Sterrenland

Sometimes a night out under the stars becomes a battle of wills as every vaguery of our hobby conspires against us. Last night started well...clear sky, lovely temperature...so out comes all the kit and gets set up. My plan was to try for my first ever image of M16, The Eagle Nebula. And then the astronomy gods decided to intervene... ...So, no sooner had I set up than banks of very fast-moving, low clouds decided to make a show. They wafted in and out pretty much for the next four hours. I knew M16 only appears quite low, so I then had to wait over an hour for it pop up behind my garage roof. This meant I had to wait to frame it, check focus, etc which already started to eat into my imaging time and the sky only gets properly dark by about 11pm. Once the Eagle had finally appeared above the roof I then had to calibrate the guiding...which wasn't easy as the stars continually disappeared behind the scudding clouds. So about two calibration cycles later we're ready to image. Did I mention the moon (80%+ illumination!)? Oh, that was there too for the first hour until it dropped behind the house. By about 3am there was already light in the eastern sky, so about the last 4 or 5 subs went straight in the bin. From about four hours of images I saved about an hour's worth. I know some people would have just called it a night and gone to bed, but I'm kind of glad I persevered and got what I did. I'm not really taking these images to win any prizes, but for the personal satisfaction of having seen something that most people never see and having achieved the process capturing photons that have been travelling seemingly forever. Anyway, here's an hour of the Eagle Nebula taken inbetween the clouds, low in the smudgy southern sky, with moon gradient, noisy data...but I'm still amazed I can see the Pillars of Creation....just!

Amazing how little changes in processing can change the whole look/feel of an image. I've just reprocessed the data...slightly different recombination of the split/adjusted colour channels...slightly more contrast. Think I prefer this one as it has a little more 'punch'.

Thanks Steve...very kind of you.

Well, a tulip! Had an unexpected clear night last night and managed to get 3.5 hours of The Tulip Nebula. Turned out to be quite a good night. Even though SH2-101 was quite low to start with, the seeing was fairly reasonable...and no moon to contend with! And the bonus is capturing the star that is orbiting around the black hole Cygnus X-1.....I think I've got the right one! Fascinating! I suspect I'll be reprocessing this one a few times and playing with the colours!

I think that's pretty good to be honest. I've tried the Iris a couple of times & haven't got anything as good as this. And yes...I think this one is particularly tricky to process with the bright centre & the varying thicknesses of dust around.

Despite the moon wafting its light across the sky I thought I'd give the the Cygnus Wall a bit of a go. Seems a while since I last tried it...I love the sheer size of it and the light and dark contrasts. I managed 3 hours of 180s shots. This time of the year NGC7000 is still relatively low in the sky and what with the moon I'm pleased the L-Enhance seems to have helped a lot.

I've had this on my list for a while and managed to have a second clear night this week...almost unheard of! This is 3 hours integration...taken with an L-Enhance filter which hopefully countered the fairly low moon. I hadn't realised quite how faint The Bat was. It's there, but could do with absolute darkness and a few more hours. Still, pleased to have a hint of it! As an aside, where I live I usually see the 'real' bats spinning around the air as the darkness comes and hear their ticking...always welcome sights and sounds.

After what seems like ages and ages I managed to get the scope out last night. Turned out to be quite a lovely night under the stars with fairly good seeing. I decided to have another go at NGC7822 as I love the contrast between the light star-lit centre and the dark obscuring dust. It's quite low at the moment in the early part of the evening and I had to wait whilst it emerged from my neighbour's tree. I managed just over 2 hours of data (3 minute shots). I'm much happier with this effort than my previous one. I'm still amazed at the detail you can pick out, especially the pillars and filaments emerging from the edge of the nebula. And I always love a bit of cosmic dust. Quite amazing!

Great images...have to agree that bi-colour brings out a lot of details you don't always see with a full range of colours. I like these a lot.

