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The Dumbbell Nebula (also known as the Apple Core Nebula, Messier 27, and NGC 6853) is a planetary nebula (nebulosity surrounding a white dwarf) in the constellation Vulpecula, at a distance of about 1360 light-years . 15 x 55 sec subs stacked in Sequator, no cal frames . Canon 60d with Svbony UHC CLIP FILTER on a SKYWATCHER QUATTRO 250 f/4 scope and tracked with a SW NEQ6 PRO .
Skywatcher Esprit 80/400, ASI2600MM-Pro, Astronomik SHO 6nm et HEQ5.
3 X 110 x 150" (4h35) @ gain 185, 13h45 au total.
NINA + Pixinsight
During the early hours of 8th December 2022, the almost Full Moon occulted the planet Mars.
I imaged it with a William Optics 70mm refractor, Celestron 3x Barlow, ZWO ASI120MC camera. I used my portable Skywatcher AZGTi mount because I wasn't sure if I'd get the egress from my permanent pier as there are trees in that direction. This image is a reprocess of the video showing the first part of egress; the time when Mars re-emerged from behind the Moon at 06:01 UT.
I shot a two thousand frame video and had to do two separate stacking processes on them, one for the Moon and one for Mars because they were moving so quickly relative to each other. I then processed the images in Lightroom and Fast Stone Image Viewer. I'm slightly astounded to have captured surface features on Mars with such a small refractor, but this amazing telescope often surprises me with how versatile it is! The Celestron 3x Barlow is excellent quality too, which really helped with this. This image is a crop from the original photo.
The little pinwheel galaxy in Ursa Major. A face on unbarred spiral galaxy some 40 million light years away.
First discovered on the 18th of March 1787 by William Herschel. It's 2 main spiral arms are predominantly blue, which suggests mostly young hot stars inhabit them.
Many fainter more distant galaxies can be spotted in the background.
All data gathered at www.astronomycentre.org.uk/
Boring techie bit:
Skywatcher Quattro 8" Newtonian Reflector steel tube with the f4 aplanatic coma corrector, Skywatcher EQ6 R pro mount, Altair Starwave 60mm guide scope, ZWO asi120mm guide camera mini, ZWO asi533mc pro cooled to -20c gain 101, Optolong UV/IR 2" filter, ZWO filter drawer, ZWO asiair plus.
180s exposures.
21 light frames.
Darks, Flats, Dark Flats.
Stacked with DeepSkyStacker and processed in Graxpert, PixInsight & Affinity Photo.
SkyWatcher 70mm SK707AZ2 + Filter Thousand Oaks + super 25mm + barlow 2X.
Edited with MS Picture Manager and Photofiltre.
It's possible to see the 3628, 3629, 3632 and 3633 spots
Niente filtri, solo tanta pazienza e lotta continua contro le luci per fotografare una bellissima galassia nell'Orsa Maggiore, la famosa M81, a circa 12 Milioni di anni luce da noi.
Posa equivalente di 20x5 minuti (100 minuti totali), al fuoco del Newton 200/1000.
L'universo è davvero affascinante!
#m81 #bode #galaxy #galassia #bigdipper #orsamaggiore #skywatcher #spiral #arms #bracci #spirale #universe
One of the most popular celestial objects.
Cam: Canon EOS 6Da
Scope: Sky-Watcher Esprit ED80 Triplet Apo
Astromount: Sky-Watcher HEQ5 Pro
Autoguider: Lacerta M-GEN plus Finderscope 9x50
18x 600sec | 10x 60sec | 10x 10sec | ISO800
My Astrobin My 500px My Facebook
© Claus Steindl
Skywatchers were treated to the extremely rare phenomenon of a super blue blood moon early today Wednesday.
The unusual lunar trifecta occured for the first time in North America since 1866.
Skywatcher Evostar Pro 80 ED (w/.85x reducer/corrector & QHYCCD Polemaster), Skywatcher EQM-35, Nikon D3300.
125 lights x 90 s @ ISO 800, ~45 dark, ~45 flat, ~100 bias, stacked in DSS and post-processed in Photoshop.
