View allAll Photos Tagged skywatcher
NGC281, the Pacman Nebula in hydrogen alpha.
10 x 8 min lights at ISO400 + darks, flats & bias.
Skywatcher 130pds
HEQ5 pro
Self debayered 350d + 6nm ha clip
Aberkenfig, South Wales
Lat +51.542 Long -3.593
Skywatcher 254mm Newtonian Reflector, Nikon D780 at prime focus with Skywatcher Coma Corrector, EQ6 Syntrek Mount.
Imaging session commenced 22:39 UTC with a 79% illuminated waxing gibbous moon near the celestial equator, just below the Circlet of Pisces.
50 x 13s at ISO 800
18 dark frames & 18 flats.
Processed with Deep Sky Stacker and levels adjusted with Lightroom & G.I.M.P. Final image cropped.
Best viewed using the expansion arrows.
Yesterday, I uploaded an image of the M13 which I felt rather chuffed with considering its taken in London on an Alt-az mount at my living room window. So I proudly showed my mentor, Rupert. (see my previous one in my gallery for comparison) .
Then he tells me, I can do better with the data I have. Throw away all of the ISO 3200s and ISO 6400s and just stack the ISO 1600s...then do my usual post processing. And bloody hell, sure enough, I get a hell of a lot more detail and colours from just using the ISO 1600 frames (420 X 4sec exposures). This is because the higher ISOs' higher noise levels serve as a bottleneck to extracting all the information possible. lower ISOs retain a wider dynamic range of colour information and less noise. Now I knew this about ISOs but I thought combining all the data from all ISOs with separate master dark frames for each ISO would give me even more data. But nope, my mentor, Rupert was right (as he always is), its the opposite.
So yesterday, I set about showing that we can do deep space astrophotography from inside the house at a bedroom or living room window in inner London but today, I humbly present a better example.
My original writeup on this restricted capture imaging project and my thoughts on The Great Hercules Cluster M13 is on my previous image.
Info:
Light Pollution Bortle grade (1 darkest sky, 9 highest light pollution) : 8-9
Telescope: 80mm Equinox APO refractor with a field flattener
Mount: Nexstar 6/8SE Alt Az on a sturdy table but on rickety floor boards!
Camera: Canon 650D unmodded
No light pollution filters
420 X 4 Sec Light frames
ISO 1600
50 Dark frames
Stacked with DSS (Deep Sky Stacker). Manually adjusted RGB levels.
Used curves and levels repeatedly with saturation in Photoshop and Camera Raw.
Mars through a small refractor with 360mm focal length and 2x Barlow.
William Optics Zenithstar61
Skywatcher AZ-GTI mount
ZWO ASI224MC- camera
(30sec avi-file in Raw8-format, gain200, 3847 frames)
...best 10% stacked in AS!3
Waxing Gibbous Almost Pink Supermoon
Skywatcher 200p on NEQ6 mount. ASI294MC Pro camera. Baader MPCC M3 coma corrector, no filter.
The best 25% of frames from 2000 X 32 microsecond images, gain 380, sensor temperature -20C. Recorded as a .ser video. Processed in Autostakkert to align and stack and then Photoshop with Topaz denoise AI filter.
The sky wasn't fully dark and seeing was quite bad. 25th April 2021.
This time a cloud-free sky allowed me to image the approx. 96% illuminated moon.
Imaged with a 120mm Skywatcher Esprit refractor and a Nikon D5300.
