Our Picks

Wow - I know I say this every time but this was another tough one to judge with three people sharing third place! Great to see some sketches and some unusual compositions in this challenge - keep them coming

Winners are:


Large moon mosaic, full saturaded colors By wouterdhoye



I won't be back ! - My 2nd Terminator Image By PembrokeSteve



Luna 14-2-2019 By Ibbo!


Chalk-/charcoal sketch from Grimaldi to Cavalerius, Feb 17th By acr_astro


 

Terminator Challenge #23 By Lurcher

Less entries in this challenge so we will rethink the format of this one next Christmas.

Tough judging - shared 2nd and 3rd places this time!

Well done everyone for entering, the winners are:


M100 By Nigel G



M51 with my new guiding setup By discardedastro

 


M3 with Santa's gift. By Nigel G


 


Nodal Ninja By MartinB


lunar eclipse By clarkpm4242

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/329357-lunar-eclipse/

The theme for the 26th challenge - May 2019 - is 30 Seconds Unguided!

Start Date: 1st May 2019
End Date: 31st July 2019

Rules: Any image that fits the theme ‘30 Second Unguided’ will be accepted. We are not looking for anything specific. It might be an artistic single frame, a ‘lucky shot’ or a highly planned, multi-night mosaic epic! The winning image will be whichever one the judges like best! Feel free to use whatever equipment you like but each single frame can be no more than 30 seconds and must be unguided! (No stacking!).

Prize: A personalised mug for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places featuring your image kindly provided by our sponsors FLO  and a virtual trophy for your signature.

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RULES

All data must be captured and processed by you (no collaborative entries). 
Data must be captured during the challenge start & end dates. 
Multiple entries are allowed but please start a new topic for each entry. 
Multiple submissions of the same image, processed differently, will not be accepted.

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To enter please start a new topic with your image in the ‘Imaging Challenge #26' forum (each challenge will have its own). Please post as much information as possible - when it was taken, how it was captured and processed, etc. The info won't necessarily be used for judging but will help fellow SGLers looking to learn and improve their knowledge and technique.

The theme for the 25th challenge - April 2019 - is Solar!

Start Date: 1st April 2019
End Date: 30th June 2019

Rules: The theme this time is 'Solar' - the sun is treating us to a nice spot at the moment so this challenge is dedicated to the sun.

Prize: A personalised mug for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places featuring your image kindly provided by our sponsors FLO  and a virtual trophy for your signature.

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RULES

All data must be captured and processed by you (no collaborative entries). 
Data must be captured during the challenge start & end dates. 
Multiple entries are allowed but please start a new topic for each entry. 
Multiple submissions of the same image, processed differently, will not be accepted.

--

To enter please start a new topic with your image in the ‘Imaging Challenge #25' forum (each challenge will have it’s own). Please post as much information as possible - when it was taken, how it was captured and processed, etc. The info won't necessarily be used for judging but will help fellow SGLers looking to learn and improve their knowledge and technique.

The theme for the 24th challenge - March 2019 - is Android vs iOS!

Start Date: 1st March 2019
End Date: 31st May 2019

Rules: The theme this time is 'Android vs iOS' - all images must be captured using an Android or iOS device but anything astro related goes! Single shots, stacks, videos, animations, whatever you like

Prize: A personalised mug for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places featuring your image kindly provided by our sponsors FLO  and a virtual trophy for your signature.

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RULES

All data must be captured and processed by you (no collaborative entries). 
Data must be captured during the challenge start & end dates. 
Multiple entries are allowed but please start a new topic for each entry. 
Multiple submissions of the same image, processed differently, will not be accepted.

--

To enter please start a new topic with your image in the ‘Imaging Challenge #24' forum (each challenge will have it’s own). Please post as much information as possible - when it was taken, how it was captured and processed, etc. The info won't necessarily be used for judging but will help fellow SGLers looking to learn and improve their knowledge and technique.

A close contest for the top spots this time - some beautiful images, thanks everybody for taking part!


The Charioteer rides forth! By MartinB



Orion over the woods By davew



Orion over the Mill By Cjg

Thanks everyone who took the time to vote - some excellent choices for the 2018 imaging challenge awards!

Congratulations to the winners below

 


Moonlit Caldera by James



davew - Ladybower Skies



Colourful Moon by MoonBoy129

Wow - some absolute stonkers this time. A very clear winner but we had a lot of trouble separating 2nd and 3rd


PK 104-29.1 a.k.a. Jones 1 and WD 2333+310 By Petergoodhew



M1 - same Crab nebula. With the dob's tube. By alexbb



NGC 1514 - The Crystal Ball Nebula By Petergoodhew


Cat's Eye Nebula (NGC 6543) By Shibby

The theme for the 22nd challenge - January 2019 - is the Christmas Present Challenge!

