Lagoon nebula in Hubble palette narrow-band taken with a 31.75cm RCOS Ritchey Chretien at F9 and a STL11000 CCD camera.

SII:Ha:OIII exposure with Astrodon filters all 1x1. SII=300m, Ha=180m, OIII=260m.

Camera: Nikon D50

Exposure: 54m 24s (23 frames) ISO 800 RGB

Focus Method: Prime focus

Telescope Aperature/Focal Length: 203×812mm

Mount: LXD75

Telescope: Meade 8" Schmidt-Newtonian

Guided: PHD Guiding

Stacked: DeepSkyStacker

Adjustments: cropped/leveled in Photoshop

Location: Flintstone, GA

Imaging telescopes or lenses: Explore Scientific 127 ED APO Carbon

Imaging cameras: ZWO ASI1600MM Pro

Mounts: SkyWatcher EQ6-R Pro

Guiding telescopes or lenses: SkyWatcher Guidescope EVOGuide 50ed

Guiding cameras: Orion Starshoot Autoguider Orion Starshoot

Software: PixInsight · N.I.N.A · PHD2

Filters: ZWO Narrowband Filters Ha, OIII, SII second generation · ZWO LRGB 1.25" Filters

Accessory: Pegasus Astro Pocket Powerbox Advance · Pegasus Astro Focus Cube2 · ZWO EFW 1,25"

Dates:April 15, 2021

Frames:

ZWO Narrowband Filters Ha, second generation: 20x180" (gain: 139.00) -20C bin 1x1

ZWO L 1.25" Filter: 20x180" (gain: 0.00) -20C bin 1x1

ZWO RGB 1.25" Filters: 60x60" (gain: 0.00) -20C bin 1x1

Integration: 3.0 hours

Darks: ~66

Flats: ~50

Flat darks: ~50

Avg. Moon age: 3.03 days

Avg. Moon phase: 10.06%

Bortle Dark-Sky Scale: 5.00

12 Apr 2007 --- The Seven Sisters, also known as the Pleiades, seem to float on a bed of feathers in a new infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Clouds of dust sweep around the stars, swaddling them in a cushiony veil. The Pleiades, located more than 400 light-years away in the Taurus constellation, are the subject of many legends and writings. Greek mythology holds that the flock of stars was transformed into celestial doves by Zeus to save them from a pursuant Orion. The 19th-century poet Alfred Lord Tennyson described them as "glittering like a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid." The star cluster was born when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, about one hundred million years ago. It is significantly younger than our 5-billion-year-old sun. The brightest members of the cluster, also the highest-mass stars, are known in Greek mythology as two pare. --- Image by © NASA/JPL-Caltech/Corbis

The Pleiades, or Seven Sisters (Messier 45 or M45), is an open star cluster containing middle-aged hot B-type stars located in the constellation of Taurus. It is among the nearest star clusters to Earth and is the cluster most obvious to the naked eye in the night sky.

The cluster is dominated by hot blue and extremely luminous stars that have formed within the last 100 million years. Dust that forms a faint reflection nebulosity around the brightest stars is an unrelated dust cloud in the interstellar medium, through which the stars are currently passing.

The nine brightest stars of the Pleiades are named for the Seven Sisters of Greek mythology: Sterope, Merope, Electra, Maia, Taygeta, Celaeno, and Alcyone, along with their parents Atlas and Pleione.

Camera: Meade DSI Color II

Exposure: 79m (78 x 30s) RGB + (80 x 30s)L

Focus Method: Prime focus

Telescope Aperature/Focal Length: 203×812mm

Mount: LXD75

Telescope: Meade 8" Schmidt-Newtonian

Guided: No

Stacked: DeepSkyStacker

Adjustments: cropped/leveled in Photoshop

Location: Flintstone, GA

It is a spiral galaxy in the constellation Pisces. It is at a distance of about 32 million light-years away from Earth.

Sky-Watcher 80ED 600mm (Semi-apochromatic Refractor)

Sky-Watcher 0.85x Reducer/Flattener

Sky-Watcher HEQ5

Canon 350Dm + CLS-CCD Clip filter

16x600s @ ISO800 (2h 40min)

Lacerta MGEN2

Calibrated, registered and stacked in DeepSkyStacker.

