SiriusDoggy

I'm not sure how much more fainter details I could pull out but it would for sure help with the noise level. Normally I wouldn't even post this but seeing as it will probably be next winter before I get a chance to add data to it, I felt like it was good enough for now.

Nov.28,2021 NGC246 The Skull nebula in Cetus Also known as Caldwell 56. The small barred spiral galaxy on the left is NGC255. Even smaller, there are four other galaxies near NGC255 that are visible in the original stacked image. Explore Scientific ED152 CF APO, ASI2600mmPro,Chroma Filters, iOptron CEM70EC mount, Captured with NINA, Processed with PixInsight. I'm going to hang on to this data to add to it. I only managed a bit over 2 hours on this subject while I was waiting for M81/82 to get high enough to image. 14x 2min Red = 28min 14x 2min Green = 28min 13x 2min Blue = 26min 6x10 min Ha = 60min Total Integration Time = 142 minutes Rotating the image 90° anticlockwise you can make out the skull with two eyes smiling at you!

M81, also known as Bode's Galaxy is the larger of the two galaxies on the right. M82, also known as the Cigar Galaxy is the smaller of the two galaxies in the upper left. Explore Scientific ED152CF APO ZWO 2600mmPro Camera iOptron CEM70EC Mount Captured using NINA Processed with PixInsight 26x 4 min exposures - Red 20x 4 min exposures - Green 25x 4 min exposures - Blue Total Integration time = 4hrs 44mins Same data but two different processing techniques. Both have their good and bad points. I'd really like opinions on which version you like and why. Thanks

11/28/2021 The Wizard Nebula - NGC7380 14x 10 minute Ha subs Total time: 2hrs 20 minutes Explore Scientific ED152 CF APO TSOptics 1x flattener ZWO ASI 2600mm Pro camera - Gain: 100, Offset 50 Chroma 3nm Ha filter iOptron CEM70EC mount Captured with NINA Beta 0007 Processed with PixInsight 1.8.8-11 I'm headed to a dark sky location tonight about 70 miles north of Vegas and plan to add some color to this subject.

I was out doing a bit of gear testing in the backyard (Bortle 😎 this evening and decided to throw this image together. Not bad considering I used no calibration frames and the last frame my subject was only 25° above the horizon right in the light bubble of the Las Vegas strip. 9x 10 min subs - Chroma 3nm Ha Filter 90 minutes total Explore Scientific ED152CF APO, iOptron CEM70EC mount, ZWO2600mmPro camera, Captured using NINA, processed in PixInsight.

StellarVue SV70T APO, ZWO 1600mm camera, Baader Filters, CGX Mount, Captured using NINA, Processed with Astro Pixel Processor. 10x 60second - Lum 30x 120seconds ea. - RGB Total Integration Time = 3hours 10 minutes 10x 60second - Lum 30x 120seconds ea. - RGB 10x 300seconds Ha Total Integration Time = 4hours

I managed to image the nova last night so here's a blink with all of my original data from 05/12/2020 and last night, 28/03/2021. Nova V1405 in Cassiopeia. My previous image, taken 12/05/2020 was 5400 seconds of Ha data - 30x 180second exposures. It was taken during a new moon from a dark location. I knew last night's image would not be a perfect match since it was taken from a Bortle 6 location with a nearly full moon, but it did allow me the opportunity to match the framing and exposure time enough that it makes the nova really stand out in this blink.

Here's my blink. My original image blinked with the image from Sky & Telescope showing the position of the nova. I'm hoping to capture it later tonight.

I'm hoping to get out tonight and image it. Of course, full moon is going to make luminance imaging difficult. I'm going to try both Lum and Ha since I have a good stack of both filters. I'm hoping I can create a blink gif from it.

I'm sure it's in there somewhere...From December.

Does anyone know if it has reached peak brightness and started to fade yet? Thanks ~

I captured these images on the evening of 02/21/2021 and the early morning hours of 02/22/2021.All three asteroids are currently in the constellation Leo, making them easy to image on the same evening.Asteroid (4) Vesta is currently at magnitude 5.9Asteroid (29) Amphitrite is currently at magnitude 9.1Asteroid (113) Amalthea is currently at magnitude 11.05

Here's another entry in the satellite challenge for you folks to judge. This is part of a very long live virtual star party I was doing for a few people but I actually had this planned out. I had never seen the top secret U.S. Department of Defense X-37B unmanned shuttle before and noticed it was going to make a pass this evening. I've linked to just the part of the video where I begin talking about the satellite a few minutes before the pass. If you care to jump straight to the satellite pass, there's a table of contents in the video description that will get you to about 10 seconds before the pass.

