Lmst

Obligatory winter capture of the Orion Nebula (& Running Man Nebula). ~1hr each of RGB, 1.5 hrs of Lum & ~2hrs of Ha.

Captured in increments over 16 nights from late October to late January (because there are lots of obstructions in my back yard).

At ~1300 light years away, it is one of the closest stellar nurseries to our solar system. And one of the most (over) photographed (apologies!). 🤪

#nlskies #astronomy
#nlastro #astrophotography
#OrionsSword

M42 The Orion Nebula and Running Man Nebula:
Background is black with some stars dotted throughout, including a few particularly bright stars surrounded by a blue hazy halo.

Filling most of the center and center-right areas of the image is a bright red-pink nebula which has a multi-layered look and different pink hues and also some purple hues on the outside edges. There are also streaks of dark brown squiggly lanes (dust) throughout.

At the center left of the image is a mostly blue nebula surrounding some red'ish nebula in the middle which could be considered in the simplistic shape of a cartoon "man".

The Flaming Star nebula in Auriga is interesting because of its prominent combination of emission (red) and reflection (blue) nebula components.

About an hour each of R,G and B, captured in January. Subject deserves more image capture time, but this was a test while experimenting with some aspects of capture automation.

#nlskies #astronomy
#nlastro #astrophotography

Flaming Star Nebula:
Background is grey/black with stars dotted throughout.

Filling much of the center area of the image is red nebulosity,. There are undulations of brighter and fainter areas of red nebulosity including some dark areas with no nebulosity.

At the core center of the image are some ribbon streams of light purple/blue nebulosity. These seem to originate from a particularly bright star at the center of the image (AE Auriga).

Observatory algorithm avoids targeting objects during bright moon periods. But hate wasting imaging time so fill these gaps with "low priority" targets by relaxing the rules (moon-target distance etc).

This "low priority" target is M74, the Phantom Galaxy. From ~3 hrs usable RGB & ~1.5 hrs Ha captured in January. Happy w/result, considering.

"Phantom" because it can be particularly difficult to see via eyepiece in amateur telescopes.

#astrodon
#astrophotography
#nlskies #nlastro

Messier 74 Phantom Galaxy
Black background with some stars of varying brightness and colour spread throughout. At center is a small spiral galaxy with an orange-ish core.

Challenging times ahead.

Needed to take a break from it, so finally got 'round to processing nightscape images captured last summer (31 July) at Terra Nova National Park #DarkSkyPreserve.

Created a timelapse which has a nice surprise (ie. aurora) at the end. Too big to post on Mastodon, but you can see it here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/nlskies/54342084579/in/dateposted-public/

Looking forward to this year's dark sky adventures.

#nlastro #nlskies #astrophotography #astrodon #resist

Night time image - looking up into the sky (and towards north). To the left, bottom and right, there are shadowy outline of tall fir trees. Running almost vertically is the Milky Way. The Milky Way is patchy and white. To the lower left behind and just above the trees the sky is reddish-pink, which is the northern lights/aurora.

Near top right edge of image is a small oblong patch of white, which is the andromeda galaxy. The sky background in this area has a somewhat green hue which might also be due to aurora (or perhaps bad image processing skills!).

The Bubble Nebula can be seen towards the constellation Cassiopeia.

Data from multiple nights in November & December w/ [SII], [OIII] & Ha filters. About 2 hours each. Should have captured some RGB for better star colour 🤪

Stellar winds from a massively bright star blow out gas and dust creating a bubble shock wave in the surrounding molecular cloud, which itself is excited by the stars energy into emitting hydrogen alpha orange/red light.

#nlskies #astronomy
#nlastro #astrophotography

The Bubble Nebula (NGC 7635, Caldwell 11, Sharpless 162 etc etc)

Black background with some stars sprinkled throughout. Stars are mostly small to medium size and do not show much colour (just white).

The is a lot of orange nebulosity spread throughout. Nestled in the center is an area of blue nebulosity and a nearly circular white-edged bubble.

NGC 891 (Caldwell 23, Silver Sliver galaxy, Outer Limits galaxy, PGC 9031, UGC 1831). Astronomers (Pro and AM) love cataloguing and naming!