Postprocessing in PS5.

This is a stack of 3 individual 30-second images of globular star cluster, Messier Object M22 taken at ISO 1600 from Malibu, California on August 6, 2005. The individual images were manually aligned in Photoshop CS. I was using an "Alt-Az" fork-mounted 10" Meade LX200 GPS on its regular field tripod, and a Canon 10D was coupled in prime focus configuration to an Orion Short-Tube 80mm (ST-80) telescope mounted with a Losmandy bracket on top of the LX200. In prime focus photography, the camera lens is removed, and in this image, the ST-80 was the actual 400mm "lens". The final images were cropped from the 3 single, unguided exposures. Because I was not polar aligned on a wedge, or using a German Equatorial Mount such as a Losmandy G-11, I ended up with some field rotation. This required slightly rotating each image to eliminate the field rotation and align all the stars.

M22 is 9,600 light years from Earth.

Image processing was done in Photoshop, and the star diffraction spikes and frame were added using Noel Carboni's Astronomy Tools plug-in for Photoshop. This software is available at www.ProDigitalSoftware.com.

Camera: Meade DSI Color II

Exposure: 40m (20 x 1m) RGB + (20 x 1m)L

Focus Method: Prime focus

Lens Focal Length: 135mm

Lens Focal Ratio: f/2.8

Mount: LXD75

Telescope: Soligar 135mm f/2.8 T-mount lens

Guided: PHD Guiding

Stacked: DeepSkyStacker

Adjustments: cropped/leveled in Photoshop

Location: Flintstone, GA

Camera: Meade DSI Color II

Exposure: 14m 30s LRGB exposure (18x15s + 10x60s RGB and Lum Exposures)

Focus Method: Prime focus

Telescope Aperature/Focal Length: 203×812mm

Mount: LXD75

Telescope: Meade 8" Schmidt-Newtonian

Stacked: DeepSkyStacker

Adjustments: leveled in Photoshop

Location: Flintstone, GA

Notes:

This is an image which is supposed to be compared to the one right before it, taken with the same exposure settings and camera, but with a 70mm refractor.

Attempting to capture Draconid meteor shower.

I believe the object in upper right corner is the M39 Galaxy...not sure however.

Camera: Nikon D50

Exposure: 12m (4 x 3m) ISO 800 RGB

Filter: Orion Skyglow Imaging Filter

Flattener/Correction: Anteres .63x Focal Reducer

Focus Method: Prime focus

Telescope Aperature/Focal Length: 256×2500mm

Telescope: Meade LX200-GPS 10" ACF

Guided: Yes - PHD Guiding

Stacked: DeepSkyStacker

Adjustments: cropped/leveled in Photoshop

Location: Flintstone, GA

I took ten 15-second exposures of the Andromeda Galaxy and combined them and subtracted a master dark frame made of 30 dark exposures to help improve the signal-to-noise ratio. This is the closet galaxy to us after the two Magellenic clouds that accompany the Milky Way. This is an uncropped view through a Nikkor 85mm f/2 AIS lens.

Camera: Nikon D50

Exposure: 18 x 1m ISO 800 RGB

Filter: Orion Skyglow Imaging Filter

Flattener/Correction: Anteres .63x Focal Reducer

Focus Method: Prime focus

Telescope Aperature/Focal Length: 256×2500mm

Telescope: Meade LX200-GPS 10" ACF

Guided: No

Stacked: DeepSkyStacker

Adjustments: cropped/leveled in Photoshop

Location: Flintstone, GA

Temperature: 24°F

Another of the 6 dwarf galaxies associated with M101 -= I could only find 2 in my field of view.