I posted this in another area and a couple people mentioned that I should enter it here. I've never considered an asteroid a satellite but using NASA's very broad definition, just about anything can be considered a satellite. So here's my entry of an animation I created a couple days ago of the asteroid (4) Vesta in the constellation Leo.

Well, it's an asteroid, not a satellite?

One hour each - LRGB60x 60sec = L12x 5min = RGBExplore Scientific ED127mm w 0.7x reducer/flattener = 652mm fl. f5.25ZWO ASI1600mm, Baader LRGB filtersProcessed with APP.

We had a great night out last night and I managed to gather more data for my Thor's Helmet project as well as some time on the Leo Triplet. In between filter changes on the Leo Triplet, I decided to make this animation video of (4) Vesta since it was close by.Just a bit of info on (4) Vista, It is the second-largest asteroid, containing an estimated 9% of the mass of the entire asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.It was discovered in 1807 by Heinrich Olbers and was the 4th asteroid to be discovered which is the purpose of the (4) designation. The first three were Ceres, Pallas, and Juno.It orbits the sun every 3.6 years with dimensions of about 550 km × 462 kmIts current estimated magnitude is 6.22 so very easy to spot from dark skies. As you can see, it's very bright compared to the surrounding stars.Enjoy ~https://youtu.be/2jdRH2hkFMk

I re-processed the same data to work on the star colors. There were too many green stars in my first version. Hopefully this is improved.

Ah, sorry, forgot to leave the major details. 15x 60sec subs on each LRGB 40x 5min subs on Ha = 200minutes. 13x 5min subs on OIII. I was hoping to get 200 minutes of OIII data but it made it down to 20° altitude so I had to quit for the evening. I'm a bit of a faker when it comes to post processing. I don't have PixInsight so I use Astro Pixel Processor and PhotoshopCC. I processed the LRGB image to get the star colors and then I processed the narrowband in HOO palette. Into PS and I selected stars only on the LRGB image and copied them on top of the stars in the narrowband image. Baader filters, LRGB, Ha 7nm, OIII 7.5nm.

Explore Scientific ED127mm refractor with .7x reducer/corrector = 652mm f5.25ASI ZWO1600mm camera - Gain 139: Offset 10: cooling to -10°CGX MountNINA capture software handled everything like a champ, framing, guiding, auto-focusing, Meridian flipProcessed in Astro Pixel Processor and PhotoShopCC.

Share your results here so we can compare.

These are four frames I captured a couple of nights ago while doing a YouTube live stream. Imagine my excitement when it happened while I was talking to a few friends that were watching. You can watch the entire 3 hours here: https://youtu.be/NN55BevCzj8 or jump to 01:21:20 for the lunar transit. I'm right under the flight path for the jets coming into McCarran airport.

This is a LiveStack direct from SharpCapPro with no additional editing. Explore Scientific ED127mm APO with a 0.7 reducer/corrector giving a focal length of approx 672mm @ f5.25, Baader 7nm Ha filter, Bortle 8 skies. My first two exposures were 3 minutes each and then I realized I could go a little deeper so I switched over to 5-minute exposures After 96 minutes, this is how it turned out. No additional processing or cropping which is why you see the black border from where PHD2 was dithering between exposures.

Out with my best friend's two boys to watch the conjunction. No camera's on the telescope, we just watched it up close with our eyeballs. Nice seeing the conjunction at 200x through the Meade 12" SCT. The two boys will hopefully be lucky enough to see it happen the next time around in 2080.

The Bubble Nebula and Open Cluster M52 in the constellation Cassiopeia. Taken last night (12-05-2020) from the Lake Mead National Recreation area east of Las Vegas. Explore Scientific ED127mm APO, ZWO ASI1600mm camera, CGX Mount, Baader Filters, acquired using NINA software. 20 minutes ea LRGB, 90 minutes of Ha and OIII and only 9 minutes of SII because clouds rolled in on me. Processed in Astro Pixel Processor.