Any star gazers and amateur astronomers ?

It is a mosaic of 268 images with each having an exposure of 10 seconds. They were stacked and then that linear image was stretched to produce what I posted. So, real time visual observation would be quite limited with my scope.

 

Makes sense, thanks for explaining to a curious novice.

 

“Extremely small fraction”? I would say no. It’s barely been a couple of decades since the first discovery and we’re verifying new ones constantly.

The tech to discover long duration orbits is lacking but capacity to detect grows yearly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exoplanet

 

I lot of the time, you don't see much in a single exposure which is why stacking works so well.

 

I recently started using software that is much more capable at extracting nonlinear image details (Affinity Photo 2) than just using Photos on my Mac. So, I started going back to some images to see if I could extract interesting detail. Here is one of the Orion Nebula and M43. The dark dust cloud extraction is amazing (at least to me).

 

Holy F that is my favorite picture of the last several years.

 

The Markarian's Chain (Virgo Cluster of galaxies). This is an image comprised of over 100 hours of combined integration. This was a group challenge that I and others participated in. We all submitted integrated images and those were then compiled into this final photo. Pretty cool! My image was just over 2 hours worth...

 

https://twitter.com/astrogrant/status/1659741993424285696?s=20

 

SN 2023ixf occurred in the Pinwheel Galaxy M101, which, being only about 21 million light years away, makes it the closest supernova seen in the past five years. This image is not the best quality, but I "think" is see the supernova... I will try again tonight to get a better image.

 

Here’s a look over three days.

 

Trevor Jones (aka Astrobackyard.com) was at a star party and may have been among the first to photograph SN 2023 ixf. The video is a little longer but has some cool info.

https://youtu.be/bHEYCO17MkY

 

Today's iTelescope Webinar was a presentation by Jessie Thwaite was on Neutrinos from Astrophysical Sources. Given the excitement in M101, this was a very timely topic. The neutrinos are detected using an observatory located in the Antarctic. It's a string of optical detectors in the ice, hence the name: The Icecube Neutrino Observatory. To give you an idea of the significance, the array sees about 10 astrophysical source neutrinos a year. Neutrinos are very small, almost zero size, and very high energy. The instrument does not need to be pointed or oriented because neutrinos pass through everything.

Very timely talk. Christian Sasse of iTelescope also presented an imagine of M101 showing SN 2023 ixf using T24, a Planewave CDK 600 located at the UT remote observatory. I'm pretty sure the presentation will be available in a day or two on their website.

 

Finally some clear skies with little moon light. The Pinwheel galaxy (M101) with a much clearer supernova! This image is comprised of 1697 stacked images (10 second subs) so 4.71 hours in duration. It was enhanced with Affinity Photo 2 and Topaz Denoise.

 

The Golden Gate Star Party is coming up here on the 14th of June. It's being held in the town of Adin which is east of Burney/Shasta area and dark AF.

 

M100 group of galaxies in Coma Berenices, Stretched in Affinity Photo 2 (Tonal stretch of .tif, then denoised in Topaz):

 

Wide field image of M101, the Pinwheel Galaxy, supernova is evident. Stretched in Affinity Photo 2 (Tonal stretch of .tif, then denoised in Topaz):

 

A change of pace: Comet C/2023 E1 ATLAS near Ursa Minor. 30 minutes total integration (20 second subs, 30 gain). No filter, Bortle 5 skies. JPEG directly from the scope, denoised in Topaz

 

Crescent Nebula - 5150 total integration time (10 second subs). Light pollution artifacts from the moon. Taken early this morning. Stretched in Affinity Photo 2 and denoised in Topaz. No filters used as I didn't anticipate the clear skies and was initially focused on the comet (previous image). Next time I'll try with the dualband filter.....

 

Rosette Nebula, 83 minutes total integration (10 second subs). Stretched in Affinity Photo 2, denoised in Topaz. Light pollution artifacts from moon. No filters used:

 

https://twitter.com/johnkrausphotos/status/1676051280156934146?s=46