:

www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo0602d/

Tech Specs: Meade 12” LX90, Celestron CGEM-DX mount, Canon 6D stock camera, ISO 3200, 10 second single exposure using Backyard EOS, no darks or bias frames. Image Date: August 25, 2017. Location: The Dark Side Observatory in Weatherly, PA.

Additional information:

EarthSky (earthsky.org/brightest-stars/polaris-the-present-day-nort...)

Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polaris)

HubbleSite (hubblesite.org/image/1847/news/68-multiple-star-systems)

Komet Neowise

Komet above Talitha (HR3569) and Alkaphrah (HR3594) (left)

80D Efs 70-200 f/2.8 LII @200mm

15sec f/2.8 ISO800 on SA

Stack of 10 pics DSS

From SpaceTelescope.org, “NGC 7006 resides in the outskirts of the Milky Way. It is about 135,000 light-years away, five times the distance between the Sun and the center of the galaxy, and it is part of the galactic halo. This roughly spherical region of the Milky Way is made up of dark matter, gas and sparsely distributed stellar clusters.”

Observation data (J2000 epoch)

Class: I

Constellation: Delphinus

Right ascension: 21h 1m 29.4s

Declination: +16° 11′ 14.4″

Apparent magnitude (V): 10.6

Apparent dimensions (V): 2.8′

Tech Specs: Meade 12” LX-90 SCT Telescope, Antares Focal Reducer, ZWO ASI2600MC camera running at 0F, 81 x 60 seconds, Celestron CGX-L pier mounted, ZWO EAF and ASIAir Pro, processed in DSS and PixInsight. Image Date: July 23, 2025. Location: The Dark Side Observatory (W59), Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).

Acquisition Details...

6 Hours 5 Minutes

81 x 120 Second Images

15 x 300 Second Images

67 x 240 Second Images

- | Equipment | -

Camera: Canon 80D (Unmodified)

Mount: Skywatcher HEQ5 Pro (Rowan Belt Modified)

Guide Camera: ZWO 120MM Mini

Guide Scope: Altair Starwave 50mm Guidescope

- | Image Acquisition | -

Astrophotography Tool

PHD2 Guiding Software

- | Processing | -

DeepskyStacker

Adobe Photoshop 2019

Youtube vlog: youtu.be/6qQjvKA118E

This is the Triangulum Galaxy, also referred to as M33. At a distance of over 2.5 million light-years away, it is a bit further out than Andromeda Galaxy, but it is still one of our closest galactic neighbors. There are around 40-billion stars in this spiral galaxy.

I shot this image a few nights ago using about 5 hours of RGB data. I was individually shooting 3-minute exposures in each color, then combining those images to get what you see, here.

Scope: Skywatcher 150 PDS

Camera: ZWO ASI 1600MM with ZWO EFW and filters

Exposures: 30x180s for R,G,B each

Processing: DeepSkyStacker, PixInsight, and Lightroom

Here's my second attempt at imaging the Andromeda Galaxy. All told, from telescope setup time to final processing, this photo took roughly eight hours to produce. The Andromeda Galaxy is 2.5 million light-years away. A single light-year is 5,865,696,000,000 miles. Now multiply that by 2.5 million. That's pretty far away. It contains roughly 1 trillion stars.

Taken with a TMB92L, Canon T3i DSLR, Orion SSAG autoguider and 50mm guidescope, and Celestron AVX mount. Consists of 53 120-second light frames and 41 120-second dark frames, all at ISO 800, as well as 15 flats. Captured with BackyardEOS, stacked in DeepSkyStacker, and processed in Photoshop.

Shot from my light polluted back yard (5.7 Bortle)

Camera: Canon M6 Mark ii

Lens: Canon 500mm F4 w/2X TC

Stacked with DeepSkyStacker

7 x F8/60s/800iso

11 x F8/20s/800iso

10 x F8/10s/800iso

Atlas EQ-G Tracking Mount

Starshoot Autoguider

This is a stack of 32 exposures, i.e. 53 minutes in total plus 13 dark-frames. The camera (Sony ILCE7) and the 200mm lens (Canon EF 70-200mm 1:4L) have been attached to a "Star Adventurer"-mount in order to compensate for earth rotation, while shooting at F4.0/ISO 1600. Stacking has been done with DeepSkyStacker, and final editing with Photoshop CC 2015.5. Place of observation was close to Bremen, in the northern part of Germany.