Always playing catch-up on image processing. Captured this 'data' in late October and early November.

Should probably have a bit more reddish cast to it, but quite happy with the result.

About an hour each of RGB, and 2 hours of Luminance filter.

#astrophotography #astronomy
#nlastro #nlskies

NGC 891: Silver Sliver Galaxy
Black background with stars of varying brightness and colour spread throughout.

At center running horizontally is a mostly edge-on galaxy with a slight yellow-white bulge at the middle (fills about 1/3 of the image width). Similar shape if looking at a drummers crash cymbol looking edge on.

There is also a narrow dark lane running through the middle of the galaxy (also horizontal).

Here is a quick 1.7 hour integration of m42 that I did on October 19th. Hoping to get more time on this target but the weather has been horrible here for the last month.

#Astrophotography
#nlastro

I just have completed my mini roll off roof observatory. It's something I've been wanting to do for a couple of years and I finally completed it. This will be its first night out in the rain so I want to check to make sure there's no water getting in before I put my mount and telescope inside. Of course It's been pretty much raining steady for 2 weeks now, so if anybody in the Newfoundland astro community is wondering who to blame
#NLastro
#astrophotography

M45 , the Pleiades star cluster imaged in Oct . This is known as a reflection nebula because of the starlight reflects off of the dust and gas that surrounds the Stars.
Bortle 4
Stellamira 90mm
am3
asi2600mc
Processed in pixinsight
#astrophotography
#NLastro

Tadpole Nebula in constellation Auriga. From my Bortle 5/6 back yard.

I've been testing NINA #TargetScheduler plugin. Based on criteria such as moon proximity, season, time of night etc. it determines which targets to image & for how long, each night (selecting from preset list). Working well so far.

I kept these subs short just so I could see the process in action. Still managed to collect ~6 hours total, over a few clear nights.

#astrodon #nlskies #astronomy
#nlastro #astrophotography

IC410/NGC1893: Tadpole Nebula & star cluster
Black background with some stars sprinkled throughout.

The is a lot of orange nebulosity spread throughout but more so concentrated around center of image. Nestled in the center is an area of blue nebulosity and some small patched of black.

The Ghost of Cassiopeia taken this summer in Gros Morne National Park NL Canada bortal 2. z61 asi533mc svbony ircut am3. 5hours. Process with pixinsight
Trying to tame the star Navi was tricky. I wish I could image in class 2 all the time.
#astrophotography
#NLastro

The rosette nebula
I recently got a set of Altair Ha/O3-S2/O3 dual band filter set. Really wanted to try some sho imaging with my OSC. This is one of the first images that I took and very pleased with how it came out. Imaged at my country place bortal 4.

ZWO asi2600mc
Stellamira 90mm triplet
Zwo am3
5 hours integration time
Processed in pixinsight

#nlastro #astrophotography

Frist post on this site. this image is from my summer vacation in nova scotia bortal 2. dark skies great for dark nebula very happy with how it turned out
#nlastro #astrophotography

Distraction time 😬. Collected this data in October but decided to process it yesterday.

The Wizard Nebula can be found to the right of constellation Cassiopeia.

Could probably stretch out a bit more detail in processing, but happy enough with this version (for now!).

Continuing to make good progress configuring NINA (and Target Scheduler) for full 24/7 autonomous operation. Main holdback is the mount driver sometimes misbehaves.

#astrodon #nlskies #astronomy
#nlastro #astrophotography

NGC 7380: Wizard Nebula
Black background with many stars of varying brightness spread throughout.

At center is an area of nebulosity with a patch of orange running horizontally and highlighted by some blue nebulousness above middle.

Finally - clouds cooperated (just) for a capture of comet "A3". Nature was kind enough to throw in a #moonbow (moon rainbow, lunar rainbow)!

