With intermittent clouds rolling through last night it was difficult to stay on one target for long, but I did capture 11 x 300 second hydrogen-alpha frames of IC 1805, the Heart Nebula in the constellation Cassiopeia. This wonderful cloud of ionized hydrogen gas and dust is about 7500 lightyears away, and is made up of a few different nebulae, including the Fish Head (NGC 896) at the bottom, and the cluster of very large stars (some as much as 50 times the size of the sun) in the center (Melotte 15). Equipment: William Optics ZS61 APO refractor, ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro monochrome camera, Astronomik 12nm Ha filter, iOptron CEM25P mount, INDI/Ekos/KStars running in Stellarmate/Raspberry Pi 3b+.

Posted December 27, 2018

Wide-field of M42, the Orion Nebula--and it's amazing how cloudy and dusty the whole area is. I spent half the night adjusting things--focus distance, off-axis guider spacing, but managed to capture M42 and the surrounding region (two sets of subs: 21 x 300 second, and 20 x 20 second for the bright Nebula core and Trapezium). Calibration frames: 20 Dark and 20 Bias, No flat frames. I shot these with the ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro monochrome camera, Astronomik 12nm Ha filter, William Optics ZS61 APO, iOptron CEM25P mount.

I also managed to capture a dozen frames of the California Nebula:

Posted December 26, 2018

Tonight's setup with the new ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro monochrome camera. Going to test it out with some narrowband targets later.

Posted December 25, 2018

This one of the Heart Nebula (IC 1805) in Cassiopeia is comprised of 27 x 600 second exposures, taken over several nights, with the ZWO ASI071MC and the William Optics GT81 APO refractor, no filters, no calibration frames, stacked in DSS, processed in PSCC 2019. This is pretty impressive for a color camera when you consider the Heart is mostly made up of glowing ionized hydrogen gas and dust (perfect for narrowband imaging), and it's a relatively dim object--with the exception of NGC 896, the bright "Fish Head Nebula" at the bottom. 

Posted December 13, 2018

I've had the Orion Atlas EQ-G, William Optics GT81, and ZWO ASI071MC camera set up for the last three days. It's been cold--down around -10C in the early morning hours. With a new moon that's slowly waxing, but still mostly absent from the night sky, I've been using the color camera to capture some amazing targets, including this three panel mosaic of the Orion Nebula (M42), Running Man Nebula, Horsehead Nebula (Barnard 33), Flame Nebula (NGC 2024), and the three giant stars in Orion's Belt, Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka. This is why the Orion Constellation is arguably the sky's most impressive constellation.  NOTES: 31 x 300 second exposures for each, with an additional set of 10 and 30 second exposures for the Trapezium in M42--that really bright triangular region. There's just so much fiery star forming action at the heart of the Orion Nebula that any exposure over a dozen seconds is going to blow out the whole area.

Here's my setup for the last few nights:

Orion at the southern Meridian:

Posted December 11, 2018

I didn't just take some shots of comet 46P/Wirtanen last night. I also captured comet 14P/Wolf as it passed by the blue giant star, Rigel (the lower right star in Orion). I posted some time lapse shots of both on youtube.

Posted December 9, 2018

I caught Comet 46P/Wirtanen in one 240-second exposure as it was passing through the constellation Eridanus. Next week 46P will pass about 7.2 million miles (0.0774 AU) from Earth, it's closest approach for the next 20 years. William Optics GT81, ZWO ASI071MC camera, Orion Atlas EQ-G

Posted December 9, 2018

I started this--the top part with the pier made of 80/20 Series 15 T-Slot Aluminum beams and angles--about a year ago, or maybe longer. I never really used it though, because I needed some place level to anchor it. Taking some more t-slot beams I made a base for some super-duty castors and bolted an old steel AV Cart cabinet to it. This has become the base for my next set of astro sessions, where I will be wheeling this out to the driveway, leveling it (threaded leveling adjustments on each side), polar aligning, and then we'll see how the astro imaging goes. I'm looking forward to getting more of the western sky, most of which is blocked by the house when I'm shooting from the backyard.

Posted December 2, 2018