Hals

Hiding among a rich starfield in Lynx is NGC 2418, a distant globular orbiting our milky way approx' 240,000 light years away. First thought to be not gravitational bound to our galaxy recent studies have shown it is...with an orbital period of around three billion years!

Widefield image and a crop. 

LRGB image, a hair over 4hrs integration time against a 55% Moon.  Clear skies are as rare as clear skies these days.

Pete.

First session for ages with this years poor conditions, a two hour LRGB image of reflection nebula IC348, located next to the bright star Omicron Persei (Atik), part of the Gingrich 1 complex.

1 hour 20 min Lum, 20 min each RGB so needs more time but I'm just glad for anything at the moment!

Captured on the night of 26\27 May 2023 from East Yorkshire.

Just a hair over 1.5 hrs LRGB so I have a record of it as I was originally going to image NGC7129, then the high cloud rolled in...

Thought I'd try my luck with the Iris Nebula during the recent very nearly full Moon.

148 x 60s Luminance, 30 x 60s RGB.

Whilst it is nowhere near what you could obtain for the same integration time (just under 4 hrs) with no Moon I was pleasantly surprised.

Just to show that you can still obtain reasonable images when really you shouldn't.

Pete.

Thanks!

I routinely plate solve my images it's amazing all the "small" (I should say background) stuff that turns up.

M51, six hours total integration time LRGB.

Due to the very poor weather and work commitments it took nearly two months to accumulate the data.

Poor seeing and guiding problems nonwithstanding this was about the best I could do. 

Pete.

One hour & ten minute timelapse showing the motion of the comet.

15 sec luminance exposures taken every 5 minutes.

Basic stretch only.

Imaged from East Yorkshire 19th Jan early hours. 

Mono composite image, 15 x 15 sec exposures on LRGB via 150PDS Newtonian.

Pete.

JE1 The Headphones nebula.  A 14th magnitude planetary nebula in Lynx.

Imaged for 19 hrs total integration time over several nights Dec '22 & Jan '23 and processed as HOO (14 hrs Ha & 5 hrs OIII - unluckily most of these sessions had a strong Moon hence the low OIII to Ha ratio).

Cropped image via 150PDS.

Pete.

Superb ethereal image. I do like that.

In the heart of the Heart...

Imaged over five nights during a very wet and windy November 2022.

Comprising:

9.0 hrs Ha, 4.4 hrs SII & 4.5 hrs OIII.

Plus the usual calibration frames.

Pete.

For Halloween...

SHO image, 31 hrs total integration time (9 hrs SII, 16 hrs Ha, 6 hrs OIII), imaged over eight sessions Sep 29 to Oct 24.

Gamma Cas really dominates the scene.

Cheers, Pete.

SHO: Just under 15hrs integration time over four nights. 150PDS.

I'd add keep your current master dark flat too, if you use them.

Sorry didn't fully read the excellent advice from Catatonia properly !

Simply superb. The detail is excellent.

Cederblad 64: Also known as Lowers Nebula

The Lowers (father and son) were amateur astronomers and found this nebula on one of their photographic plates taken in 1939.

It is a relatively faint region emitting doubly ionized hydrogen. There is no accurate measurement as to the distance of this nebula, although best estimation is about 3300 light years.

Taken over three nights 11\13\19th January 2022, total time for the image is 7 hours.

74x300s Ha, 20x60s R,G,B.

Pete.

IC 443 in SHO

Just under 16 hrs integration time over four nights early January, nice to have a run of clear skies!

115x300s Ha, 37x300s SII & 38x300s OIII

1 hour ago, AstroNebulee said:

Absolutely stunning image, I'm in awe. 

Thankyou very much !

27 minutes ago, geeklee said:

Excellent Pete and very strong OIII.  Was it an even split of filters over those 11 hours?

 

Thankyou.

It was just over 5 hours Ha and three each of OIII & SII. 

Must admit the OIII did surprise me under the conditions. The SII was very subtle.

Thanks again!

IC 410 and the famous Tadpoles in SHO

Just over 11 hours total integration time over two nights., 15th/16th & 16th/17th December.

The OIII did better than expected considering the Moon was only a few days off full.

Pete.

Aesthetically the top one looks nicer to me, but...there's a hint of IFN in lower (more agressively processed?) image.

Superb. The HOO is my favourite.👌

First attempt at The Dark Shark.

5.5 hrs LRGB, it needs much more integration time but I'm happy with this as a first go all things considered.

Bortle 6 plus assorted neighbourhood xmas lights.

Pete.

23 minutes ago, scotty38 said:

Sorry I think you answered but I meant would you combine all night 1 separately to night 2 and then combine the 2 resulting images or would you mix both nights images and then process in one go.

The latter 👍

6 minutes ago, scotty38 said:

Nice image. How do you combine the different nights, all together at the start or do you process per night then combine. Which is the best way in fact?

Personally I combine them together after I've collected all the data, when I'm ready to process.

This way it doesn't matter when the data was taken, could be months or even years apart - as long as you have the original subs (and calibration frames) to re-stack with.

There are actually a few SII subs in here from February this year.

Others may do it a different way but this seems to work for me. 

I use DSS & PS and so haven't dabbled into the dark art of PixInsight... yet!