Start Date: 25th December 2018
End Date: 31st March 2019

Rules: A bit of New Year festive fun. This time the challenge is to image with, through, via, using, in conjunction with anything you were given for Christmas  Something you gave yourself for Christmas also counts!  Please let us know in the image description what item(s) were used.

Prize: A personalised mug for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places featuring your image kindly provided by our sponsors FLO  and a virtual trophy for your signature.

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RULES

All data must be captured and processed by you (no collaborative entries). 
Data must be captured during the challenge start & end dates. 
Multiple entries are allowed but please start a new topic for each entry. 
Multiple submissions of the same image, processed differently, will not be accepted.

--

To enter please start a new topic with your image in the ‘Imaging Challenge #22' forum (each challenge will have it’s own). Please post as much information as possible - when it was taken, how it was captured and processed, etc. The info won't necessarily be used for judging but will help fellow SGLers looking to learn and improve their knowledge and technique.

This challenge wasn't as popular as others so we are looking at other challenge ideas to get more people involved.

Some excellent entries though and some very worthy winners! Well done all


NGC 5139 By Adry



Messier 15 by Laurin Dave



M22 By Adry

Some truly stunning entries and winners this time - absolutely amazing what can be done with afocal imaging!


Comet 21P / Giacobini-Zinner by Smisy



Orion by Gavstar



Moonrise in Alps by Smisy


Well done everybody!

Apologies for the delay in announcing this...

The theme for the 21st challenge - December 2018 - is Comet 46P!

Start Date: 1st December 2018
End Date: 28th February 2019

Rules: This is a special challenge to coincide with Comet 46P. We want to see videos, time lapses, diagrams, sketches and anything else you can come up with! 

Prize: A personalised mug for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places featuring your image kindly provided by our sponsors FLO  and a virtual trophy for your signature.

--

RULES

All data must be captured and processed by you (no collaborative entries). 
Data must be captured during the challenge start & end dates. 
Multiple entries are allowed but please start a new topic for each entry. 
Multiple submissions of the same image, processed differently, will not be accepted.

--

To enter please start a new topic with your image in the ‘Imaging Challenge #21' forum (each challenge will have it’s own). Please post as much information as possible - when it was taken, how it was captured and processed, etc. The info won't necessarily be used for judging but will help fellow SGLers looking to learn and improve their knowledge and technique.

The theme for the 20th challenge - November 2018 - is Constellations!

Start Date: 1st November 2018
End Date: 31st January 2019

Rules: The theme is constellations and asterisms. We want to see images capturing different constellations, perhaps how constellations fit with each other in the night sky, close-ups, widefields, long exposures or short - this one is really open to interpretations. We are really hoping to see some sketches as well as images this time!

Prize: A personalised mug for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places featuring your image kindly provided by our sponsors FLO  and a virtual trophy for your signature.

--

RULES

All data must be captured and processed by you (no collaborative entries). 
Data must be captured during the challenge start & end dates. 
Multiple entries are allowed but please start a new topic for each entry. 
Multiple submissions of the same image, processed differently, will not be accepted.

--

To enter please start a new topic with your image in the ‘Imaging Challenge #20' forum (each challenge will have it’s own). Please post as much information as possible - when it was taken, how it was captured and processed, etc. The info won't necessarily be used for judging but will help fellow SGLers looking to learn and improve their knowledge and technique.

The theme for the 19th challenge - October 2018 - is Supernovae Remnants and Planetary Nebulae!

Start Date: 1st October 2018
End Date: 31st December 2018

Rules: The theme is supernova remnants and planetary nebulae so we are looking forward to beautiful captures of objects like M1, M27, M57 and the Veil nebula.

Prize: A personalised mug for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places featuring your image kindly provided by our sponsors FLO  and a virtual trophy for your signature.

--

RULES

All data must be captured and processed by you (no collaborative entries). 
Data must be captured during the challenge start & end dates. 
Multiple entries are allowed but please start a new topic for each entry. 
Multiple submissions of the same image, processed differently, will not be accepted.

--

To enter please start a new topic with your image in the ‘Imaging Challenge #19' forum (each challenge will have it’s own). Please post as much information as possible - when it was taken, how it was captured and processed, etc. The info won't necessarily be used for judging but will help fellow SGLers looking to learn and improve their knowledge and technique.