Orion's Sword

Just South of Orion’s Belt

This image was captured from my back garden in light polluted Nottingham, thankfully the Astronomik CLS clip-filter has done a good job at keeping the light pollution within manageable levels.

The raw images were stacked in Deep Sky Stacker and then processed in Photoshop using a layer mask to blend the two sets of exposures.

Canon 60Da

SW Evostar 80ED at 510mm f/6.3

SW .85x focal reducer corrector

EQ6 Pro (EQASCOM)

Astronomik EOS CLS Clip Filter

All frames at ISO 1600

40 x 180 seconds & 40 x 30 seconds

Total integration time: 120 minutes

Lacerta Off-Axis Guider (OAGhu48)

Lodestar Autoguider and PHD Guiding

Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker, processed in Photoshop.

Lights: 40x 180s & 40x 30s

60x flats

60x dark flats

60x bias frames

60x darks

Objects visible in the image:

M42 (NGC 1976), M43 (NGC 1982), NGC 1973, NGC 1975, NGC 1977, NGC 1980, NGC 1981

Also shown are the satellite galaxies, NGC 205 and M32.

Manually guided for 8 x 7-minute exposures at ISO 1600, f/6.25. Modified EOS 600D & Sky-Watcher ED80 refractor, piggybacked on a Celestron C8 telescope for guiding.

Registered and stacked using DeepSkyStacker; initial curves adjusted in Canon Photo Professional; final curves & colour-balance adjusted using Paint Shop Pro; noise reduction via CyberLink PhotoDirector.

As 6 of the last 7 nights have been mostly clear, I've a few astrophotos to post over the coming days :-)

In some cases, as here, I've included older frames, taken with the same setup, in the stack to further reduce noise.

22 x 1-minute unguided exposures at ISO 6400 (taken 3 July 2019); 19 x 1-minute unguided exposures at ISO 3200 (8 July 2018); 3 x 3-minute manually off-axis guided exposures at ISO 1600 (17 July 2015).

Modified EOS 600D & Revelation 12" f/4 Newtonian reflector telescope.

Registered and stacked using DeepSkyStacker; curves adjusted in Canon Photo Professional; noise reduction via CyberLink PhotoDirector.

I wanted to include the Perseus molecular cloud in the same extent as the California Nebula, but it didn't quite fit in the 1.5x-crop-factor field of view of my Fuji + Samyang 135mm lens, so I shot a mosaic of 4 panels. I thought snct astro did a great job framing the extent here (flic.kr/p/2kcoAZu), so I imitated their framing.

Panels were 26, 30, 22, and 37 x 1 min integrations and overlapped substantially, so most areas were covered by more than one panel. I also added 50 x 1 min of imagery of the Perseus Molecular Cloud from Nov. 20, 2019 (flic.kr/p/2hNZ6iA). So in total this is 165 minutes worth of data.

Fujifilm X-T10, Samyang 135mm f/2.0 ED UMC @ f2.0, ISO 1600, tracking with iOptron SkyTracker Pro, stacking of individual panels done with DeepSkyStacker, flattening of individual panels and mosaicking done with Astro Pixel Processor, editing in GIMP.

Skies were Bortle 3/4 for the 4 panels shot on Dec. 5, 2020, and Bortle 2/3 for the 50 exposures from Nov. 20, 2019.

It was fun discovering the planetary nebula NGC 1514 below the California Nebula as I processed this. Even though it's tiny at 135mm, it was very apparent that it was a planetary nebula rather than a star.

Rosette Nebula(edit2019)

2.5hrs guided

Camera and scope : TS72 APO + TS72flat, Nikon d610

432mm /f6/ iso800

Tracking: Skywatcher Star Adventurer

guiding: TS 50mm f3.6 guidescope , zwo asi120mc-s

Software: Deepskystacker(x2 drizzle), Photoshop, PHD2

Here is a quick view of Comet c/2019 Y4 (ATLAS) while I was chasing galaxies on the evening of March 15, 2020. This is just a single 60-second exposure showing the comet as it is traveling through the constellation Ursa Major.