Copyright and personal information:
My name: Cornelis van Zuilen
My instagram: www.instagram.com/cvz_astrophotography/
Heiloo, The Netherlands
Equipment used:
Telescope: Askar 103APO
Main camera: ZWO ASI294MC Pro
Filters: Optolong L-Pro
Guidescope: SvBony Sv106 50mm
Guide camera: ZWO ASI224MC
Mount: Skywatcher EQ6-R Pro
Exposures:
Optolong L-Pro
1hr 30min
136x 180sec
0hr 2 min
126x 1sec
Calibration frames for each stack:
20 Darks
20 Flats
20 Dark flats
Processed in Pixinsight
Extra information:
Each year since 2021 I try to take at least one night of exposures of the Orion Nebula, but the final picture I made this year is by far the best one I've ever made. It's also the first time that I was able to see the 4 main trapezium stars in the core and a small protoplanetary disc slightly to the right of it (between the two bigger stars). This result motivates me to take an even better picture next year. Maybe with at least 10 hours of data? Maybe also use my dualband filter? Who knows, lets see what will happen. For now I hope you enjoy this picture as much as I do!
The western portion of the Veil Nebula in Cygnus (NGC6960).
I've reprocessed data taken in 2012 to include this image in my forthcoming book on astrophotography.
Camera: Canon 300D
Scope: Skywatcher MN190
Focal length: 1000mm f/5.2
Exposure: 40 x 5minutes @ISO800
SkyWatcher 70mm SK707AZ2 + Filter Thousand Oaks + barlow 2X + super 25mm.
Afocal, Lumia 640.
Edited with MS Picture Manager
Telescope: Skywatcher 102/1300 MC
Camera: Canon 500D
Mount: Skywatcher AZ GTi
20 x 1 ms stacked
Date: 2020.12.23
Time: 17:00 UT
Location: Kaposvár, Hungary
Taken with a Skywatcher ED80 Refractor and Olympus E-410 at prime focus. Baader Astrosolar filter fitted to telescope. Best 10 of 15 images stacked in Registax 6
NGC 7822
Skywatcher 200p, NEQ6 mount, Optolong CLS-CCD filter, Baader MPCC M3 coma corrector, ASI294MC Pro at -20C.
NINA Observatory Software.
72 x 2 minute exposures (2 hours 24 minutes) at Gain 121, dithering every 7 frames, Offset 30, 20 dark frames, 40 flat fields, 40 dark flat frames.
Processed in APP, Topaz de-noise and Photoshop.
8th January 2021
Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer mount
Sky-Watcher Evostar 72ED (72/420mm)
Lacerta Herschel wedge (ND3 filter replaced with ND1.8)
ZWO EFW
Altair NUV filter
Barlow 3x
ZWO ASI174MM
oaCapture 1.8.0 (captured 5000 frames per panel, 129fps)
AviStack 2 (stacked 512 frames per panel)
ImPPG (sharpening)
Hugin (assembled 6 panel panorama)
RawTherapee (false coloring and final tweaks)
I'm excited to share this one with you! This target (IC 443) was on the top of my to-shoot list when my camera broke in early January... so when I got the loaner-camera, I started working on it. It took me 4 separate nights of shooting to get the full amount of exposures I was hoping for with this one, but I think it was worth the wait.
The end result came from about 8 hours of exposures, hand-selected from about 16 hours of candidates). The Jellyfish nebula currently sits above Orion's left shoulder in Gemini. It is a supernova-remnant that is about 5,000 light-years away. The bright star is a red giant named Propus. The colors are a little different and interesting, here! This region emits largely in the Hydrogen-alpha (H) and Sulfur-ii (S) part of the spectrum, which give it the reddish-orange hue you see here in the Hubble palette. There's just a bit of Oxygen-iii (O) which outlines a few parts in blue. The Hubble palette means mapping SHO to RGB. I've said more about it in other posts when I describe my narrowband-imaging process.
Telescope: Skywatcher 150PDS on Skywatcher HEQ5 Pro
Camera: ZWO ASI1600 MM Pro with ZWO EFW and filters
NGC7023 (Iris Nebula), with Luminance data added to previous RGB information.
Camera: QHY163M
Scope: Skywatcher MN190
Focal length: 1000mm f/5.26
Exposures:
Luminance - 20 x 600s bin2
Red - 12 x 300s bin2
Green - 10 x 300s bin2
Blue - 10 x 300s bin2
Taken 14th & 16th May 2018, from Cumbria (UK).