Skywatcher 130/900 Newtonian
QHY 5L-II mono
RGB filters Astronomik
Barlow Televue 3x
UT: 20:00
Location: Grammatiko, Attika, Greece
Almost gave up when high cloud thwarted my attempts to see Jupiter but a short clear gap gave a chance to capture this image. The moon Europa was a bonus! (Skywatcher 127 Mak, ASI-178MC, 30s avi, stacked and processed with Autostakkert, Registax and Topaz denoise)
Just getting high enough in the sky now to be seen over the houses behind us in Belfast. First attempt with my new Skymax 127mm telescope and cheap TC7 astro camera
Equipment Used and Process Details: astrobackyard.com/orion-nebula-backyard/
Imaged from my light-polluted backyard in the Niagara Region. So many re-processes, I finally ended up with this. As always, more time under darker skies would help. I blended some 10 second exposures of the core in.
Explore Scientific ED80. Skywatcher HEQ-5. Canon Xsi (modified)
Not sure how flickr picked up Canon 7D with the 300mm, I do own that camera and lens but this was definitely the Xsi through a telescope! lol
another winter classic and back in 2019 my first deep sky object i captured. it was a spontanious decision to shot it as other parts of the sky were covered with thin layers of clouds, but i have no regrets :) it shows the great orion nebula, the de mairans nebula and the running man nebula.
camera: ToupTek ATR533C
mount: Skywatcher HEQ5Pro
scope: Skywatcher Esprit ED80
dual narrow band: 40x180sec @gain 100 and 1x1 binning, cooled to -10°C
RGB 40x120sec @gain 100 and 1x1 binning, cooled to -10°C
stacking and editing in APP
shot at new moon under a bortle 5+ sky
NGC 6334 - the Cat's Paw Nebula, is an emission nebula and star-forming in the constellation Scorpius It was discovered by astronomer John Herschel in 1837. It is approximately 5500 light years distance from earth.
Had a go at a HDR Moon last night following Alyn Wallace Photography's YouTube tutorial. This is 2 images merged into 1, a 1/60s exposure for the crater detail and a 15 second exposure for the dark side detail and surrounding stars, both iso 100 shot straight after each other last night. Lunar tracking on my Heq5Pro using Skywatcher Equinox80ED and Canon 5dsr, no filters
SH2-157
Caméra 2600MM
Caméra 120MC
RAF zxo filtres Astrobin 5nn SHO
eaf zwo
Asiair pro
évoguide skywatcher 242mm
traitement pixinsight
H 177X5mn
S 57X5MN
0 57X5mn
total 24H25mn
Skywatcher EQM 35 Pro Goto
Skywatcher Evostar 72ED
Canon EOS 550D Défiltré Partiel
Correcteur/Reducteur 0.85x
Filtre Baader IR-Cut
182x90s
800 iso
DOF 50/100/100
SIRIL
Lightroom ; DenoiseAI
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.
SkyWatcher 70mm SK707AZ2 + Filter Thousand Oaks + super 25mm + barlow 2X.
Edited with MS Picture Manager and Photofiltre.
Keep on in a freckled Sun. It's possible to see the 3636, 3638, 3639, 3643, 3644, 3645, 3647 and 3650 spots
Continuing clear skies of the night of 14-15 April allowed me to image this lovely pair of contrasting galaxies in Coma Berenices.
M88, towards bottom right is a spiral galaxy lying some 50 - 60 million lightyears form earth. The spiralling arms are very regular and can be followed right to the core.
M91 is one of the faintest objects in Chares Messier's famous catalogue with an apparent magnitude of 11. In contrast to M88 M91 is a barred spiral galaxy and lies at a distance of about 63 million lightyears from us. It was discovered in 1781 by Messier. The galactic bar is very prominent and M91 is classified as an anaemic galaxy, having little star formation and gas compared with others of its type.
I have also tried to identify a few of the fainter galaxies in the shot namely NGC 4516, IC 3476 & IC 797.