I don’t know about others, but comet stacking has always been troublesome for me. I’ve tried about 18 different settings inside DeepSkyStacker and each the result was very poor (using 10 x 60 second exposures).

Technical Specs: Meade 12” LX-90, ZWO ASI071mc-Pro, 1 x 60 second exposures, Gain 200, Temp -5C, guided using a ZWO ASI290MC and Orion 60mm guide scope. Captured using SGP v3.1. Image date: March 15, 2020. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, PA, USA.

90 seconds total integration of a stack of three 30-second exposures using DeepSkyStacker and then levels adjustment in Photoshop CS2.

An unguided image of The Wild Duck Cluster (M11) in Scutum taken with SharpCap using a ZWOASI183MC Pro camera attached to a Celestron 130mm f/5 reflecting telescope. Fifty 20 second images were combined and processed using DeepSkyStacker, Gimp, and Lightroom.

Wow. All I can say is that the light pollution filter works as advertised. I was able to increase the exposure to 5 minutes for each light frame using the LPS-P2. It really does block the spectral lines in the sodium wavelength. You can easily see the Flame Nebula just above Alnitak, the leftmost belt star.

This was a quick and dirty processing. I will play around with it some more later.

September 2020. A nice walk through the Puljutunturi, in the middle of the night with my friend Johannes

An unguided image of the globular star cluster M5 in Serpens taken with a ZWOASI183MC camera through a 130mm f/5 reflecting telescope and processed using DeepSkyStacker and Lightroom.

Here is NGC 7822 captured two nights ago with enough integration to do this little camera justice.

30 x 5-minutes @ Unity Gain

ZWO ASI533MC Pro

Optolong L-eNhance Filter

Starizona APEX 0.65 Reducer

Sky-Watcher Esprit 100 APO

Sky-Watcher EQ6-R Pro Mount

DeepSkyStacker

Photoshop CC

Video: youtu.be/yBU-1tgd92s

Processing Guide: sellfy.com/p/0zsyyq/

Equipo: Star Adventurer - Canon 6D - Canon 24/105mm f/4

4 x 120s @f/5 24mm ISO 3200 - Crop

Procesado: Deepskystacker - Photoshop - Lightroom

Febrero 2022 - Punta Indio - Bortle 3

25 x 4 minutes, ISO 800

30 darks, 100 flats, 100 bias

Orion 8" f/3.9 Astrograph, Canon t2i (unmodded)

Calibration and Post-Processing in DeepSkyStacker and Pixinsight

Milkyway over Winkelmoosalm

Andromedanebel, Vega, Denab, Altair

Star Adveturer / Stack with DSS

Total exposure time 52min 13sec

EOS80D; EFs 10-22; F/ 3,5; ISO800

Night 2020-08-11 / 12

Edited in LR / ON1 RAW

My very first attempt at the Lagoon and Trifid Nebulae in HaRGB. 4 hours total integration time.

Skywatcher ED80

QHY268M + CFW3

ZWO EAF

Saxon AZ-EQ6 GT

Primalucelab Eagle LE

Processed using DeepSkyStacker, Photoshop & Lightroom

The Sombrero Galaxy, Messier 104 (M104) is in the constellation Virgo. From my vantage point, it just makes it high enough over the roof of my house to snap a few pictures. The image below was taken on April 24, 2016 using a Canon 6D, Meade 12” LX90, both mounted on a Celestron CGEM-DX mount, unguided. I used a mix of 15-second exposure at ISO 5000 and 6400 to combine 7-minutes of data. I tried several targets, all less than 10-minutes total exposure time so I could test out my collimation of the Meade telescope.

I used the following software packages in producing this image: DeepSkyStacker, ImagesPlus, Adobe Lightroom, and Corel Paintshop Pro.

The Sombrero Galaxy is about 50,000,000 light years away with an apparent magnitude of 8.3.

Messier 33.

Located in the constellation of Triangulum.

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 139; Exp 400s

Frames: 25 Lights; 4 Darks; 20 flats

100% Crop

Capture: SharpCap

Processed: DSS; PS

Sky: New moon, calm, no cloud, cold, fair seeing.

2.73 million light years distant.

