Any star gazers and amateur astronomers ?

With limited time of an hour of clear skies this morning, I was able to capture a couple of alright photos of Comet C2022 E3 (ZTF)

This first one was how I located it for my zoom lens, on my Olympus OM-D EM-1 MK3, 17mm, f/1.2, ISO 800. You can see the Big Dipper, Little Dipper, a Meteor, and dead center is the Comet slightly green.




This second shot was taken at 150mm, f/2.8, ISO 1600 and 30 Second Exposure on my Star Tracker.

 

These are the 1st 2 photos I took from my brand new Vaonis Vespera. It arrived yesterday morning and the skies miraculously cleared to allow me to play with my new toy. Both were taken from my deck, 1st quarter moon up, and various house lights on. Was basically a test run to become familiar with it. Andromeda is comprised of 302 stacked images (~50 minutes), 10 second exposure and 20db gain. The Orion nebula was 133 stacked images 10 second exposures and 20db gain. I cropped it to remove a portion of the roof of my house that ended up in the photo... No filters were used and they are the final result directly from the Vespera.

 

Usually, you buy something new and that’s it. Cloudy nights! These look great.

 

Another chance to check it out!
https://twitter.com/spacedotcom/status/1620014378417360898?s=46&t=MN908AfXsLCLxBopL6pP_Q

 

Here are two different comets I captured 2 nights ago. The first one is C/2020 V2 (ZTF) and the 2nd is C/2022 EA (ZFT)

 

If the skies are clear tonight I will try for a better picture of C/2022 EA (ZTF)

 

Not necessarily a star but I thought most here would appreciate:

 

Challenge time!
https://twitter.com/nasahubble/status/1623684731006070785?s=46&t=XCKVIMV3SW_dCdVB71aThw


Anyone capture or picked out Saturn’s spokes?

 

I'm a big gopro fan and have attempted some night shots with various different versions of cameras, latest being the 10 black. The best I did was out in Arizona last winter. We did an AirBnb adventure tour. We had a women meet us outside of Fountain Hills in a rural area with little light. She had a very powerful telescope. We got to see the moon (VERY detailed) Saturn, Neptune, and many other stars. The experience was amazing.

I did some research on gopro settings and made an attempt at a nightlapse video. The result below was a screen capture. As you can see, it appears to light saturated as we were in near dark setting.

Any suggestions for better video and photos using a gopro ? What settings do you use if so?

 

I took your photo and did a very simple edit...

 

I don't have a gopro, but saw this: https://gopro.com/en/us/news/how-to-gopro-night-photography

 

For a look at the Green Comet/ZTF and comets in general, here's a link to a 30ish minute Cameron Hummels of Caltech.

https://youtu.be/VMi7sftpKNA

Caltech does have a YouTube channel as do a couple of other astronomy related sites.

• Caltech: https://www.youtube.com/c/caltechastro
• iTelescope: https://www.youtube.com/@itelescopewebinars
• SJAA, San Jose Astronomical Society: https://www.youtube.com/@sj-astronomy7497

Hope you find these interesting.

I should add that the following iTelescope webinar from last week was very good for those interested in astrophotography. It focuses on planning and references a book the speaker has written (very useful and less than $20 for a customized one for your location). There are two books on the subject that are worth looking at. One is Charles Braken's

$24 The Astrophotography Planner: Second Edition

The Astrophotography Planner, 2nd Edition. And Terence Dickinson's

$19 NightWatch: A Practical Guide to Viewing the Universe

NightWatch: A practical Guide to Viewing the Universe.

Dickinson was a prolific author and recently passed away.

You can also find the same information in apps like Stellarium or Skywatch. There are other apps as well and all help determine what's in the sky and where to look.

 

Also, if you are near the park today thru Sunday, the Dark Sky Festival is going on at Death Valley.

 

The Monkey Head nebula in Orion taken last night (85 minutes of total exposure, 510 subs stacked and denoised):


No filters, taken in a Bortle 5 zone

 

The Pleiades (M45) taken just after the Monkey Head. 45 minutes total exposure mosaic, 270m subs stacked, stitched and dithered, then denoised:

 

What did you use for your exposures?

 

Images were taken with my Vespera, 10 second subs, gain = 20. ISO, etc. are pre-defined and optimized so that you get the best quality/time for the chosen target. I was getting tired of setting up cameras, polar aligning, etc. with my older setup and migrated towards the automated approach. So far, I'm enjoying it immensly...

 

That's much nicer than I thought it would be for such a short amount of time--a lot of images are hours long!

 

Me too. I was quite pleased with the overall nature/quality of the images. Stacking and some stretching are done natively with good results.

 

Iconic pic. Wish it was mine

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html