Imaged with a Skywatcher Esprit 120ED Triplet Apo and a ZWO 2600MC camera. Skywatcher EQ6-r PRO mount.
117 x 120s Guided Subs
Temperature matched Darks, Flats and Dark Flats
Processed with Astro Pixel Processor, finished in Photoshop 2021.
Technical card
Imaging telescope or lens: Teleskop Service TS Photoline 107mm f/6.5 Super-Apo
Imaging camera: ZWO ASI1600MM-Cool
Mount: Skywatcher AZ EQ-6 GT
Guiding telescope or lens: Celestron OAG Deluxe
Guiding camera: QHYCCD QHY5III174
Focal reducer: Riccardi Reducer/Flattener 0.75x
Software: Main Sequence Software Seqence Generator Pro, Pleiades Astrophoto PixInsight
Filter: Baader Planetarium Ha 1.25" 7nm
Accessory: ZWO EFW
Resolution: 4596x3424
Dates: July 23, 2017
Frames: Baader Planetarium Ha 1.25" 7nm: 39x120" (gain: 200.00) -20C bin 1x1
Integration: 1.3 hours
Avg. Moon age: 29.06 days
Avg. Moon phase: 0.25%
Astrometry.net job: 1665080
RA center: 306.212 degrees
DEC center: 42.477 degrees
Pixel scale: 1.468 arcsec/pixel
Orientation: 90.541 degrees
Field radius: 1.169 degrees
Locations: Berga Resort, Berga, Barcelona, Spain
These two relatively nearby spiral galaxies, M66 top and M65 bottom are relatively "close" at a distance of around 35 million light-years. Their different physical characteristics means they provide an attractive pair to observe and image.
Both are around 100,000 light years in diameter, similar in size to our own Milky Way galaxy. They are also gravitationally bound to each other.
They are visually strikingly different to each other. M65 is low in dust and gas and there is little star formation in it so it looks relatively bland in comparison to M66. There is however a prominent dust lane visible. M65 may have a central bar but because of its oblique angle to us that is hard to ascertain.
In contrast M66 is an intermediate spiral galaxy which shows signs of contortion due to strong gravitational interaction. It has, in stark contrast to M65, striking dust lanes and bright star clusters along its sweeping arms. These colourful arms with tell-tale pink areas of hydrogen gas emissions indicate the galaxy has a high rate of star formation.
Both galaxies are found in the constellation of Leo.
Imaged with a Skywatcher Esprit 120ED Triplet and a ZWO 1600MM Pro Camera with Baader LRGB filters.
34 x L 120s
23 x R 180s
22 x G 180s
20 x B 180s
All @-20C Unity Gain
Flats & Darks
Processed using Astro Pixel Processor and Photoshop.
This was imaged back in April 2020 but I decided to revisit and do some slight reanalysis.
Thanks for looking!
From the Sharpless catalogue, this is an emission nebula about 5,600 light years away in the constellation of Cygnus the Swan.
Boring techie bit:
Skywatcher Quattro 8" Newtonian Reflector steel tube with the f4 aplanatic coma corrector, Skywatcher EQ6 R pro mount, Altair Starwave 50mm guide scope, ZWO asi120mm guide camera mini, ZWO asi533mc pro cooled to -20c gain 110, Optolong L'enhance 2" filter, ZWO asiair plus.
Darks, Flats & Bias.
Stacked with DeepSkyStacker and processed in StarTools.
Imaging:
Canon 50D (modified) on Skywatcher Equinox 80mm with Televue TRF-2008
Lights 12 x 960s f/5 ISO 100 + 5 x 300s f/5 ISO 100
Darks 5 x for both sets
Flats 76 x for both sets
Bias 64 x for both sets
Guiding:
SSAG on Skywatcher 80mm f/5 achromatic refractor
Guide frames x 2.5s
- - - - -
Ok so updated with image with core not blown, the rest of image is exactly the same ( I usually save my images as 16-bit TIFF before JPEG save), so this is an HDRish shot. I basically just copy/pasted the core area from 5 min stack in 16min stack, then used curves and Hue/saturation tools to match rest of image.
