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A little late in posting this one due to work and the arrival of a new/old ‘scope but wanted to record my first solo trip to a darker site and a memorable observing session. As dark fell last Thursday (May 6th) there was a deep clarity to the sky that convinced me to do something I'd been threatening to do since the end of lockdown, put the gear in the car and drive 15 minutes out of town to a local country park. Farley Mount is a favourite viewpoint around Winchester and I'd previously clocked its near 360 degree horizon and elevated position away from immediate lights. The dis-incentive to date had been a ten minute walk from the car park through deep and ancient Yew woodland to the observing site, but the sky conditions, largely moonless night, & a lighter day in the diary at work Friday convinced me to bite the bullet. I don't mind admitting I was bit nervous for no rational reason, I'm a big lad and despite any local superstition all I'm really likely to run into up there is the occasional poacher (I took the chance the cold would keep al fresco couples and any attendant, ahem, spectators indoors). Nevertheless I was glad of the relaxed Canadian astro-dude banter of the Objects to Observe in May edition of the Actual Astronomy podcast in the car on the way up there and as an extra precaution took my heavy and very bright night-watchman style Maglite torch/truncheon for reassurance. I was pleased to find the car park deserted, no steamy cars or worse still, blood-stained pickups with deer in the back in evidence. The sky was mesmerising however, good seeing and good to excellent transparency. By the time I'd walked in, selected a spot allowing use of a handy bench as observing table and gone through the familiar routine of set-up I’d got very happy with my isolated situation and ready to track down some more spring Messier objects. This site is about 10 miles from Southampton and with a clear line of sight down to the dockyards and the ships strung out along the Solent and on toward Portsmouth. Beautiful in its own right but casting a glow to South and South East up to about 50 degrees. Basingstoke glows dimly over the Northern horizon about 20 miles away but only seemed to be affecting a dome up to about 15 degrees. All other directions were dark to the horizon and no local lights at all. This is a big step up from the local park! The Milky Way was very plainly visible along with M13 and 10+ stars in Ursa Minor. I used a Mak 127 on an AZ GTi, Baader Hyperion 24mm giving 63x magnification, a Neodymium filter and occasionally switched in a Baader Zoom 8-24mm to up the power. Aligned Vega & Arcturus then slewed to Vindemiatrix as a start point for some of the galaxies I haven't yet spotted in Virgo & Comma B. Took a quick look at M86 & M84 region first to gauge conditions against my last session in that area of sky and it was immediately clear the darker site and clear sky made a huge difference. The galaxies sprung out in 9x50 finder and I could see more of the nebulous regions surrounding the core. Took a quick sweep NE along Markarian's chain from there and it was dotted with 7 or 8 fuzzy patches in the same field, amazing. By this time I was getting dark adapted and relaxing into the new environment, so turned to new targets.I orientated myself through the finder in a triangle between Vindemiatrix, Porrima and Omicron Virginis and started hunting for a fuzzy patch between a diagonal pair just off centre right (in RACI view) of that region… M49 – Spent quite a while hunting this one before realising I’d aligned on the wrong fuzzy patch between a diagonal pair & had to resort to Stellarium on the iPad to find an optical triple in the bottom right of field which confirmed I was in fact looking at NGC4526/NGC4560 – “The Lost Galaxy” apparently now found. A quick sweep up and West found a wider spaced pair and there was a faint fuzzy cloud with a slightly brighter centre, surprisingly dim though. Not a lot of features so moved on but M49 located. M85 - found to R of 11 Coma Berenices, verified by the presence of dim star on lower R edge. Not much detail but nice to find. M100 – moved to 6 Coma Berenices as a reference then up and W to place a pair bottom L and look for M100 top right, eventually perceived as much as saw this – to my eye was only visible in averted vision – some sense of circular shape, apparent but really dim, brought home the vast distance (55 Million light years). M99 – back to 6 C.B. and put it in the top L of the field and a little down to the right, along the base of a low triangle of dim stars was M99 – a highlight of the night, whilst very faint showing some spiral structure- took a long look at this one. M98 – back the other side of 6 C.B an oblique egde on clearly visible as a “stripe” – reminded me of a dim M82. M61 – Looking half way along the line between Porrima and Omicron Virginis this one took me ages to find. I kept going to the spot where I thought should be and panning around not finding much. Tried a GoTo and that landed me in the dark. Eventually used Stellarium live on the iPad to confirm I had 16 Virginis and a line of 3 stars above in the field then moved up & found M61 between its 2 bridging stars. Another one very faint, and with averted vision some cloudy spiral form was visible. That all took a while and I was a bit cold so I decided to just hit GoTo on some targets of opportunity and see what I could find. Transparency up at the Zenith and over into Lyra and Cygnus was by this time superb. I had a bit of globular-fest alighting on: M13 which looked superb with many stars resolved and not for the first time a hint of dark lanes. M92 – smaller area than M13 and dimmer with less resolution but still lovely and a new “M” for me. M3 – Jumping around a bit but this is the first globular I found in binoculars and I wanted to compare. M5 – Tighter than M13 but I think slightly more spectacular, may be my favourite so far. M10 & M12 in Ophiuchus – easily popping into view in the finder. Have to confess I’d stopped really making notes by this stage. After all that galaxy hunting at the limits of both scope (and more to the point observer), the GoTo was behaving and the globulars look like celestial fireworks and are so easy to spot – great fun! Couldn’t resist a look over at M57 and things were so crisp and transparent over there I tried for M27 also and there it was, bigger than M57 and with a discernible double sphere shape. I rounded off with a super view of M81/82 with a sense of shape in M81 and of dark band across M82. Also notable was that where the other galaxies I’d viewed that night were grey mists of varying density – these appeared both brighter and golden in colour. Really amazing view. Just one more… (it was gone 2.30 am by this time and getting a bit blowy which wasn’t helping tripod stability or my core temperature!) M51 – great view with twin cores, a discernible spiral and a lane of connecting stars between the two centres. Amazing way to finish. An unashamed Messier-ticking session then but some unforgettable views and firsts, I am already plotting my next darker sky run, now, how far do I have to go to lose the glow from all those dockyards…?

