jonathancd

I have tried all of these objects before with a DSLR and have always been frustrated with the image scale. I thought I would have a go with my planetary camera to get in more close and I am happy with the results. All were taken with my Altair GPCAM3 290c coupled with my TEC140 and a 0.63 reducer with a Altair tri-band filter . Each image was stacked in Deep Sky Stacker and tweaked in Photoshop with about an hour of 15 second exposures at 5000 gain. Crab Nebula M76 - Little Dumbbell Nebula Eskimo Nebula

Thanks for comments. If I know it is going to be clear, I normally try for a couple of targets in a night. I have also found as I have to set up each time I want to observe that it is difficult for me to image an object over multiple sessions (mainly as I have yet to fathom plate solving and I don't guide either) that with wanting to keep an object on one side of the meridian that two to three hours is my limit. I have recently (in November) moved to a dedicated astro-camera having previously used DSLRs so very much still learning. Totally agree that the Monkey Head and especially the Con

First clear night for a good few weeks in London and pleased I was able the use the 6 hours of clear weather to image some emission nebula that were new to me. These were all taken with my Altair Hypercam 294c with my Skywatcher 80mm Equinox and a O.8x reducer. Even though there was no moon I used an Altair Triband filter to help with managing light pollution. The image of the Cocoon Nebula and IC410 were each around two hours of 1 minute exposures, the Monkey Head was 45 minutes and sadly clouds meant I only had 8 minutes on the Cone Nebula. Stacked with Sequator and processed in Photosho

Updated version with Comet Neowise added!!

Feel very lucky to have been able to image all of the planets (Mercury out to Neptune) this year along with the moon and the sun. These were all taken with my TEC140 along with my Altair GPcam3 290c. Thanks for looking.

Really pleased that it has stayed clear today so I could catch this fantastic sunspot group! Must be the biggest for at least 3 years. Picture taken with TEC140 and Baader Herschel Wedge, camera is Altair GPcam3 290m. Best 4% of around 4000 frames captured and processed with Autostakkert 3 and colourised in Microsoft photo. Thanks for looking.

The telescope I used is a TEC140. It is quite a high end triplet refractor. It is good for planetary imaging, particularly when the seeing is less than perfect, to extend the focal length I also used a GSO 2.5x barlow lens

Here's another from about an hour later, same equipment as above. Mars

After two weeks of cloud and rain, I was really pleased to get out tonight to image Mars. Seeing was reasonable too so managed to get some nice surface detail. Imaged using an Altair GPCam3 290C and TEC140 with 2.5 barlow. Processed with Autostakkert3 and Microsoft photo, best 5% of 4000 frames. Thanks for looking. Mars

Dan, I have been keeping the gain low for these planetary images (around 200 in Sharpcap) and a shutter speed that gives me around 40 frames a second.

Hello, Just wanted to share my images of Mars, Uranus and Neptune from last night. All images were using a C9.25 and an Altair GPCam3 290C. They were processed with Autostakkert3 with wavelets in Registax. Mars is looking good and showing lots of detail now, really pleased to have some colour on Uranus and Neptune though no details! Managed now to have imaged all the planets now this year which is a first for me! Mars Uranus Neptune

Here are images of the two active regions on the sun at the moment in white light. They were taken using my TEC140 at prime focus, Baader Herschel Wedge and an Altair Astro GPCam3 290M. Each image was a the best 15% of around 2,500 frames process in Planetary System Stacker and Microsoft photo. First time using this camera for solar and please with how the granulation has come out. Good to see the sun seems to be moving out of solar minimum.

Fabulous prominence today along with separate solar disk surface image. Captured with GPcam3 290m and processed with Autostakkert.

Lucky to get another night out using Sharpcap live stacking and my Altair GPcam3 290c. Telescope was again my TEC140 with a Meade 0.33 reducer (at about 0.4) so the scope was operating around F2.8. The globulars were 15 second exposures and the nebula 30 seconds all the stacks were 5-7 minutes in total except for M16 where I went for 15 minutes. They were saved as seen PNGs then tweaked a little in photoshop. The new camera has helped me fulfil an ambition to image the Pillars of Creation. M13 M92 M16 M27 M11 M7

Hello, I live in NE London (Walthamstow) under Bortle 8 skies though these do not cause too much of a problem when imaging the brighter planets thankfully! Jupiter and Saturn are still very low at the moment (about 16 degrees above the horizon at their highest) so looking forward to them getting higher and better for imaging over the next few years. Mars will be good though in October and will reach around 40 degrees at opposition. Yes it is a colour camera. It is an Altair Astro GPCam3 290c. the ZWO ASI 290c is more or less the same camera. thanks for the positive comments