I think I've done about as much as i can do with this one.
I would have taken more images but camera batteries died (50D can use AA, so I need to get my NiMH charged up for next time.)
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!
Taken with a Skywatcher ED80 Refractor fitted with a Baader Astrosolar Filter and a Canon 600D at prime focus. Best 20 of 40 images stacked using Autostakkert 2. Wavelet processing done using Registax 6
The Southern Pinwheel Galaxy ( Messier 83, NGC 5236 ) in the constellation Hydra - by Mike O'Day ( 500px.com/mikeoday )..Messier 83 is a relatively large and bright spiral galaxy visible from southern and mid latitudes. Clearly visible is the central bar with its bright central bulge as well as multiple dark dust lanes and areas of nebulosity in the sweeping arms. At a distance of 15 Million light years, the Southern Pinwheel Galaxy, whilst close in astronomical terms, is too far away and hence way too small for my backyard telescope to resolve individual star; so all of the stars that can be seen are in fact in the near foreground of the image and reside, like us, in the Milkyway Galaxy...Much harder to see are the multitudes of far more distant galaxies that look like tiny fuzzy stars in the image. The easiest of which are PGC 724536 and PGC 48132 that appear close together in the centre of the image just to the right of Messier 83. Both are edge on and look like tiny flying saucers...Details:..Skywatcher Quattro 10" f4 Newtonian. .Skywatcher AZ Eq6 GT Mount .Orion 80mm f5 guide scope and auto guider - PHD2. .Nikon D5300 (unmodified)...Hutech IDAS D1 filter, 14bit NEF, Long Exp. NR on. 25 June 2016.17 x 4min ISO400 ..Plus No filter, 14bit NEF, Long Exp. NR on. 28 June 2016.9 x 3 min ISO200..Pixinsight and photoshop..Links:.https://500px.com/mikeoday.http://photo.net/photos/MikeODay.
Andromeda galaxy, 4x2min WO Z73 Canon 450D skywatcher adventure. Was aiming for a lot more subs but my polar alignment was off, so I managed to salvage this, processed in APP
Bright Nebula NGC 6357 in the constellation Scorpius - by Mike O'Day ( 500px.com/mikeoday )..NGC 6357 in Scorpius is a diffuse nebula discovered in 1837 by John Herschel and is around 400 light years wide and about 8,000 light years from Earth...Details:..Skywatcher Quattro 10" f4 Newtonian. .Skywatcher AZ Eq6 GT Mount.Orion 80mm f5 guide scope and auto guider - PHD2. .Baader MPCC Mark 3 Coma Corrector, UHC-S 'nebula' filter..Nikon D5300 (unmodified)..Field of view (deg) ~ 1.35 x 0.90..UHC-S - 100 x 100 sec ISO800 (14bit NEF, Long Exp. NR on)..Pixinsight and photoshop.5 October 14.re-processed 31 July 2016..Links:.https://500px.com/mikeoday.http://photo.net/photos/MikeODay
Messier 27 (M27), also known as the Dumbbell Nebula, Diabolo Nebula or Apple Core Nebula, is a planetary nebula in Vulpecula. The Dumbbell Nebula is extensive and bright, making it popular among amateur astronomers. It can be seen in binoculars and small telescopes.
The nebula covers an area of 8 by 5.6 arc minutes of the apparent sky and has a linear radius of 1.44 light years. Its faint halo stretches out to more than 15 arc minutes. M27 lies approximately 1,360 light years, or 417 parsecs, from Earth and has an apparent magnitude of 7.5. It has the designation NGC 6853 in the New General Catalogue.
Source: www.messier-objects.com/messier-27-dumbbell-nebula/
Imaging session: September 15, 2023
Sky quality:l Bortle 5 (approx.)