Abell 39 planetary nebula taken 5 yrs apart. The first one was taken with a MN190 Scope, an Atik 314L mono, and was a bicolor pic using h-alpha and OIII. Cant remember the exact details but fairly sure it was 15 x 8 min exposures. The second pic was a different camera, a Zwo ASI 553MC Pro. 12 x 6 min exposures, the scope was an Altair astro Ascent 4 inch refractor, also used an altair astro triband filter, guided with PHD2 and used an Ioptron CEM 120 Mount. Hope you like!

I've tried to image this before, to no avail, but last night the imaging gods were on my side. This is a single shot, with minimal on-phone processing (I will stack and tweak more later, maybe). Amazing what these phones can do - even the pink/red shell is just coming tbrough. Meade LX200 8" SCT (circa 1992) plus Samsung Galaxy S10 in "Night mode" (about 20 s automated exposure).

It seems to me that planetaries and clusters are well-suited to simple smartphone shots. Here are a few recent ones. Not as good as M27 a while ago (some are very small!) but fun to image them. In order: M76, (Little dumbbell), Caldwell 22 (blue snowball), NGC6826, NGC40. I also reprocessed my old M27 shot, stacking 4 shots and Photoshopping it a bit more on the phone (last shot). All taken with an ancient 8" SCT and a Samsung Galaxy S10.

Messier 57 is is just coming into a position for a decent look around 11 30 pm. IT is a colourful object and I thought it would give me a good target with which to practice my colour developing in PS/Lightroom. I have read so much about how to produce a LRGB image from the four stacked/calibrated luminance, red, blue and green images, a lot seems contradicatory and some, when followed, gave me colour yes, but not as we know it. I am sure a fair chunk must be put down to me. Anyway, I now have a work flow which gives me colour, sometimes resembling what other people have obtained. Progess of sorts. This images is based on 114s subs at gain 139, offset 21. L 39, R 20, G 20, B 19 Calibrated and stacked in DSS (flats, dark flats and darks) Messier 57 Ring Nebula in Lyra NASA: M57, or the Ring Nebula, is a planetary nebula, the glowing remains of a sun-like star. The tiny white dot in the centre of the nebula is the star’s hot core, called a white dwarf. M57 is about 2,000 light-years away in the constellation Lyra, and is best observed during August. Discovered by the French astronomer Antoine Darquier de Pellepoix in 1779, the Ring Nebula has an apparent magnitude of 8.8 and can be spotted with moderately sized telescopes. Equipment: Celestron 9.25 XLT at F10, Skywatcher EQ6 Pro GEM, ZWO 1600MM Pro, ZWO EFW with ZWO LRGB filters, QHY5IIC guide camera on Skywatcher 9 x 50 finderscope, Celestron Focus Motor Software: Ascom 6, Eqmod, Cartes du Ciel, AstroPhotography Tool, PHD2