It is with pleasure that I can confirm, that our keynote speaker slot this year is Dr. Matthew Bothwell, an outreach astronomer working at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge.

I had the pleasure of seeing Matt do a talk earlier this year and he is a superb presenter - I am very excited we have been able to book him to come along to the star party on the Saturday and he will be presenting his talk: "Monsters in the Dark"  - searching for the Universe’s most massive galaxies’.

Matt will hopefully be joining us for the Hogroast and (fingers crossed) some clear skies on the Saturday night, please make him welcome

This is our first time having a guest speaker at an SGL star party but this is our tenth year at Lucksall so we wanted to do something a little different, we hope you all enjoy!

Wow! Some stunning entries this month and it really split the judges with a widespread of voting!

The winners are:


Moonlit Caldera by James


 


Milky Way Over Yosemite National Park by HunterHarling



XRT-C and The Milky Way by Knight of Clear Skies


Well done everybody 🙂

 

 

I'm still dizzy after processing this one for each LRGB filter.

Comet 21P meets open cluster M37 in the night/morning of 10/11 September, at perihelion.

This is a combination of 60s x 30 x 4 subs, taken through the SW130PDS with an ASI1600MMC.

https://www.astrobin.com/366252/

No deconvolution applied, only noise reduction. About the remaining noise?! ... yes, please. Unfortunately the light pollution at home didn't let me record more.

Thanks for watching and clear skies!

Alex

The theme for the 18th challenge - September 2018 - is Globular Clusters!

Start Date: 1st September 2018
End Date: 30th November 2018

Rules: The theme is globular clusters - nice and simple but there are some wonderful ones to image and explore over the next few months. We look forwards to seeing your entries!

Prize: A personalised mug for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places featuring your image kindly provided by our sponsors FLO  and a virtual trophy for your signature.

--

RULES

All data must be captured and processed by you (no collaborative entries). 
Data must be captured during the challenge start & end dates. 
Multiple entries are allowed but please start a new topic for each entry. 
Multiple submissions of the same image, processed differently, will not be accepted.

--

To enter please add your image to the Imaging Challenge #18 Gallery (each challenge will have it’s own). Please post as much information as possible - when it was taken, how it was captured and processed, etc. The info won't necessarily be used for judging but will help fellow SGLers looking to learn and improve their knowledge and technique.

My first attempt at the Ghost Nebula.  This is an LRGB image taken with my Esprit 150 and represents about 17 hours integration time.

 


 

Alan

***************************************************************************************

For those interested, here's a summary of my acquisition and processing challenges:

I started gathering data with my standard 600s sub exposure duration.  However, having accumulated quite a few of these, I decided this wouldn't give me enough detail, so I increased this to 1200s subs in the Lum which made a substantial improvement to the image quality. I also discovered that the nebula contains some bright stars which are so intense that they pushed my camera into the non-linear region for the 600s and 1200s lum subs. So, to overcome this, I decided to take some 60s Lum subs and then created a high dynamic range Lum image within CCDstack by combining the 60s, 600s and 1200s stacks and rejecting all the pixels that where above my cameras non-linear threshold.  

On the processing front, I struggled with the background since it contains so much dust and numerous red/yellow stars.  I eventually decided to de-emphasize some of the dust and red stars since too me they proved distracting to the main subject, namely the Ghouls in the nebula. 

L: 60s x 41, 24 x 60s, 12 x 1200s, R: 18 x 600s, G: 13 x 600s, B: 21 x 600s. DARKS: 30, FLATS:40, BIAS: 100 all at -20C. 

Sh2-114 (the Flying Dragon nebula) is a faint and rarely imaged nebula located in the constellation of Cygnus.

Sh2-114 is a cloud studied very little beyond its mere cataloging. It has a filamentous aspect, constituted by several overlapping arched strands. A semicircle shape with the concavity oriented towards the south and together with the nearby cloud Sh2-113, a bubble structure similar to a supernova remnant. However, no supernova remnants have ever been described in this region. Its complex, wispy structure is more likely the result of winds from hot, massive stars interacting with the magnetic fields in the interstellar medium.

There is no calculated distance from us.

Details
M: EQ8
T: Takahashi FSQ85 0.73x reducer
😄 QSI683 and Moravian G2-8300 with Baader RGB and Astrodon 3nm Ha filters.

50x300s in Red, Green and Blue
60x1800s in Ha

Totalling 42 hours and 30 minutes in exposure time.