Mount: iOptron CEM40G
OTA Imaging: Skywatcher 120ED with x0.85 flattener, f6.35, 768mm
Camera: ZWO ASI533MM Pro, Cooled to -10 deg C
Filter Wheel: ZWO EFW Mini
Focuser: Primaluce Lab ESATTO
Rotator: Primaluce Lab ARCO
Guiding: iOptron iGuide, 120mm: 2.9um
Computer: Primaluce Lab Eagle Pro 2 + ECCO2 (Environment)
Light Exposures:
Luminescence .. 25 x 180s
Red ........... 25 x 180s
Green ......... 25 x 180s
Blue .......... 23 x 180s (The weather curtailed the last two blue exposures.)
Calibration files:
BIAS .......... 100
Dark .......... 25
Flat .......... 25 per filter
Dark flat ..... 25 per filter
Total integration time: 4.9 hours
Processing
Method eg AstroPixelProcessor -> Topaz DeNoise AI -> -> Topaz SharpenAI -> Photoshop
SkyWatcher 70mm SK707AZ2 + Filter Thousand Oaks + barlow 2X + super 25mm. Edited with MS Picture Manager and Photofiltre.
This was taken Two consecutive night no moon in the edge of the city of Perth. This was a View I forgot to take so was very high in the sky.
Taken with ZWO CMOS camera 116 Files 10 min files Shot With
ZWO ASI071MC Pro @ -10c
ZWO AEF,
Optolong LeNhance filter,
Skywatcher Black DiamondED80 OTA
Skywatcher EQM35Goto
Guided PHD2,
DSS, Pixinsight, Ps, Lr.
A lovely clear night back in April allowed me to squeeze in (despite shortening nights) this LRGB image of this iconic triplet of galaxies in the constellation of Leo.
Two of the galaxies are found within Charles Messier's catalogue - M65 (right) & M66 (bottom). The third galaxy is to be found in the NGC catalogue as NGC 3628 - also known as the "Hamburger Galaxy"
This is a true group of interacting galaxies and lying at a distance of around 35 million lightyears from us.
Our viewpoint means we see these three systems tilted at different angles - NGC 3628 appears edge on (displaying lots of dust and a prominent dust lane.
M65 & M66 are inclined enough so that their spiral arms are visible.
What's more the three galaxies exhibit rather different characteristics.
M66 - A barred spiral and the largest and brightest shows a high rate of star formation - evident by the extensive red regions of glowing hydrogen gas. It also shows deformed drawn out spiral arms - evidence of the interactive gravitational forces within the group.
M65 - An, intermediate spiral, is poor in dust and star formation. It appears the least by affected by interactions showing a more or less classical spiral shape.
NGC 3628 is an unbarred spiral which we are seeing edge on. The galaxy is transacted by a broad band of dust which stretches along its outer edge hiding young stars in the galaxy's arms.
Imaged with a Skywatcher Esprit 120ED and a ZWO 1600mm camera equipped with Baader LRGB filters.
34 x L 120s
23 x R 180s
22 x G 180s
20 x B 180s
All @-20° 139 gain (Unity)
Flat, Darks
Processed using APP and Photoshop.
Thanks for looking!
well, finally the last image of the winter milky way i managed to capture. i will definitely add more subs next fall or winter, there is so much more detail hidden in longer exposure time :)
camera: ToupTek ATR533C
mount: Skywatcher HEQ5Pro
scope: TS Optics 115/800 with 0.8x reducer
RGB: 70x180sec @gain 100 and 1x1 binning, cooled to -10°C
Ha: 50x240sec @gain 100 and 1x1 binning, cooled to -10°C
stacking and editing in APP, SIRIL and Photoshop
shot in two nights (RGB at 5% a waning moon and Ha at 51% waxing moon) under a bortle 5+ sky from my backyard
forecast was 3 hours fewer clouds which, in the aftermath, was pretty exact. unfortunately, my primary target for this night was coverd in shades of clouds most of the time, so i deceided to do M45 one more time instead of ending the night empty handed :)
camera: ToupTek ATR533C
mount: Skywatcher HEQ5Pro
scope: Skywatcher Esprit ED80
75x120sec @gain 100 and 1x1 binning, cooled to -10°C
stacking and editing in APP
shot at 15% waxing moon under a bortle 5+ sky