Hi, i..m on Stargazers Lounge for long time ago, but now i have a new scope at last!!! The scope is a Skywatcher classic200p dobsonian, and i received it just one month ago. I.m really happy with it. For now, i.m using the stock eyepieces that come with the scope, a 25mm and 10mm super plossl 52. Yesterday i was received a Celestron Omni barlow, and that expands my magnification range. I posted some pics with my set. Congratulations to Stargazers lounge team, this is one of the best sites to learn about astronomy and equipment. Besf regards to everybody

A DSO image in planetary settings. This is the Eskimo planetary nebula. Small as they are, this one has less than 1arcmin. The image was taken with a C11 f10 and ASi224. No cut-off filter was used. The capture was made with Firecapture and 2s exposures. The final processing was in PI.

Having seen another forum member's deep sky experiment with the ASI120MC camera, I tried the experiment myself. Here are e1e2 Lyrae, the Cat's Eye planetary nebula, NGC6210 and NGC6572 all imaged with a C8 SE and the ASI120MC. The planetary inages are single image captures, while the double-double is processed from a short video stream. I also tried M57, and while I could see it in purplish colour at an exposure of 8 secs, I could not get the Sharpcap live stacking to work. From an EAA point of view, this camera and planetaries are a definite hit, as the camera and laptop show them better than the eyepiece, and in colour.

Gathered a few frames of this nebula a couple of years ago. Not enough to really get to grips with, they have just sat there. Having a clear out, so here is the best I could make of what little there was. I don't recall the exact scope or camera, but suspect it was a C11 edge at f10 with Atik 428, using Ha and Oiii filters. I think there was about 5 subs for each filter. Nice object visually, (if you can find it!), the Crystal Ball nebula is scientifically fascinating. Tightly bound double star at the centre with a 10 day period, NASA's WISE infra red telescope imaged a remarkable feature around the nebula unseen in any other wavelength. Having read this article since, I think I will be going back to this one at f7, binned 4x4, and one or two hour exposures, just to see if any of that extraordinary outer ring can be picked up. Based on previous results with M57, I wold hope to get at least something. Thanks for looking. Article from NASA here: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/news/wise20101117.html Tim

I wish I had the time to go back and re-stack and process all the data obtained over the years, with the benefit of new software and tools. Specifically, using Pixinsight. But I don't so will just do the best I can with the remaining pictures in my "Still to be Done" folder. Pretty sure I haven't posted this one before here, although a version with the same data has been on astrobin for a while. C11 Edge, Atik 428, Ha, Oiii, Sii, RGB filters all mixed, mashed, used and abused. M76 has some really faint ears at the top end. They only show in Ha exposures, and even then, only just. Hardly ever see them in amateur images, and try as I might, I can't get enough signal from them to bring them out properly. A challenge for another day perhaps.

Heres one from the other night, it nearly escaped me this part of the season, due to its very awkward position in the sky, and the presence of looming light pollution. Had some issues with my PA so, started imaging again on the shorter focal length w/o zenithstar 70ED, so was looking for something large enough to be worthy of the imaging through the Williams, so opted for this large PN in Lynx, Jones emberson 1. This was a stack of 15 x 6 mins, with a 7nm h-alpha filter.........

Taken last night a bi-colour image of NGC 1514 Planetary nebula. 18 x 6 mins in h-alpha, and the same in OIII. Camera was a mono atik 314....taken through the skywatcher MN190.

Hello folks! On saturday, I sent stargazing with my girlfriend at a friend's place. The sky is not too bad, but unfortunately there still is some light pollution in direction of the south. I was looking at NGC246 (In Cetus constellation, which was still south-east) when I asked them if they would "allow" me to sketch it. They did. Here is the result: I'm not really satisfied since the "right" extensions are not it the right place. I mean, the fourth star should be in the center of the "spikes" and not on the border. Better luck next time. José

PK (Perek-Kohoutek) 164+31.1 is a planetary nebula in the constellation Lynx. It is also known as Jones-Emberson 1. The nebula is some 1600 light years from us. This is Ha plus LRGB captured over several nights from the DSW facility in New Mexico on the Tak 106/QSI683 rig Luminance: 18x900" bin 1x1 Red: 14x900" bin 1x1 Green: 17x900" bin 1x1 Blue: 16x900" bin 1x1 Ha 5nm: 13x1800" bin 1x1 Another object I think I will revisit in my Esprit 120.