This is my first time imaging a comet through a telescope. What a beautiful comet! Besides imaging and observing it with a telescope, I also viewed it with binoculars. I could detect it naked eye as a smudge to the right of the Pleiades.

Taken with a TMB92L, Hutech-modified Canon T3i DSLR, Orion SSAG autoguider and 50mm guidescope, and Celestron AVX mount. Consists of 23 90-second light frames and 23 90-second dark frames, all at ISO 800, as well as 23 flat and 53 bias frames. Captured with BackyardEOS, stacked in DeepSkyStacker, and processed in Photoshop.

27 light frames of 5 seconds each stacked in DeepSkyStacker totaling 2min 15s. Untracked exposures from a tripod.

Pentax K-30 @ ISO 12800 w/ a 50mm 1.4 @ f/2.0

A planetary nebula found in the constellation of Camelopardalis (The Giraffe). Also known as the Oyster Nebula.

A little under 5,000 light years distant from Earth, it's another one of William Herschel's discoveries in 1787.

Boring techie bit:

Skywatcher quattro 8" S & f4 aplanatic coma corrector

HEQ5 pro mount guided with an Altair 50mm & GPcam setup

Canon 450D astro modded with Astronomik CLS CCD EOS APS-C clip filter. Neewer Intervalometer used to control the exposures.

M106 with accompanying galaxies NGC 4217, NGC 4248, NGC 4232, NGC 4231 and NGC 4220.

Spiral galaxy in Canes Venatici

~23.7 million light years distant

Ocala, FL (RGB)

Chiefland, FL (LUM)

Combination of 6 min and 10 min exposures stacked in DeepSkyStacker for a total of 6 hours 40 min

1 hours each RGB

3 hours and 40 min Luminance

2 hours 20 minutes Ha

Additional 15 minute subs in Luminance was added from Chiefland, Florida totaling 3 hours and 30 minutes.

Photoshop CS5

Imaging telescope: Orion 80mm EON

Imaging camera: QSI 683 wsg-8

Losmandy G-11 with Gemini II

Hutech IDAS Light Pollution Suppression (LPS) Filter

coatesastrophotography.blogspot.com/2015/02/m106-in-canes...

An old image I have dragged out of the records from 2013, I can't really remember the image info any more so I have put down what I could.

Acquisition Equipment

Camera - CANON EOS 60D

Filter - Astronomik CLS-CCD

Telescope - Sky-Watcher 80ED w/Sky-Watcher .85x Reducer/Flattener

Focal Length - 510mm

F Ratio - F6.3

Mount - Celestron CG-5 Advanced GEM

Guide scope - Celestron 9x50 Finder

Guide Camera - QHY 5 Mono

Acquisition Software

Guiding - PHD2 - Open PHD Guiding

Planetarium - Stellarium

Processing Software

Stacking - DeepSkyStacker

Post-processing - Adobe Photoshop

Links

www.astrobin.com/users/EdHoltAstro

Trifid Nebula

4.5hrs guided

Camera and scope : TS72 APO + TS72flat, Nikon d610

432mm /f6/ iso800

Tracking: Skywatcher Star Adventurer

guiding: TS 50mm f3.6 guidescope , zwo asi120mc-s

Software: Deepskystacker(x3 drizzle), Photoshop, PHD2

NGC 2174 (also known as Monkey Head Nebula) is an emission nebula located in the constellation Orion. a region of interstellar atomic hydrogen that is ionized.

DeepSkyStacker - Photoshop

Equipo: Star Adventurer - Canon 6D - Canon 24/105mm f/4

31 x 120s @f/5 105mm ISO 3200

Procesado: Deepskystacker - Photoshop - Lightroom

Febrero 2022 - Punta Indio - Bortle 3

This colorful and diverse nebulosity which owes its name to the star Rho Ophiuchi, includes the bright red supergiant star Antares and composes the closest star forming region to our solar system, approximately 400 light-years away.

The interstellar clouds of gas and dust that make up the complex contain emission nebulae rich of glowing hydrogen (red gas) and blue nebulae that reflect light of nearby stars. The dark-brown areas consist of interstellar dust that prevent any light from passing through.

From the upper left corner of this image begins the enormous dust lane Barnard 44 known as the "Dark River" which extends about 100 light-years up to the Pipe Nebula.