Camera: Meade DSI Color II

Exposure: 80m (40 x 1m) RGB + (40 x 1m)L

Focus Method: Prime focus

Telescope Aperature/Focal Length: 203×812mm

Mount: LXD75

Telescope: Meade 8" Schmidt-Newtonian

Guided: PHD Guiding

Stacked: DeepSkyStacker

Adjustments: cropped/leveled in Photoshop

Location: Flintstone, GA

Camera: Nikon D50

Exposure: 1hr (15 x 4m) ISO 800 RGB

Filter: Orion Skyglow Imaging Filter

Flattener/Correction: Anteres .63x Focal Reducer

Focus Method: Prime focus

Telescope Aperature/Focal Length: 256×2500mm

Telescope: Meade LX200-GPS 10" ACF

Guided: Yes - PHD Guiding

Stacked: DeepSkyStacker

Adjustments: cropped/leveled in Photoshop

Location: Flintstone, GA

Note: This is a reprocess of this image using better adjusted flats.

I captured all 110 of the Messier Objects between March 7 and August 6, 2008 as a Photo Messier Marathon. Note that I've placed M110 in the 0,0 position so that I didn't have to add another row.

Each image was taken using a Meade DSI II Color attached to an LXD75 SN-8 and consists of 15 x 15s images stacked in Envisage and leveled in Photoshop.

UPDATE: It has been pointed out to me that I copied M52 over M51 (you can see they are the same. I'm creating an updated Messier Marathon image now.

First proper go with the tracking mount with the 600mm & 2x tc on top.The alignment wasnt great but i still managed to get a ton of images to stack in Deep sky stacker. M51 (a & b) as it is also known is in the constellation of Canes Venatici. Recently it was estimated to be 23 ± 4 million light-years from the Milky Way Galaxy, but different methods yield distances between 15 and 35 million ly. Messier 51 is one of the best known galaxies in the sky. Comments & questions welcome.

Nikon D300 shot of the Orion Nebula --camera was mounted to my 10" Meade LX200 telescope. (f6.3 focal reducer attached)

This is a "minor" composite shot... I pulled a little bit of a short-exposure photo (that captured the Trapezium) into the longer exposure photograph that got the finer details in the outer parts of the nebula.

ND35902

A mozaic of 6 images of the pleiades, comprised of 30 second exposures, prime focus

Below the belt stars of Orion is the dagger and in the middle is M42 and M43 nebula complex.

Camera: Nikon D50

Exposure: 5 x 240s ISO 1600 RGB

Filter: Orion Skyglow Imaging Filter

Flattener/Correction: Anteres .63x Focal Reducer

Focus Method: Prime focus

Telescope Aperature/Focal Length: 256×2500mm

Telescope: Meade LX200-GPS 10" ACF

Guided: PHD Guiding

Stacked: DeepSkyStacker

Adjustments: cropped/leveled in Photoshop

Location: Flintstone, GA

The Milky Way is probably my favorite thing to image. It's just something that you have to go well out of your way to see nowadays, and it's quite sad. Light pollution totally drowns out the light from the Milky Way. Many will grow up never seeing this spectacular sight.

05/23/12

Joshua Tree National Park, CA

1x30 second guided exposure ISO 6400 f/3.5

LXD75 EQ Mount

Canon Rebel T3 DSLR

Camera: Nikon D50

Exposure: 58m 22s (31 frames) ISO 800 RGB

Focus Method: Prime focus

Telescope Aperature/Focal Length: 203×812mm

Mount: LXD75

Telescope: Meade 8" Schmidt-Newtonian

Guided: Yes - PHD Guiding

Stacked: DeepSkyStacker

Adjustments: cropped/leveled in Photoshop

Location: Flintstone, GA

Camera: Nikon D50

Exposure: 13 x 180s ISO 1600 RGB

Filter: Orion Skyglow Imaging Filter

Lens Aperature/Focal Length: 50×200mm

Telescope: Piggyback mounted on Meade LX200-GPS 10" ACF

Guided: Yes

Stacked: DeepSkyStacker

Adjustments: cropped/leveled in Photoshop

Location: Flintstone, GA

A Messier Marathon is a group of Amateur Astronomers who gather during the Late March or Early April Dark of the Moon with the goal of Finding and Observing as many of the 110 Deep Space Objects of the Messier Catalog as possible over the course of 1 night.

The night of 3/29-30/14 saw about 100 such Astro Geeks gathered in the Desert 90 miles west of Phoenix for the 2014 All-Arizona Messier Marathon. After a few years of rather successful Visual Marathons, I decided that this year I would attempt an "Imaging Marathon" - capturing enough exposure of each Messier Object that the resulting Images would be recognizable (but not Hubble quality).

