MarsG76

My result of the (UV/IR Cut) Luminance, H-alpha and OSC data of NGC1300 imaged between 2nd and the morning of 28th October 2021. NGC 1300 is a barred spiral galaxy located about 61 million light-years away in the constellation Eridanus. The galaxy is about 110,000 light-years across being about the half size of the Milky Way galaxy. This image consists of a total of 53 x 600 second luminance subs, totalling 8 hours and 50 minutes of exposure time, 21 x 900 second H-alpha subs, 5 hours and 15 minutes of exposure time and the color data stack imaged with my astro modded and cooled Canon 40D consisting of 36x300s unfiltered exposures @ ISO1600, exposure time of 3 hours. Total exposure time for this galaxy image was 17 hours and 5 minutes. Equipment used was a C8 SCT at F10, QHY268M and a full spectrum modded and cooled Canon 40D DSLR cameras on a CGEM mount.

The Sculptor Galaxy, also known as the Silver Coin or Silver Dollar Galaxy, NGC 253, is an intermediate spiral galaxy in the constellation SculptorIt about 12 million Light years away. The Sculptor Galaxy is a starburst galaxy, which means that it is currently undergoing a period of intense star formation. My result of the (UV/IR Cut) Luminance, H-alpha and OSC data of NGC253. This image consists of 28 x 300 second luminance subs, 2 hours and 20 minutes of exposure time, 21 x 600 second H-alpha subs, 3 hours and 30 minutes of exposure time and the color data stack from 4th December 2019 I imaged with my astro modded and cooled Canon 40D consisting of exposures UV/IR Cut filtered 8x90s, 7x150s, 7x300s, 6x450s, 6x600s and Neodymium filtered 1x900s, 1x660s, 2x600s, 11x540s, 1x420s, 4x300s @ ISO1600, exposure time of 5 hours, 41 minutes and 30 seconds. Total exposure time for this galaxy image was 11 hours, 31 minutes and 30 seconds. Equipment was a C8 SCT at F10, QHY268M camera on a CGEM.

I didn't get a chance to spend too much time hunting the best seeing conditions for planetary imaging this year, but this is the best image of Saturn that I captured this season... Captured through a 8" SCT @ f30 (Televue 3X Barlow) using a Skyris 618C CCD.

I didn't get a chance to spend too much time hunting the best seeing conditions for planetary imaging this year, but this is the best image of Jupiter that I captured this season... Captured through a 8" SCT @ f30 (Televue 3X Barlow) using a Skyris 618C CCD.

A Barred Spiral Galaxy located 37.5 million LY away in the constellation ”Grus” - NGC7424 imaged on multiple nights between 4th and 11th September 2021 in LRGB natural color. Not my best work as it was imaged during hazy & light polluted skies due to back burning procedures in the area and so I had to stretch the data quite aggressively. This is an object I will need to return to image in the future. Imaged through a 8" SCT at f6.3 and exposed for a total time of 13 hours, 27 minutes and 30 seconds, consisting of 41x300s & 18x600s of UV/IR Cut "Luma" subs @ gain 31 (6h25m)... Color data aquisition was 5x150s & 25x300s of Red, 28x300s of Green and 29x300s Blue color subs @ HCG:62 gain... all subs at Offset 25 (7h02m30s).

M20 or NGC 6514 is a popular and bright nebula about 4300 light years away in the constellation Sagittarius. This image was taken during the same nights as during the "experiment image" posted a few days ago. Another way of combining the narrowband data from the latest M20 exposures. Sulfur II data, SII as Red, H-Alpha as Green and OIII as Blue than added the H-beta signal to Blue to see what it'll look like. Imaged through a 8" SCT at f6.3 using a QHY268M camera, for a total exposure time of 15 hours and 20 minutes.

M20 or NGC 6514 is a popular and bright nebula about 4300 light years away in the constellation Sagittarius. This image was taken during the same nights as during the "experiment image" posted a few days ago. The difference here is that this image is not intended to be presented in natural color and instead of using the H-Beta channel, I used the Sulfur II data, SII as Red, H-Alpha as Green and OIII as Blue. Imaged through a 8" SCT at f6.3 using a QHY268M camera, for a total exposure time of 11 hours and 20 minutes.

M22 Globular cluster in Sagittarius. LRGB, total exposure of 1 hr 58m

The Helix Nebula (NGC 7293), also known as the "Eye of God" is a planetary nebula located in the constellation Aquarius. One of the closest planetary nebulae to Earth being 655 light years distant. This image was exposed through a 8" SCT at 1280mm focal length (f6.3) using a QHY268M astro camera, tracked and autoguided on a Hypertuned CGEM mount. The total exposure time spent on this image was 19 hours and 5 minutes worth of H-Alpha, OIII, SII and H-Beta subs. This image is mostly based on the HOO color palette but as a bit of difference and an experiment, I mixed in SII to the red channel and H-Beta to the blue channel before color balancing the image to the photo shown.

Trifid nebula, aka M20 or NGC 6514 is a popular and bright nebula about 4300 light years away in the constellation Sagittarius. As well as being a test image to determine whether the "Hypertune" has given me any improvement, this image was an experiment I was planning to do for a while, but never got around to doing until now. I always wondered if narrowband filters could be used to create a natural color looking image by using H-alpha as red, OIII as green and Hydrogen Beta as blue... logically these wavelengths would closely correspond to the visible Red, Green and Blue, so it made sense that it would be so. I looked up this idea on a few forums and, even though it was mentioned, imagers were advising against it claiming that H-beta is the same as H-alpha except at half brightness... and I have not found any images with this kind of color channel combination. The statement that Ha and Hb are essentially the same data didn't make sense to me simply because the Hb signal is in the blue part of the spectrum as opposed to Ha being in the deep Red, so I thought that surely this will translate to different signal in each of the channels. I did a test exposure and Hbeta was indeed lower brightness but to me there was substantial amount of difference between the two filters, even when I matched the image brightness levels... enough difference for me to try imaging with both narrowband filters as seperate red and blue channels. So seeing this difference between channels, I decided to do a full imaging session spending time to image through all 4 filters, SII, Ha, OIII and Hb, and use all but SII for this particular image below with the aim to use 7nm narrowband filters to create a natural color looking image, combining the narrowband channels in the order Ha, OIII & Hb as RGB. I like the result, as I think that it's convincing of true color and I think that the benefit of using narrowband to create natural/true color images in this way is that light pollution will not limit sub lengths any more and fainter matter can be picked up from more light polluted skies. Imaged through an 8" SCT at f6.3 using a QHY268M camera, for a total exposure time of 9 hours and 5 minutes.