Processed in Pixinsight, ImagesPlus and Photoshop.
First light with the newly acquired Skywatcher 130PDS
8 x lights (10 mins, ISO1600) + darks, flats & bias
Skywatcher 130PDS
HEQ5
Canon 350d (mono - self debayered)
6nm Ha Clip Filter
PHD2 guiding (ST80 & QHY5L-II)
This is my current imaging setup with the Star Adventurer and the ASI1600MM-Cool.
Still tuning it, but it should work well once I'll receive the rings and dovetail.
The guiding scope is an Orion 50mm mini guider and the camera an ASI120MM ST4.
The tripod is a Manfrotto 535, very sturdy and light, perfect for this setup.
Aberkenfig, South Wales
Lat 51.542 N Long 3.593 W
Skywatcher 254mm Newtonian Reflector, Nikon D780 at prime focus. EQ6 Syntrek Mount.
42 frames used in final processing.
15 x 30s @ ISO 1600
9 x 25s @ ISO 2500
6 x 25s @ ISO 2000
6 x 20s @ ISO 2000
6 x 20s @ ISO 1600
Also 18 Dark Frames
Processed with Deep Sky Stacker and final levels adjusted with Adobe Lightroom & G.I.M.P. Final image cropped.
Did not get satisfactory flat frames on this one, so I may re-visit this at a later date
Skywatcher 150PDS
Celestron CG5
TS optics 3x Barlow lens & Nikon 2x teleconverter
Microsoft LifeCam Studio
Firecapture v2.4
5000 frames total
AS!3 top 50% of frames stacked
RegiStax 6 wavelets
GIMP 2.10
Finally got half an hour of green data to finish a colour version. This uses H-alpha and Red combined as layers in GIMP to make a Red channel that is also used as Luminance, a la Robert Gendler method; but I'm experimenting really. Some unsharp mask but no noise reduction.
8x300s each of Ha/R/G/B Baader filters
Telescope: Esprit 100ED 550mm
Camera: Atik 460EX
Mount: AZEQ6
Taken with a Skywatcher ED80 Refractor using a Baader Astrosolar Filter and a Canon 600D at prime focus. Atmospheric turbulence very bad today, image was blurring continually. Best 10 of 50 images stacked using Autostakkert 2
Montes Apenninus are a rugged mountain range on the northern part of the Moon's near side. They are named after the Apennine Mountains in Italy. With their formation dating back about 3.9 billion years, Montes Apenninus are still relatively young.
13 x 30 min subs.
Optics: Takahashi Baby Q FSQ-85ED F5.3
Camera: Xpress Trius SX-694 Mono Cooled to -15C
Image Scale: 2.08 Arcsec
Guiding: OAG, Lodestar X2
Filter: Baader Ha
Mount: Skywatcher AZ EQ6-GT EQ & Alt-Az Mount connected to the Sky X and Eqmod via HitecAstro EQDIR adapter
Image Acquisition: Sequence Generator Pro
Stacking and Calibrating: Pixinsight
Processing: Pixinsight 1.8, Photoshop CC
Skywatcher 12" goto dob, 5x TeleVue Powermate, ZWO224MC, Sharpcap, PIPP, AS3
2021-08-25-1135_0__pipp_AS_P15_lapl5_ap1195_Drizzle15_conv_RS1
Taken with a Skywatcher ED80 Refractor fitted with a Baader Astrosolar Filter and a Canon 600D at prime focus. Best 12 of 40 images stacked using Autostakkert 2. Most of the frames had cloud in them.
This image shows detail in a very small part of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a small satellite galaxy visible from the Southern Hemisphere.
