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
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!
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
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 !
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
.
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
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.
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
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.
SkyWatcher 70mm SK707AZ2 + Filter Thousand Oaks + super 25mm + barlow 2X.
Edited with MS Picture Manager and Photofiltre.
It's possible to see the 3046, 3051, 3052, 3053 and 3055 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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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.
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 80mm F6 Refractor, 760D, CLS Filter, EQ6 go to mount.
Panstarrs M81 M82 3200 36m 44s 37 frames.
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.
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)
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 the 2991, 2993, 2994, 2995 and 2996 spots this time.
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 Evostar Pro 80 ED (w/.85x reducer/corrector & QHYCCD Polemaster), Skywatcher EQM-35, Nikon D3300.
70 lights x 90 s @ ISO 800, ~45 dark, ~45 flat, ~100 bias, stacked in DSS and post-processed in Photoshop.
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!
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.
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
Skywatcher Evostar Pro 80 ED (w/.85x reducer/corrector & QHYCCD Polemaster), Skywatcher EQM-35, Nikon D3300.
135 lights x 90 s @ ISO 800, ~45 dark, ~45 flat, ~100 bias, stacked in DSS and post-processed in Photoshop.
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.
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.
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
Taken over a couple of nights, located in Draco is the barred Magellanic galaxy NGC 4236. A member of the M81 group of galaxies, NGC 4236 is located at a distance of ~ 14 Mly.
️ Date of acquisition: March 14-19, 2026
️ Date Processed: April 1, 2026
📍 Location: Havant, UK
🔭 Target Object: NGC 4236
🎯 RA/DEC: [12h 16m 44.738s / +69° 27' 34.491"]
️ Field of View: 48.3 x 48.6 arcmin
📐 Image Scale: 2.02 arcsec/pixel
⏱️ Total Integration Time: 31h 31m
Subframes and Filters:
ZWO Luminescence - 140 x 300s
ZWO Red - 194 x 120s
ZWO Green - 194 x 120s
ZWO Blue - 194 x 120s
📷 Camera: ZWO ASI533MM Pro
🔧 Telescope/Optics: Skywatcher Evostar 120mm, Skywatcher 0.85x reducer flattener, f6.375, 768mm
🔧 Accessories: Primalucelab Eagle 5, Primalucelab ESSATO, Primalucelab ARCO 2”, Primalucelab GIOTTO + ALTO, Primalucelab ECCO2, Skywatcher x .85 Flattener and ZWO EFW 7 x 1.25
🌀 Mount: iOptron CEM40g
Guiding: iOptron iGuider f4 integrated to the mount
📚 Software & Processing Summary: Processed in PixInsight with scripts BlurXterminator and NoiseXterminator from RC Astro. Final balance adjusted in Photoshop 2026.
Output File Info:
- Final Image Name: NGC4236_Flicr
- Dimensions: [e.g., 1437x 1447px]
- Format: JPG
- File Size: 232 KB
NGC 5128 or Caldwell 77.
Designation: galaxy.
Visual magnitude: +6.6
Diameter: 90,300 light years.
Distance: 12 million light years.
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With an apparent diameter of 26 arc-minutes, Centaurus A appears almost Moon size, although its outer fringes are not picked up in my image.
It is believed to be two galaxies in collision.
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Date: 2020-03-20
Exposure: 41 x 176s = 120 min.
Camera: ZWO ASI 071 MC Pro.
Telescope: Skywatcher Esprit 120mm refractor.
NGC 6729, discovered by Johann Friedrich Julius Schmidt in 1861, is a reflection/emission nebula in the constellation Corona Australis. It is approximately 500 light-years from Earth and has a large amount of dust that obsures the light from the background stars of the Milky Way. The large globular cluster, NGC 6723 (large white group of stars in the bottom left of the image) looks like it is part of the group, but it actually is nearly 30,000 light-years behind the Corona Australis nebula.
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 Lum, Red, Green, Blue Filters
•SKywatcher BD 102mm Guide Scope
•Meade DSIii CCD Guide Camera
•Polemaster for polar alignment
Exposure Details:
•Lum 21X300 seconds - Bin 1x1
•Red 5X300 seconds - Bin 1x1
•Green 5X300 seconds - Bin 1x1
•Blue 5X300 seconds - Bin 1x1
Total Integration Time: 3.00 hours