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Dave xxxiv ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ“ท๐Ÿ”ญโœจnlskies
2025-03-19

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!). ๐Ÿคช



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".
Dave xxxiv ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ“ท๐Ÿ”ญโœจnlskies
2025-03-16

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.


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).
Dave xxxiv ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ“ท๐Ÿ”ญโœจnlskies
2025-03-12

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.



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.
Dave xxxiv ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ“ท๐Ÿ”ญโœจnlskies
2025-02-21

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 .

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:
flickr.com/photos/nlskies/5434

Looking forward to this year's dark sky adventures.

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!).
Dave xxxiv ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ“ท๐Ÿ”ญโœจnlskies
2024-12-15

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 ๐Ÿคช

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.


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.
Dave xxxiv ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ“ท๐Ÿ”ญโœจnlskies
2024-12-08

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.


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).
Dave xxxiv ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ“ท๐Ÿ”ญโœจnlskies
2024-11-14

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

I've been testing NINA 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.


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.
Dave xxxiv ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ“ท๐Ÿ”ญโœจnlskies
2024-11-07

Distraction time ๐Ÿ˜ฌ. 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.


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.
Dave xxxiv ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ“ท๐Ÿ”ญโœจnlskies
2024-10-17

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

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

Can't complain about the bright moon this time ๐Ÿคช


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.
Dave xxxiv ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ“ท๐Ÿ”ญโœจnlskies
2024-10-08

Messier 33: The Galaxy

Hastily processed in ๐Ÿคช

It's been quite a while since I've captured any . 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!


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.
Dave xxxiv ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ“ท๐Ÿ”ญโœจnlskies
2024-10-08

33: The GalaxyIt's been a while since I've captured any . 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 ๐Ÿคช


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).
Dave xxxiv ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ“ท๐Ÿ”ญโœจnlskies
2024-05-26

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.


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.
Dave xxxiv ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ“ท๐Ÿ”ญโœจnlskies
2024-05-11

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 version were particularly helpful.

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


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.
Dave xxxiv ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ“ท๐Ÿ”ญโœจnlskies
2024-05-09

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. ๐Ÿคช


Messier 58 Galaxy (NGC4579): Black background with many stars of varying brightness spread throughout. Upper right of center is the M58 barred spiral galaxy with blue arms and orange glow. At center is a bar with a bright white center. At lower left are two smaller oblong spiral galaxies that are touching at their tips - one angled away from the other. There are some other, smaller still, galaxies in the image as well.This is a crop of the previous image, but only showing the M58 galaxy. At this scale, low level noise is noticeable throughout the image.
Dave xxxiv ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ“ท๐Ÿ”ญโœจnlskies
2024-03-12

With tonight's took the opportunity to align the Obsy guidescope (via PHD2) to the main scope.

While I was at it, played around with exposures to get thumbnail and earthshine images from both scopes.

Probably should have spent some time focusing beforehand but still looks neat. ๐Ÿคช

Now, go away moon so I can do some deep sky imaging!

Screen capture from the program PHD2. Bottom of screen is an empty graph. Upper right is an empty target. Upper left is an image of the moon - there is a very bright and white (over-exposed) thin crescent on the right. The rest of the moon is dim but there are surface details discernible including darker "mares" and lighter areas.Screen capture from the program PHD2. Bottom of screen is an empty graph. Upper right is an empty target. Upper left is an image of the moon - a thin white crescent is on the right and the rest of the moon is dark grey with hardly any details discernible. Black background. The moon fills most of the image. A thin crescent part of the moon (upper right) is dim but details (craters) are discernible. The rest of the moon is dark with no details discernable.Black background. The moon fills most of the image. A thin crescent part of the moon (upper right) is very bright white and over-exposed. The rest of the moon is dim but surface details discernable (darker "Mares" and brighter craters).
Dave xxxiv ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ“ท๐Ÿ”ญโœจnlskies
2024-02-04

The Flaming Star Nebula aka IC 405, SH 2-229 or Caldwell 31. Located in the constellation Auriga. RGB and Ha data was captured in December and January.

The bright star at center is AE Aurigae. Light purple colour is reflection nebulosity and the red is emission.

Quite happy with how this turned out!



Flaming Star Nebula: Background is black with stars dotted throughout. Filling much of the center area of the image is red nebulosity, which extends towards the upper edge and with fainter nebulosity to the upper right corner. 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 nebulosity. These seem to originate from a particularly bright star at the center of the image.
Dave xxxiv ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ“ท๐Ÿ”ญโœจnlskies
2024-01-28

There is a nice bright right now in NGC 4216 (in Virgo). Visible later in the evening, for North America. Discovered/appeared 4 January - but still pretty bright!

This is from last night. Image is noisy with artifiacts etc, due to hazy conditions, bright moonlight and short exposure time. But did not crop - wanted to show the many other galaxies in this area of the sky/universe.