IC 4603 can be identified as the turbulent region that connects the yellow and blue nebulosity. This reflection nebula is illuminated mostly by the 7.9 magnitude star SAO184376.

IC 4604 is the blue nebulosity around Rho Ophiuchi, the triple star in the upper portion of the image.

IC 4605 is the small blue reflection nebula around 22 Scorpii (a magnitude 4.8 star).

IC 4606 is the yellowish cloud associated with Antares, the first-magnitude star near the bottom of the image.

Antares designated "α Scorpii" is on average the 15th brightest star in the night sky and apparently the most prominent star here. It appears distinctly reddish when viewed with the naked eye and lies 550 light-years away from the Sun.

This red super-giant will almost certainly explode as a supernova, possibly in the next 10000 years. At that time Antares could be as bright as the full moon and will be visible even in daytime for a few months.

M4 (Messier 4) is the distant globular star cluster visible to the right of Antares. However, M4 lies far beyond the colorful cloud complex at a distance of some 7000 light-years from Earth.

To the upper right of Antares is the smaller globular cluster NGC 6144.

Technical details:

Camera: Canon 1000Da

Lens: Canon EF 70-200mm f2.8L IS USM II (at 175mm)

Aperture: f/2.8

Mount: Astrotrac TT320X

Total exposure time: 65.25min (3915 sec)

29 x 135 sec , ISO 1600 , 2012-07-20

Post-processing: DeepSkyStacker, Pixinsight LE, Photoshop CS3

P45 12/28/2016 18:16-18:24 PST

Technical Info:

15x 30" @1600 ISO

Camera: Canon 6D Hutech UV/IR mod

Scope: Williams Optics Star 71 Astrograph

Mount: Advanced VX

Stacking: DeepSkyStacker

Processing: Photoshop CC

Location: Lockwood Valley, CA

Among the astrophotographs I made, this is, at the moment, the one with the longest total exposure time, totaling 19 hours and 35 minutes (captured in four nights).

"The beautiful spiral galaxy Messier 83 is located in the constellation Hydra and is also known as NGC 5236 and as the Southern Pinwheel galaxy. Its distance is about 15 million light-years, being about twice as small as the Milky Way". Source: eso.org

Sky-Watcher 203mm F/5 EQ5 reflector with Onstep and electronic focuser ZWO EAF, Canon T6 (primary focus) modified, Optolong L-eNhance filter (in part of the frames). 50mm guidescope with ASI 290MC. 235 light frames (116x300 "ISO 800 + L-eNhance: 119x300" ISO 1600), 40 dark frames, 64 flat frames. Processing: DeepSkyStacker and PixInsight.

@LopesCosmos

www.instagram.com/lopescosmos

telescopius.com/profile/lopescosmos

M31 - the Andromeda Galaxy

*

Teleskop / Kamera:

Montierung: Star Adventurer

Optik:60mm f/3.5

EF-S60mm f/2.8 Macro USM

Kamera: Canon EOS 650D

Guider: -

Filter:-

Aufnahmedaten:

Zahl der Aufnahmen: 30

Brennweite:60 mm

Öffnungsverhältnis: 3,5

Belichtungszeit pro Aufnahme: 30 sek.

Empfindlichkeit ISO-Wert: 1600

Darkframes -

Flats -

Bildbearbeitung:

DeepSkystacker:

Standard / Light = Durchschnitt / Ausrichtung= Automatsch / 100% der Bilder

Photoshop Elements 10:

Tonwertkorrekur, Sättigung

*

Die Andromedagalaxie, auch Andromedanebel oder Großer Andromedanebel, ist eine Spiralgalaxie vom Typ Sb. Sie ist im Messier-Katalog als M31 und im New General Catalogue als NGC 224 verzeichnet. Am Sternenhimmel ist sie im Sternbild Andromeda, nach dem sie benannt ist, zu finden. In klaren Nächten kann die Andromedagalaxie von einem dunklen Standort aus mit bloßem Auge gesehen werden. Sie ist das fernste Objekt, das regelmäßig mit bloßem Auge gesehen werden kann.