I calculated that if I spent 5 minutes per each of the 110 Objects, that between Dusk and Dawn I could capture all of them - with about 30 minutes left over for Coffee and Bathroom Breaks.

These are my Results: 58 of 110 Objects Imaged

Exposures:

3x 60sec @ 1600ISO

Equipment Used:

Canon 550D (IR-Modded)

Orion 8in Astrograph Newtonian Telescope

CGEM Mount with SSAG Guider

BackyardEOS Imaging Software

DeepSkyStacker and ACDsee 6 Pro

Camera: Meade DSI Color II

Exposure: 26m (13 x 60s) RGB + (13 x 60s)L

Filter: Orion Skyglow Imaging Filter

Focus Method: Prime focus

Telescope Aperature/Focal Length: 203×812mm

Mount: LXD75

Telescope: Meade 8" Schmidt-Newtonian

Guided: PHD Guiding

Stacked: DeepSkyStacker

Adjustments: cropped/leveled in Photoshop

Location: Flintstone, GA

Camera: Meade DSI Color II

Exposure: 43m (43 x 30s) RGB + (43 x 30s)L

Focus Method: Prime focus

Telescope Aperature/Focal Length: 203×812mm

Mount: LXD75

Telescope: Meade 8" Schmidt-Newtonian

Guided: No

Stacked: DeepSkyStacker

Adjustments: cropped/leveled in Photoshop

Location: Flintstone, GA

Here's a quick and dirty 30 second integration (ten 3-second frames stacked with DeepSkyStacker) of the Great Nebula in Orion (M42). This region is often thought of as the middle star in Orion's dagger (below the belt stars.) It's actually a group of 4 stars that give the nebula, a gas and dust cloud where stars are born, its glow.

Camera: Nikon D50

Exposure: 1h 10m 36s (17 exposures) RGB

ISO: 800

Filter: none

Focal Length: 55mm

F-Stop: f/5.6

Mount: Equitorial

Telescope: None

Stacked: DeepSkyStacker

Adjustments: leveled in Photoshop

Location: Flintstone, GA

Aquisition data and uncut picture can be found at www.astrobin.com/2lxl53/

Camera: Meade DSI Color II

Exposure: 11m4s (83 x 4s) RGB + (83 x 4s)L

Focus Method: Prime focus

Telescope Aperature/Focal Length: 203×812mm

Mount: LXD75

Telescope: Meade 8" Schmidt-Newtonian

Guided: PHD Guiding

Stacked: DeepSkyStacker

Adjustments: cropped/leveled in Photoshop

Location: Flintstone, GA

Camera: Meade DSI Color II

Exposure: 50m (25 x 1m) RGB + (25 x 1m)L

Focus Method: Prime focus

Telescope Aperature/Focal Length: 203×812mm

Mount: LXD75

Telescope: Meade 8" Schmidt-Newtonian

Guided: Envisage

Stacked: DeepSkyStacker

Adjustments: cropped/leveled in Photoshop

Location: Flintstone, GA

Camera: Meade DSI Color II

Exposure: 14m 30s LRGB exposure (18x15s + 10x60s RGB and Lum Exposures)

Focus Method: Prime focus

Telescope Aperature/Focal Length: 70mm×600mm

Mount: LXD75

Telescope: Meade 70AZ-A refractor

Stacked: DeepSkyStacker

Adjustments: leveled in Photoshop

Location: Flintstone, GA

Notes:

This is an image which is supposed to be compared to the one right after it, taken with the same exposure settings and camera, but with a 203mm Schmidt-Newtonian refractor.

Camera: Nikon D50

Exposure: 16m (8 frames) ISO 800 RGB

Filter: Orion Skyglow Imaging Filter

Focus Method: Prime focus

Telescope Aperature/Focal Length: 203×812mm

Mount: LXD75

Telescope: Meade 8" Schmidt-Newtonian

Guided: Yes - PHD Guiding

Stacked: DeepSkyStacker

Adjustments: cropped/leveled in Photoshop

Location: Flintstone, GA

The Plejades M45 seen from my backyard between the trees, with the DSLR mounted on the mountingarm assembly of Meade, equipped with the AudioStar controller.

