Any star gazers and amateur astronomers ?

Let’s hope this doesn’t end up “not found”
https://x.com/mastronomers/status/1794021285456191963?s=46

 

June 3rd’s the night, wishing all clear skies!!
https://x.com/nasa_marshall/status/1796203516706308444?s=46

 

The Iris Nebula from last night and into this morning. 1420 10 second sub exposures with CovalENS mosaic mode on, Vespera Classic. No filter. The stacked tiff was stretched and further processed in Siril. Final touch ups in StarTools and Topaz. I could not get the surrounding dust to resolve, probably need much more integration.

 

That looks great! What scope are you using and what camera? What is causing the radial pattern around the brightest stars on the right? I get the diffraction pattern which tells me its a Newt or maybe RC telescope.

I'm just getting my feet wet, about shin deep so far, in AP. Got a couple of scopes but can't seem to get a decent night sky lately. Started out with a DSLR and shooting unguided, but now have a dedicated astro cam.

 

Thanks,

Feet wet??? Looks like you're drowning Love your scopes!!!

This image was taken with a Vaonis Vespera classic. I processed the image with StarTools which allows for a virtual telescope, thus the star spikes and the patterns which is just something I'm experimenting with.

I also have an 8" Meade LX200 Classic for visual. Although since the Vespera I don't use the SCT that much as it's a bear to lug around...

 

Thanks. I've been an observer for quite a few years and as I said have done some simple AP with a DSLR, but decided to take the plunge. I'm not a tech savvy guy and figuring out how to guide and process, etc. have been a steep learning curve for me. I bought a ZWO ASIAir to manage the cameras and run the telescope (it's the small red box with all the cords), it is controlled with either my iPhone or my iPad. It also does some basic processing, but I have software on my laptop for most of that. The camera I have on the scopes is a ZWO ASI533MC Pro, it is a one-shot color camera suitable for both deep space and planetary photography.

The SCT is a Celestron Edge 8". It is slightly different from the usual SCT in that it has a collection of lenses at the base of the light tube inside that eliminates coma and flattens the star field. I have a focal reducer for it that "speeds" up the telescope from its native f/10 to f/7 and shortens the focal length from 2000mm to 1400mm. Gives me options for field of view and exposure times.

The refractor is a William Optics GT81 (81mm or 3.2" objective)apochromatic, with a native 478mm focal length and f/5.6 aperture. I also have a 0.8 reducer for it, which shortens the FL to 382mm and f/4.48. It's intended for wide field objects like nebulae and larger galaxies. The mount is a Skywatcher EQ6-R Pro, which is my imaging mount, I also have a Celestron AVX I use for visual observing. Both are Equatorial mounts.

I'm still learning the processing, don't have anything suitable to post yet. What I need most is a string of clear nights with no haze and good seeing, so I can get some images to process.

 

I've found that with a 1-shot color camera, a light pollution filter helps. I got a filter and drawer from Starizona--goes just in front of the camera.

 

I've always had a great admiration for the James Webb Space Telescope and the amazing images it produces. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/tech...&cvid=78f38867243548bcad81ed62d214326c&ei=180

 

....and this is cool and a little humbling. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/tech...-space-telescope/vi-BB1nCOq6?ocid=socialshare

 

Most I’ve seen are a pair of Sun Dogs…
https://x.com/mastronomers/status/1798190658706158054?s=46

It’s an amazing planet we live on…

 

Two recent (6-4-2024) Milky Way images taken at the Breachway in Charlestown, RI (this is right on the Atlantic so maybe Bortle 4). The first one is a stitched panorama consisting of 6 (3 wide x 2 high with 40% overlap) images. Each image was a 3'45" exposure with my Canon EOS R6M2 and a 16mm f/2.8 lens mounted on a iOptron Skyguider Pro. ISO of 1600. The second is a single exposure (same settings). The eerie light trails are from fishermen returning from the breakwater after a night of fishing (this was at ~1AM). They had their white headlamps on and then switched to the red night vision mode when they saw my setup.

 

Thanks, I have one, just isn't in the picture of the refractor. I was working on getting my back focus set up on both scopes, and once done, added the filter drawer in place of one of the spacer tubes. Mine is a ZWO. I have a broadband LPF/IR cut filter, a pair of Askar Ha/OIII and OIII/SII filters. the bandwidth of OIII on the combo SII filter is a bit wider than the one with Ha, and I also have a plain Ha filter, all are 2".


Here are a couple of early efforts with single-image unguided shots with a DSLR.
Messier 2 in Aquarius:




M42, Orion Nebula


These were all around 25 second exposures, the stars start streaking any longer than that and ISO was 6400 maybe. I don't have it written down.

Made these in 2017 with a 6" SCT from Clemson, SC:


M20, Trifid Nebula, in Sagittarius

 

Someone gave me an older MEADE DS-80AT and I can't make heads or tails out of it. Has several eyepieces but for
the life of me I can't even get anything, and I mean the side of a house mind you to even show up in that thing.

I suppose back in its day it was tops because it has a gizmo to 'track' and a camera attachment piece for it.

Would love to make it work but I think it's toast.

 

Maybe have a look at this thread on Cloudy Nights. There may be more threads as well.

 

More Milky Way for me!! Just upgraded to the iPhone 15 Pro Max, this was my 1st image with it. RAW, 1x camera (48MP) 30 second exposure. Native camera app. I know that the 15PM does some internal stacking and processing but not sure to what extent. 1/4 moon was up, it washed out the milky way somewhat, but nicely illuminated the fence and path. This was at the Breachway, Charlestown, RI. The life guard stand lighting is from the motion detector lights coming on an off at discrete times... I have a small tripod with bendable legs, I placed the tripod/camera on a rock at ground level to get this image. Took 2 images so as to dial in my composition!

 

I love the composition in that picture. The dune fence on each side of the pathway frames the end of the galaxy arm nicely; the yellow lifeguard stand looks like a "Stairway to Heaven". Is it those security lights illuminating the background beyond the fence?

 

Thank you! Yes it's the security lights. Initially I was getting annoyed with the lights, but in the end it actually help my imaging and really had no impact on the visibility of the MW... Here's another so-so image that I took that really shows the lighting.

 

Not bad for an Iphone. Got this one just outside Flagstaff last September... around 8:40 pm she comes up early in September.
I too like the fence in the foreground - would love to have an opportunity for that image myself.

This was shot a ISO2500 at 14mm for about 20 seconds with a Nikon D7200 and a Tokina 11-14 f2.8 lens.

 

Ah yes, I actually read that a few weeks ago. After struggling with the tripod legs I thought to myself this is a cheesy setup LOL...

 

Another Milky Way image... I was watching a short video about creating panoramas on the iphone with Bimostitch. Thought I'd give it a try. Here is my very first result, worst conditions last night with the moon in the sky and low along the horizon along the Atlantic coast in Rhode Island (transparency was also an issue). The yellow lighting towards right center is from the Point Judith lighthouse! 14 images were stitched (7 wide x 2 high). I did nothing fancy with respect to the iphone positioning during the image capturing. I just manually rotated the phone position by eye. Obviously on a tripod. After the stitching I imported the image in to Affinity Photo 2 for some post processing. The Small Sagittarius Star Cloud is amazing. Anyway here is that image...