Hazy black sky with many mostly small stars throughout. Above center is a spiral galaxytipped edge on to viewer. Two small perpendicular red lines identify a particularly bright point in towards the outer left edge of the galaxy - this is the super nova SN2024gy. The galaxy is NGC4216. There are a few other smaller and fainter galaxies spread throughout the image.
Dave xxxiv ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ“ท๐Ÿ”ญโœจnlskies
2024-01-21

delinquent /dฤญ-lฤญngโ€ฒkwษ™nt, -lฤญnโ€ฒ-/
adjective
Failing in duty; offending by neglect of duty.

Until this week, I was *delinquent* in not processing this data from last summer! ๐Ÿคช

Captured in my local

If you look closely, just left of center, there is a small faint circle known as the Soap Bubble. It is a bugger to capture, so I am happy with this result!



Crescent and Soap Bubble nebulae: Background is black with stars of varying brightness spread throughout the image. There is red nebulosity of varying intensities spread throughout with a particularly deeper "cloud" band across the top of image. Just right of center is the crescent nebula which has a somewhat jellyfish shape of red nebulosity. It looks like it is 'swimming' towards the upper right of image. There is some faint/transparent blue nebulosity overlayed on top of the crescent nebula. There are also some faint whispy areas of blue nebulosity throughout the image. A little lower left of center is a very faint and small and nearly perfect shaped circle/ring of blue colour. This is the soap bubble nebula. Easier to spot if image is zoomed in.
Dave xxxiv ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ“ท๐Ÿ”ญโœจnlskies
2024-01-14

When there's no moon & clear night sky, I often like to chase blue reflection nebulae. The Van den Burgh catalogue is a good source for targets. The result is not always a "showpiece" but still interesting. Here are a couple: VdB 137/138 (May) & VdB 156 (Sept).

In the Fall, I spent some time on the Fossil Footprint nebula. It is colourful but not sure I see the "footprint" ๐Ÿคช

B&W image - sometimes it is nice to capture emission nebula in mono.



VdB 137/138: Background is black with a large number of stars of different sizes and colours (mostly yellows and blues). At lower left is a small patch of blue hazy nebulosity (VdB 137). Towards the right edge of image is a smaller patch of blue nebulosity (VdB 138). To the left of VdB 138 is an "empty" black oval-shaped patch of sky, known as LDN955. Above these is another smaller dark patch of sky known as LDN958. At upper middle of image is a bright star (f1 Cygnus) surrounded by a blue haze.VdB156: Background is black with a large number of stars - most of them are faint. At center of image is a very bright star surrounded by a circular blue hazy nebulosity. To the right of this is another less-bright star surrounded by a small blue haze. There is not much else going on in this image!Fossil Footprint nebula (NGC 1491, SH2-206): Background is black with stars spread throughout. There is also some very faint red nebulosity spread throughout. At center of image is an area of red nebulosity surrounding some blue nebulosity. There are undulations of darker and lighter areas including some small dark patches and lanes. However I cannot discern an overall shape that would indicate a fossil footprint?! Sh2-126 nebulae: Image is black and white. Background is black with stars dispersed throughout. Sprawling from bottom center to upper right of image, in an arc shape, are thick lines of white nebulosity. There is a grouping of particularly bright stars are center of image. There is also some nebulosity at upper edge of image. At center of image, there is also a notably different "feature" - two thin lines of nebulosity that intersect at a right angle, forming a triangle shape.
Dave xxxiv ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ“ท๐Ÿ”ญโœจnlskies
2024-01-10

I sometimes go for obscure targets - or at least they seem obscure for my equipment, sky & processing skills ๐Ÿคช But they are fun to explore.

vdB 38 is from one year ago (just over an hour of integration)

Witch Head nebula (Feb '23) - my field of view is too small, but I don't get enough access to this target to go for a mosaic.

Happy w/ my Cave nebula result from Mar/Apr '23. @ 11 hours, it was my longest integration of 2023.

Sh2-96 - another faint Ha nebula!



vdB38: Background is black with stars throughout, including a few brighter ones. At center is a particularly bright star surrounded by some red nebulosity in a somewhat circular shape.Witch Head nebula: Background is black with stars of varying brightness disbursed throughout. There are some grey wispy "clouds" of nebulosity that fill the upper two thirds of the image. The shape of the nebulosity could be construed as the profile view of a tall witch's face, if the 'witch' was looking toward the bottom edge of the image.Cave Nebula: Background is black with stars of varying brightness spread throughout the image. There is a large area of nebulosity filling much of the image. At the center of the red nebulosuty is a much smaller area of blue nebulosity. There is a dark area extending into the red nebulosity, ending up at the blue nebulosity, and with a sharply defined pink boundary (the "cave").sh2-96: Background is black with very many stars throughout. There are some whispy streams of faint red nebulosity in the center of image. A couple brighter ones intersect in a V shape. There is also a very faint and thin line of blue just above center.

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