Cline River Photography, Photo by Chris Wood

View or purchase items from our portfolio at: www.clineriverphotography.com

Camera: Meade DSI Color II

Exposure: 80m (20 x 2m) RGB + (20 x 2m)L

Focus Method: Prime focus

Telescope Aperature/Focal Length: 203×812mm

Mount: LXD75

Telescope: Meade 8" Schmidt-Newtonian

Guided: PHD Guiding

Stacked: DeepSkyStacker

Adjustments: cropped/leveled in Photoshop

Location: Flintstone, GA

Camera: Meade DSI Color II

Exposure: 76m (46 x 1m) RGB + (30 x 1m)L

Focus Method: Prime focus

Telescope Aperature/Focal Length: 203×812mm

Mount: LXD75

Telescope: Meade 8" Schmidt-Newtonian

Guided: None

Stacked: DeepSkyStacker

Adjustments: cropped/leveled in Photoshop

Location: Flintstone, GA

Camera: Nikon D50

Exposure: 10 x 103s ISO 800 RGB

Filter: Orion Skyglow Imaging Filter

Flattener/Correction: Anteres .63x Focal Reducer

Focus Method: Prime focus

Telescope Aperature/Focal Length: 256×2500mm

Telescope: Meade LX200-GPS 10" ACF

Guided: No

Stacked: DeepSkyStacker

Adjustments: cropped/leveled in Photoshop

Location: Flintstone, GA

Camera: Nikon D50

Exposure: 21 x 120s ISO 1600 RGB

Filter: Orion Skyglow Imaging Filter

Flattener/Correction: Anteres .63x Focal Reducer

Focus Method: Prime focus

Telescope Aperature/Focal Length: 256×2500mm

Telescope: Meade LX200-GPS 10" ACF

Guided: PHD Guiding

Stacked: DeepSkyStacker

Adjustments: cropped/leveled in Photoshop

Location: Flintstone, GA

Okay, it's not much but I thought it was geeky enough even for me. This is 7 exposures and 4 dark frames (to remove sensor hot pixels) stacked with DeepSkyStacker. Each light frame was shot at ISO 800, f/4 for 4 seconds to minimize star trails. I used a Nikkor MF 200mm f/4 AI lens. Fixed tripod and no tracking. The comet is about magnitude 9.9 and the threshold of visible stars is about magnitude 10.

This comet has become visible in telescopes over the past couple of weeks. I don't have a telescope but a telephoto lens and a good educated guess about where to point it can result in a good shot.

Someone in Malta made a video of the comet the other night.

View large.

Camera: Meade DSI Color II

Exposure: 36m (20 x 1m) RGB + (16 x 1m)L

Focus Method: Prime focus

Telescope Aperature/Focal Length: 203×812mm

Mount: LXD75

Telescope: Meade 8" Schmidt-Newtonian

Guided: PHD Guiding

Stacked: DeepSkyStacker

Adjustments: cropped/leveled in Photoshop

Location: Flintstone, GA

This is a somewhat noisy shot of the center of our galaxy. (It was a really warm night, which generates noise when taking long exposures) No telescope was used for this one. It contains many deep sky objects. There are more than I listed, but too dim to see clearly. Throughout the summer I'm going to image all of them, and insert close-ups of each one. :)

05/23/12

Joshua Tree National Park, CA

1x35 second exposure ISO 6400 f/5

Guided on my LXD75 EQ Mount

Canon Rebel T3 DSLR

Canon 450d astro-mod

Minolta 250mm f5.6

Optolong L-Pro filter

Camera: Nikon D50

Exposure: 4 x 300s ISO 1600 RGB

Filter: Orion Skyglow Imaging Filter

Flattener/Correction: Anteres .63x Focal Reducer

Focus Method: Prime focus

Telescope Aperature/Focal Length: 256×2500mm

Telescope: Meade LX200-GPS 10" ACF

Guided: PHD Guiding

Stacked: DeepSkyStacker

Adjustments: cropped/leveled in Photoshop

Location: Flintstone, GA