If you look on my website you can see an annotated image that shows a few small and faint galaxies in the frame as well..... You have been warned, they are VERY small!!!

https://www.swagastro.com/sh2-114.html

There are some changes to the Imaging Challenge this month, we have adjusted the prizes as we don't want people to take these challenge too seriously, they are a bit of fun after all  We are also trying a new way to keep track of entries using a gallery instead - details below...

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The theme for the sixteenth challenge - August 2018 - is Through the Eyepiece!

Start Date: 1st August 2018
End Date: 31st October 2018

Rules: With this challenge, any target goes but you must be imaging through the eyepiece - i.e. projection or afocal imaging. You can use a camera, phone, tablet, HB pencil - whatever you like but the view must come via an eyepiece! This is often how beginners start imaging and it would be great to showcase what can be achieved using this method. Have fun!

Prize: A personalised mug for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places featuring your image kindly provided by our sponsors FLO  and a virtual trophy for your signature.

--

RULES

All data must be captured and processed by you (no collaborative entries). 
Data must be captured during the challenge start & end dates. 
Multiple entries are allowed but please start a new topic for each entry. 
Multiple submissions of the same image, processed differently, will not be accepted.

--

To enter please add your image to the Imaging Challenge #17 Gallery (each challenge will have it’s own). Please post as much information as possible - when it was taken, how it was captured and processed, etc. The info won't necessarily be used for judging but will help fellow SGLers looking to learn and improve their knowledge and technique.

This is my take at the Veil nebula. I started this in May and I acquired 5.5h of hydrogen data for each panel and 2-2.5h of oxygen data for each panel. In the beginning I was quite enthusiastic about acquiring a lot of data, then the weather turned cloudy and I didn't really believe I could gather any oxygen data. However, the clouds cleared a bit during the last month so I was able to record some OIII, though by far not as much as I wanted, you can see that too in the final image. This is a total of 22h + 8.5h in 4 panels.

I need to tweak a bit the brighter stars, the core seems blue-ish while the outer area has a red hue. That's because I used a better mount when shooting through the OIII filter compared to the Ha.

Other than this, what do you think?

Clear skies!

Alex

With the huge dust storm on Mars, I have turned to Jupiter to indulge my passion for colour sketches. I submit a few recent examples, but make no claims for scientific accuracy. Hopefully there may still be time for Mars before it fades into obscurity!   Best wishes   Chris.

Some darkness ! Saturn wobbled , but the seeing higher up was stunning. 

Vulpecula. M27 glowed brightly at one end with a UHC filter. Over the other side of Albireo , M71 was delicate. Had a look at some clusters in Vulpecula,

NGC 6800, ring like with delicate star cloud. NGC 6802, dusty. NGC 6815, a great scattering in the Milky Way.NGC 6823 and NGC 6830, both with chains and dust.NGC 6855 (C37), very fine. NGC 6882, really bright and a superb gem , worth finding ! NGC 6940, nebulousity with a UHC filter , includes an orange giant (+6.3). NGC 6820 , nebulosity which includes the open cluster. I checked the view of nebulosity against the Eastern Veil. Really bright at NGC 6995 and 6692.

Aquarius showed the "Saturn nebula", NGC 7009. It blinks so well , you can't focus on it, choose a field star. At higher magnification, it showed a wingnut shape. Mars was huge and the disc very stable . Just about no surface markings, but it held the view over x200. The dust storm continues. Rather like talcum powder being wafted about, than rocky maelströms of cinema.

Had a look at the double cluster, the dust of NGC 7789. Over to Andromeda and the bright blue "blue snowball" NGC 7662. Checked out another tester, the very close split (1.1") of 36 Andromedae. Very clean and open at x216. Some seeing !

Turned to some favourite binaries and in Vulpecula and Aquila.

Vulpecula. Σ2455 ,Σ2457 ,find these ! There are two binaries in a line facing each other. 4 Vulpeculae is the bright star in the coathanger, Cr 399. Look closer , it's a triple with a faint elusive C .Σ 2655 gave a perfect pair of bright twins.

Aquila gave some beautiful sights. π Aquilae being very fine and a bright easy challenging 1.4".

Just after 1.30, a ver bright and high pass of the ISS, gave my salute and wave , under warm clear skies ! Nick.

Imaging telescope or lens:TS Optics Photoline 130 f/6.62

Imaging camera:Moravian G3-16200

Mount:10 Micron GM2000 HPS II UP

Guiding telescope or lens:TS Optics Photoline 130 f/6.62

Focal reducer:APM Riccardi 0.75x

Integration: 14.3 hours