Third night of reasonable clear skies...almost unheard of over the past year! Managed three hours on the Iris Nebula last night. Yet another object that is quite a challenge to capture satisfactorily...this is probably my best effort so far, but still plenty of things wrong with it. I was quite pleased to get some of the dust clouds that frame the nebula. Onwards and upwards!

Stunning image...the colours are amazing. Exactly why I'd love a bigger scope!

Hahahahaha This made me laugh out loud...I know all about battering images to death in Pixinsight! Quite like your image of the Iris...have been trying to get a decent shot of it myself, but have struggled. Maybe it's trying to balance the reflection nebula bit and the dust cloud bits that makes it so hard? Well done any way.

Nice image...much better than my first Orion pic!

Last night's offering was M106 in Canes Venatici. Despite the clear sky there was a bit of a wind gusting while I was out, so the final image isn't as good as it could have been. Still, I managed just shy of 3 hours on it (180 second lights). This could do with a bit more aperture...it's on my 'when I get a bigger scope' reshoot-list. Having said that there are loads of other galaxies to spot in the same image. I particularly like the edge-on one to the right and slightly down of M106 (NGC4217).I have also just managed to capture possibly the farthest object yet with my 80mm scope. Ringed in yellow in the second image is PGC2299122. Someone with a VERY long tape measure has calculated this galaxy to be about 3.8 BILLION light years away from my empty gin glass....which is coming up for a third of the age of the universe. The pictures aren't perfect, but they're full of wonder.

That's stunningly beautiful Carole...the colours are quite mesmerising. Could look at that for hours...

Stunning pics...beautiful colours and detail.

Lovely pic....the Rosette always looks stunning!

Lots of detail in there...nice subtle processing.

Another new one for me...finally got to try the Flaming Star Nebula. Annoyingly, I only got just under a couple of hours before my house roof intervened. Conditions were fairly good apart from the wind that gusted all evening. There's so much going on in this nebula...I'd love to have a larger scope to get more detailed shots.

Second time out this week...thought I'd try M51 again. Haven't imaged this one for a while. Despite the seeing being fairly good last night, the wind picked up and it turned quite gusty. Despite this I probably got my best M51 to date. I only managed about 1.5 hours before I called it a night as I was starting to lose some shots due to the wind. Still amazed seeing these wonders with only an 80mm scope!

Here's NGC7822...not a nebula I'd heard of before. I found it in Stellarium and thought I'd give it a go. Just under three hours of 180 second lights and using an L-Enhance filter. On the processing side I created a new blue channel from an adjusted green channel and produced a variant of a 'Hubblesque' palette which seemed to bring out the dark banks of dust. Lots of curves/colour adjustments.

Here is my first attempt at the Shark Nebula (LDN1235)...plenty of dust to capture! This is three hours of three minute exposures. The Shark was quite low towards the North so the air probably wasn't great, but I'm pleased with what I got. Processing was my usual colour calibration, DBE and noise reduction before removing the stars and spending a long time playing with curves to bring out the dust...before adding the stars back in and some final noise reduction. I tend to do the final tweaks in Photoshop.

I took advantage of an unexpected clear spell last night and went for the dark nebula LDN 1235 or the Shark Nebula. Having seen pictures of this I wasn't sure how much of it I would capture, so I'm pleased to get what I did. Being quite low down in the north west/north I think I was fighting a bit of murk, but I managed 3 hours of 3 minute lights. Being the second time out after the belt conversion I was pleased to be getting 0.4 - 0.5 RMS all evening. Processing was pretty difficult...these dark nebulae really do make things difficult...trying to bring out the dark dust as well as keeping everything fairly realistic.

Lovely image, especially the colours...you've done well to get over 6 hours on one object...think I've had about 10 hours all winter! 😭

No problems with calibration...I try to get 3 second flats (they look horrendous, but work) together with their darks and darks for the main lights. I've never had problems with the amp glow, etc.