First image with 50mm and second with 14mm (cropped). 1 sec/6400iso. Processed in #darktable

Can't complain about the bright moon this time 🤪

#astrodon #nlskies #astronomy
#nlastro #astrophotography

Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS)
Dusky blue sky with some clouds along bottow 1/3 of image. Tips of a couple fir trees can be seen at bottom edge of image. The comet nucleus is visible just below-left of image center. A dusty tail emmanats from the comet going towards upper left of image. There is also a faint moonbow from bottom left of image arcing towards mid right of image, intersecting the comets tail.

Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS)
Dusky blue sky with trees and barren landscape in the foreground. Some clouds along horizon and upper right. The comet nucleus is visible at image center. A dusty tail emanates from the comet going towards upper left of image. There is also a faint moonbow arcing lower left to upper right, in a perpendicular intersection with the comets tail.

Messier 33: The #Triangulum Galaxy

Hastily processed in #PixInsight 🤪

It's been quite a while since I've captured any #skycandy . Weather, family, life! Had a rare clear night last Friday and spent it getting a hang of the ropes with NINA. And dealing with observatory equipment issues due to long idle time.

NINA has matured a lot since the last time I poked around with it a couple years ago!

#astrodon #nlskies #astronomy
#nlastro #astrophotography

Messier 33: Triangulum Galaxy
Black background with stars of varying brightness and colour spread throughout.

At center is a large spiral galaxy with an orange-ish core. Galaxy disk shape is seen mostly front-on. There are fainter outer white arms with hints of blue, as well as some small dark patches (obscuring dust). The arms contain some small red splotches, which are star-forming regions.

#Messier 33: The #Triangulum GalaxyIt's been a while since I've captured any #skycandy . Weather, family, life. Had a rare clear night last Friday and spent it getting a hang of the ropes with NINA (and dealing with observatory equipment issues due to long idle time).

NINA has matured a lot since the last time I poked around with it a couple years ago.

Hastily processed in #PixInsight 🤪

#astrodon #nlskies #astronomy
#nlastro #astrophotography

Messier 33:
Black background with stars of varying brightness and colour spread throughout.

At center is a large spiral galaxy with an orangish core. Disk shape of galaxy is seen looking mostly ftont-on. There are fainter outer arms with some small red splotches (star formation areas).

Stinginess continues for clear night skies. But did get a couple nights in February when I captured some data on Messier 106 (and friends).

I think it is one of the brightest galaxies that does not have a popular "informal" name.

#astrodon #nlskies #astronomy
#nlastro #astrophotography

Messier 106:
Black background with stars of varying brightness and colour spread throughout. Star colours are primarily white and shades of orange or blue.

At upper center is a spiral galaxy with a large yellow-shade disk, seen partially edge on. There are fainter outer arms. Some blue and red patches can be seen in the disk.

There are also some small disk-shaped galaxies visible in the lowe half of the image. There is one lower left that is yellow with a dark lane running through it length-wise.

Captured ~ 1.5 hr each of R, G & B of Messier 33 Triangulum on 6 Nov. 6" refractor & QHY600 camera in Bortle 5/6.

Was not happy w/ initial processing, so left it until now. Second attempt came out much better, IMHO (below are after and before versions). GHS (Generalised Hyperbolic Stretch) & newer #Graxpert version were particularly helpful.

Still room for improvement - needs more integration time and lighter touch with processing!

#astrodon #nlskies #astronomy
#nlastro #astrophotography

Messier 33 Triangulum Galaxy:
Black background with many stars of varying brightness and colour spread throughout.

At center is a spiral galaxy with a slightly yellow core and blue arms spreading out from center in a pinwheel shape.

There are a few small patches of red in the blue arms - like red berries on a bush.

Messier 33 Triangulum Galaxy:
Black background with many stars of varying brightness spread throughout.

At center is a spiral galaxy with a very faint yellow core and blue spiral arms. Gives an overall oval shape.

Night sky weather this winter has been typically stingy for clear skies. However managed to get ~5 hours on this region of Virgo in April. Shows Messier 58 and the Siamese Twins galaxies (and many other smaller).

Really deserves more integration time which would help avoid the noise which is particularly noticeable in the cropped version. 🤪

#astrodon #nlskies #astronomy
#nlastro #astrophotography

#nlastro

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