The Andromeda Galaxy /ænˈdrɒmɨdə/ is a spiral galaxy approximately 2.5 million light-years (2.4×1019 km) from Earth[4] in the Andromeda constellation. Also known as Messier 31, M31, or NGC 224, it is often referred to as the Great Andromeda Nebula in older texts. The Andromeda Galaxy is the nearest spiral galaxy to our Milky Way galaxy, but not the nearest galaxy overall. It gets its name from the area of the sky in which it appears, the constellation of Andromeda, which was named after the mythological princess Andromeda. The Andromeda Galaxy is the largest galaxy of the Local Group, which also contains the Milky Way, the Triangulum Galaxy, and about 30 other smaller galaxies.

Quelle / source:

de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromedagalaxie

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda_Galaxy

on black

L(RGB) = 6x480s(5x240s:5x240s:5x240s)

L = 1x1bin

RGB = 2x2bin

12" R-C in rodeo, new mexico (lightbuckets.com LB-0003)

stacked with deepskystacker

initial processing with pixinsight 1.5

- normalization of ngc1977 vs. m42 data

- all subs aligned to luminance data

- rgb merge

- combined ngc1977 and m42 data with pixel math to produce a single image

- deconvolution

- histogram stretch (x10) of merged rgb data and luminance data

enfuse:

- HDR blend of all exposures generated in pixinsight

- luminance: hard mask, mean=0.54026, sigma=0.23154

- rgb: hard mask, mean=0.64026, sigma=0.23154, l-star grey projector

- had to duplicate the unstretched exposure 8 times to recover trapezium

photoshop: remove geosynchronous satellite streaks

pixinsight:

- histogram fixes and color calibration of rgb images

- histogram fixes, dark structure enhancement and atrous wavelets on luminance image

- LRGB merge

- chop composite image back into 2 separate images

- further histogram fix of ngc1977 to better match m42

hugin:

- stitch of ngc1977 and m42 images

lightroom:

- fix red/magenta saturation (pixinsight is running without color management... long story)

- crop

comments: the deconvolution is kind of bad... its heavy duty signal processing work that requires more patience than i could muster. as a result i've got some ringing and sharpening of bogus features.

it was really hard to get the two images to have the same brightness even though the exposures were the same. different nights, different amount of moon, different sky transparency all conspire to make two identically exposed images very different.

finally this is HDR so although the relative brightness between m42 and ngc1977 should be correct, the dynamic range of both have been greatly compressed. most other treatements of these objects show ngc1977 much fainter than seen here. but what is realistic when dealing with astrophotography?

second attempt at the orion nebula taken on the 6.1.21 with sony a7iii with 200-600 lens mounted on a iptron mount

98mins of exposure taken and edited done in deep star stakker and photoshop

Using my C9.25 at f/10 and 314L attached to SX filterwheel with OAG I captured 4 subs at 900 secs each in Ha and another 4 subs at 900secs each in OIII. Stacked in Deepskystacker,using Maxim DL4 to colour combine (Ha,OIII,OIII) then processed in Photoshop CS2. No darks nor flats.

Image taken 30/11/18

Nikon d610 with TS72

iso1600

2hrs.17min

Tracking: Skywatcher Star Adventurer

Software used:

Stacking: DeepskyStacker

Processing: Adobe Photoshop,Adobe camera raw, Photokemi Startools action set, GradientXterminator, Nik software, HLVG

The sky was clear last night so I pointed the 'scope at a ghost -- that's what Halloween is all about. This is the Ghost of Cassiopeia through an Ha filter. I collected about 8 hr of data last night and added it to Ha data collected in 2022. I had 17 hr of data in total and the image was made from the best 12 hr, as rated by DeepSkyStacker.

IC 59 is the upper-left part of the dust cloud, IC 63 is the "ghost" in the middle, and the lower lump/bump doesn't have a name, so I think we should call it IC Nothing. Below are a few fun facts about this little grouping.

IC 59 and IC 63 are a combination of faint, arc-shaped emission and reflection nebulae, located about 600 light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia. Together they are approximately 10 light-years across. IC 63 is known as the Ghost of Cassiopeia.

The brightest star in the image is Gamma Cassiopeiae, which is 19 times more massive, 65,000 times brighter, and spins 200 times faster than our sun. The radiation from Gamma Cass is so intense that it affects the IC 63/59 gas/dust cloud several light years away.