The Ring Nebula on not-as-clear-as-forecast night in London. M57 was the best available target to image through the murky sky but it's come out much better than previous attempts. 17 x 4 minute exposures at 800 ISO 3 x 8 minute exposures at 400 ISO16 x dark frames10 x flat frames46 x bias/offset frames92 minutes total exposure timeGuided with PHDProcessed in Nebulosity and Photoshop

Imaging the Ring Nebula was an old dream, so finally being able to do it was a small but significant pleasure! I am glad I even captured a reddish outer rim. This was the last DSO I imaged on 2016-05-04, and for me also the last DSO in this season, as the sky does not get dark anymore until mid-August here (see even the bright background in the picture). I did many experiments trying to find the right combination of sensitivity and exposure. I ended up using all images I took, with a total of 21 lights and 5 darks. Exposure mixture: 13 at 1600 ISO, 8 at 800 ISO; 11 exposures at 10 seconds, 5 at 8 seconds, 3 at 15 seconds and 2 at 5 seconds. RAW files processed in UFRaw and GIMP, stacked in Registax and final touches in GIMP. No flats, no bias. Still learning those steps! System as usual: Nikon D40X with Baader MKIII coma corrector at the primary focus of a Skywatcher 200 PDS (200 mm f/5) Newtonian, mounted on an EQ5 dual axis equatorial mount. Clear skies!

This always seems to be my "go-to" nebula when I am trying to knock the rust off the gear and get back into imaging and processing mode. This is my first time combining Ha and OIII data using the QSI wsg-8 and first time using OAG. It only took troubleshooting the Gemini-2 (new FW) and getting the Gemini.net ASCOM driver to behave with the SkyX but here it is for this year... NGC 7293 the Helix nebula Constellation Aquarius ~700 light years distant Ha 20min subs totaling 1 hour and 20 minutes. OIII 20 min subs totaling 2 hours. QSI 683 wsg-8 Losmandy g11 Gemini II AT8RC Taken September 26 and October 5, 2013 Please visit my webpage for a higher resolution image.

Hi, This is my attempt at the Owl nebula and also the first picture taken with cooled CCD camera for me. My Canon EOS500D has now retired. The image is photographed from Uppsala in Sweden, date 2013-03-13. Exposures L23x10min, R9x10min, G9x10min, B7x10min. Camera SBIG STF-8300M, cooled to -30 ° C. Telescope, Skywatcher 190MN on NEQ6-mount. Guide camera-QHY5M. Stacked in Maxim DL and then processed in Adobe Ps Cs5. Weather conditions good, around -15°C. Enjoy! Full 100% wiew: http://www.astronet....2550&mode=large Close up wiew, cropped: http://www.astronet....2549&mode=large

The night of 12/8/13 turned out to be extremely clear and Mrs WaveSoarer and I went out to see if we could spot any of the Preseids meteor shower. I also set up the telescope to do some DSO observing. After picking out a few of my favourites I went to look for NGC 6803 (the Ghost of the Moon) and NGC 6804, which are planetary nebulae a good deal smaller and dimmer (Mag. 11 and Mag. 12 respectively) than I'd previously managed to find. I star hopped from Altair to mu Aq1 and then up to NGC 6804. Although this is the fainter of the pair it was surprisingly easy to find as it's set between the mag. 8.85 HIP 96056 and another Mag. 9.25 star. It's distinctly fuzzy and quite unmistakeable. Happy with seeing this I then moved on to NGC 6803. Although the brighter of the pair, this proved more difficult as it's much smaller than NGC6804 and has a quite stellar appearance. I could pinpoint its location with Stellarium but I couldn't convince myself that I wasn't just looking at another star in the right vicinity. I later continued looking at other DSOs while also trying to catch up with Mrs WaveSoarer's impressive total of Preseids - she got nearly twenty in the half hour she was outside. I did a little more reading up on NGC 6803 the next day and as the evening also turned out clear again I set up the telescope and I had another go. One tip I found on the web was to get set up on the position of the nebula and then place an OIII filer in front of the EP. By switching quickly between the filtered and unfiltered view then it should be possible to pick out the nebula as this will not dim significantly while the neighbouring stars become much less bright. I was cautious to avoid getting the filter dirty but, sure enough, this technique did actually work and it was almost immediately apparent which of the candidate points of light was the nebula. With the position clearly indicated the nebula did take on more of a fuzzy appearance at higher magnification - though the perception of fuzziness may have been more wishful thinking on my part. By contrast NGC 6804 was much more obvious and I took time to view it at reasonably high magnification. I used my 5 mm EP, without the OIII filter, and found that it had a fairly mottled appearance with just hints of small points of light with averted vision. It was rather pleasing to observe this pair of planetary nebulae and NGC 6803 was certainly quite a challenge.