Category: Astrophotography – Best Of
M31 – Andromeda Galaxy
15 minutes of luminance shooting the King…the Andromeda Galaxy, otherwise known as M31. I can retire now after seeing this result.
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M20 Trifid Nebula in RGB
This is the Trifid Nebula, also known as Messier 20. This is true color and is such an amazing object, that I hope to image from a dark site one day. 5x120s each of RGB Total: 30 minutes of data Processed in Pixinsight Focal Length: 2350mm The object is an unusual combination of an open cluster of stars; an emission nebula (the lower, red portion), a reflection nebula (the upper, blue portion) and a dark nebula (the apparent ‘gaps’ within
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Eagle Nebula M16 in Narrowband
This is Messier 16’s Eagle Nebula. I took 10 minutes of Hydrogen Alpha filter images to get this image. Celestron EdgeHD 9.25 2x120s 6x60s Taken from my backyard in Melbourne.
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Lagoon Nebula in RGB – Messier 8
This is my first attempt at the Lagoon Nebula. I’d not previously noticed how colorful it is. I took about 90 minutes of 60 second exposures in RGB to compile this (30 minutes each). In a good dark sky, this is visible with the naked eye, at about 6,000 light years away. It’s an emission nebula, and is a star producing region. Taken from my backyard observatory.
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Deep Sky Object Sizes in Perspective
I wondered how all the deep sky objects I’ve photographed compare in size relative to each other. So here goes something different. Each image was taken with the same focal length, 540mm at f/2.3 with a 16megapixel camera. That’s 4656X3520 pixels. I’ve reduced each one to 20% to fit them on the same 16MP canvas. In this image you’ll find: The Flame Nebula Orion Nebula (M42) 47 Tuc NGC 5128 Sculptor Galaxy Grus Quartet Horsehead Nebula Southern Whirlpool Galaxy ETA
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M78
This is my first attempt at M78, 11XLRGB of 60second exposures. It’s proven to be a really hard target for me to even get this much detail. Aligned and stacked in Pixinsight. Celestron 9.25″ and Hyperstar with my usual ZWO 160mm cooled to -25 deg. No darks, flats or biases yet. Those are my new years resolution.
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NGC 5128 Centaurus A
This is the last image I managed on Wednesday – NGC 5128 or Centaurus A. It was also my first ever attempt at 120second exposures. I only managed 10x 120 in luminance. I also did it without PHD2 guiding – so my alignment must have been half decent. Stacking in Pixinsight only.
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Rosette Nebula NGC 2237
This is the Rosette Nebula. 15x60s blue 18x60s green 14x60s luminance and 2x120s luminance 20x60s red Taken with Celestron 9.25″ and Hyperstar lens @ f/2.3 and 540mm Processed in Pixinsight only Location: Tanner street observatory, Melbourne city This is by far the toughest object I’ve taken, given it’s really quite faint in comparison to other objects I’ve done. Overall I’m happy with hit. I suppose I’ll get more vivid colors once my narrowband HA filter arrives
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Orion Nebula in Color
Taken at the LDMSS
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Tarantula Nebula Take 2
Same exposures – 20X60s for each RGB.
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Sculptor Galaxy
The Sculptor Galaxy, also known as the Silver Coin or Silver Dollar Galaxy, NGC 253, is an intermediate spiral galaxy in the constellation Sculptor. The Sculptor Galaxy is a starburst galaxy, which means that it is currently undergoing a period of intense star formation. Source: Wikipedia This is 20X30s mono images, processed in Pixinsight and Photoshop
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Orion Nebula Take 3
This is the Orion Nebula with 3 hours of processing involved using pixinsight to extract the detail. Gear I used: ” order_by=”sortorder” order_direction=”ASC” returns=”included” maximum_entity_count=”500″]
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Flame and Horse Head Nebula
PixInsight stacking and processing This is NGC 2023 and NGC 2024 ” order_by=”sortorder” order_direction=”ASC” returns=”included” maximum_entity_count=”500″]
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Saturn in full colour
Tonight’s conditions were supposed to be good according to ScopeNights yesterday, but deteriorated throughout the day. I managed to get a quick RGB of Saturn in after some visual of Venus and Jupiter’s conjunction. Conditions must have been reasonable, given the detail I got. This is 1000 frames each of RGB (thanks +Kevin Franklin for the suggestion to increase the frames), stacked in AutoStakkert 2, and then processed in Photoshop. +Dylan O’Donnell you’ll enjoy that the colours are closer
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