Object Details:
Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) mag +0.8
NGC 1856 Star Cluster (mag +10.1)
NGC 1858 Open Cluster with nebulosity (mag +9.9)
NGC 1855 Globular Cluster (mag +10.4)
NGC 1854 Open Cluster with nebulosity (mag +10.4)
NGC 1850 Globular Cluster (mag +9.0)
Constellation: Dorado.
Visual magnitude: as above
Apparent diameter of LMC: 645 x 550 arc-min. (about 20 Lunar Diameters).
Actual diameter: 29,700 light years.
Distance: 160,000 light years.
Altitude: 42° above SW horizon.
Image:
Exposure: 5 min
Date: 2018-03-11.
Location: Field night at The Oaks, NSW, with Macarthur Astronomical Society
Sky: semi-dark rural with North Easterly metropolitan sky-glow.
Cloud: clear.
Moon: New Moon.
Image acquisition software: SharpCap.
Image post-processing: Deep Sky Stacker > GIMP.
Cropping: no.
Saved as Fits file.
Astronomy Gear:
Imaging telescope: Skywatcher Esprit 120ED Super APO triplet refractor.
Focal length: 840 mm, focal ratio: f/7.
Imaging camera: ZWO ASI 071 MC Pro.
Guiding camera: Orion StarShoot.
Guiding control software: unguided
Guiding accuracy: n.a.
Telescope mount: SkyWatcher EQ6-R.
Polar aligning method: QHYCCD PoleMaster.
Polar alignment error: n.a.
Field flattener: yes; filter: no.
Observing Notes:
I’ve been having poor results over the last three months due to inaccurate star alignments. This night was no different and I also had issues with a loose lens on my Polemaster and the guide scope did not want to operate.
Spending all evening dealing with technical problems on a field night was disappointing and this shot was a last resort quick snatch of 36 frames, so as not to go home without at least one image. I was not even sure exactly where I was aiming and had to subsequently identify the objects in the frame.
I’ve had two observing sessions at home since then and with the alignment very erratic I need to find an opportunity to take the scope in for maintenance. So no more sessions for a while! 😦
SharpCap Camera Settings:
[ZWO ASI071MC Pro]
Debayer Preview=On
Pan=0
Tilt=0
Output Format=TIFF files (*.tif)
Binning=1
Capture Area=4944×3284
Colour Space=RAW8
Hardware Binning=Off
Turbo USB=80(Auto)
Flip=None
Frame Rate Limit=Maximum
Gain=376
Exposure=8
Timestamp Frames=On
White Bal (B)=55(Auto)
White Bal (R)=38(Auto)
Brightness=44
Temperature=15.5
Cooler Power=100
Target Temperature=-10
Cooler=On
Auto Exp Max Gain=300
Auto Exp Max Exp M S=30000
Auto Exp Target Brightness=100
Mono Bin=Off
Anti Dew Heater=On
Apply Flat=None
Subtract Dark=None
#Black Point
Display Black Point=0
#MidTone Point
Display MidTone Point=0.5
#White Point
Display White Point=1
TimeStamp=2018-03-11T11:14:04.9204590Z
SharpCapVersion=3.1.5059.0
TotalExposure(s)=288
StackedFrames=36
I had a quick look at Saturn tonight using my Skywatcher 180 mak and Nikon Z50 . I got a bit of detail, but not great colour, so perhaps will try again another night.
this is a stack of about 3000 images
15th Sept 2021
Aberkenfig, South Wales
Lat +51.542 Long -3.593
Skywatcher 254mm Newtonian Reflector, Olympus E410 at prime focus. EQ6 Syntrek Mount.
36 suitable light frames of 40s at 800 ISO. Also 10 dark frames.
Processed with Deep Sky Stacker and final levels adjusted with G.I.M.P.
An open star cluster located in the constellation of Canis Major. The camera's imaging chip just about framing the subject. A difficult one to capture from my location due to its low elevation, light pollution and trees obscuring most of the southern horizon.
The image displays coma towards the edges. This is is one drawback of a parabolic f/4.8 Newtonian.