Rio Rancho NM Bortle 5 zone, Months and months

William Optics Redcat 51

ZWO 183mm pro

ZWO 30mm f/4 mini guide scope and ZWO 120 Mini

Optolong Ha filter

ZWO ASI Air Pro

Sky-Watcher HEQ5

Dithering Darks Flats GraXpert

Gain 111 at -10C

Processed in DSS and PS

M42 Orion Nebula and Running Man Nebula

Vixen Polarie + Standard Tripod

modified Canon 500d

Lights: 35 x 1 minute

Darks: 12 x 1 minute

iso 1600

f/5.6

70-300mm (300mm)

Aligned and stacked in DeepSkyStacker

Processed in Pixinsight and cs5

Location: Vancouver, BC

Temp: 2°C

Zona astrale del Cigno (a dx al centro Deneb, alpha Cyg, più al centro Sadr, gamma Cyg, circondata dalle nebulosità rosse di IC1318).

Stacking con 9 light frames, 13 bias, 10 dark effettuato con DeepSkyStacker.

Inseguimento siderale con Minitrack LX per scatti singoli da 60" @ F2

Scatti effettuati dalla riva del lago di Braies

Another showpiece spiral, also known as NGC 3031 or Bode's Galaxy, in Ursa Major.

40 x 2-minute exposures, ISO 3200, f/4 (frames taken 25 March 2020); plus 7 x 5-minute, f/4, ISO 1600 (older frames, from November 2013). Modified EOS 600D & Revelation 12" Newtonian f/4 reflector telescope.

Frames registered and stacked in DeepSkyStacker software; curves adjusted in Canon Photo Professional; noise reduction in CyberLink PhotoDirector.

Taken with a TMB92L, Hutech-modified Canon T3i DSLR, Orion SSAG autoguider and 50mm guidescope, and Celestron AVX mount. Consists of 25 360-second light frames and 21 360-second dark frames, all at ISO 800, as well as 35 flat and 50 bias frames. Captured with BackyardEOS, stacked in DeepSkyStacker, and processed in Photoshop.

Canon 135mm f/2 lens (stopped down to f/2.8),QHY168C OSC with Altair dual band filter,CEM60.

15 subframes of 300 seconds each stacked in Deepskystacker and processed in Photoshop CS2. Image cropped due to gradient.

Taken on night of 10th Dec 2021

Another old favourite of the Spring sky. I've had to crop this far more than I'd like, though, as the photo edges looked awful due to coma and tilt (both of which bloat and mis-shape the stars).

22 x 1-minute exposures, ISO 3200, f/4. Modified EOS 600D & Revelation 12" Newtonian f/4 reflector telescope.

Frames registered and stacked in DeepSkyStacker software; curves adjusted in Canon Photo Professional; noise reduction in CyberLink PhotoDirector.

Object name: Carina Nebula

Constellation: Carina

Object ID: NGC3372 & NGC3293, NGC3324, IC2599

Coordinates: RA: 10h42m42.455s, DEC: -59°28’54.086”

Apparent FOV/Radius: 3.23° x 2.16° (193.8 x 129.6 arc-min)/1.943°

FOV Angle: Up is 134.9° E of N

Exposure Date: 12 March - 3 April 2025

Sky Bortle Class: 4

Distance: ~8,500 LY

Magnitude: 1.0

Exposures: Hα:200x60s, OIII:137x90s, SII:184x120s, R:230x60s, G:245x60s, B:270x60s @ HCG2CMS:62/OFS:25 (25h18m30s)

Telescope: Celestron C8 HyperStar V4

Focal length: 389.73mm (f1.9)

Camera: QHY268M -5°C BIN1x1

Resolution: 3.93”/px

Guiding: ToupTek G3M220M on BOSMA refractor guide scope

Mount: CGEM-HT

Capture & Guide Software: Astrophotography Tool 4.60, PHD2.6.13dev7 Guiding

Processing Software: Siril 1.2.6, DeepSkyStacker 5.1.9, Photoshop CS4, GraXpert 3.1.0rc2, Starnet V2, Cosmic Clarity Suite 6.4AI3.5.