Normally I avoid doing anything on Friday the 13th. lol. But, since astronomical time is Greenwich Mean Time, the 13th ended at 6:00PM CST, so I was good. Ha!
The Orion Nebula and Friends. 37×2 (core,) 22 x 300 sec, Gain 11, Offset 17, QHY183c at -20C, Astronomic L-3 UV/IR filter, TPO (Askar) 180mm, F/4.5.
I imaged 3 objects this night. One was the object above, the Orion Nebula (and friends,) one was the Flaming Star Nebula and I shot about 2.5 hours of Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF.)
Equipment used was an Askar 180mm F.L., F/4.5 scope (40mm objective,) an Astronomic L-3 UV/IR filter and a QHY183c camera, and an Atlas EQ-G with EQMOD.
Here’s the Flaming Star. I missed the focus on this. I threw away several processing attempts before salvaging what I could for this display image. Oh, well… next time.
The Flaming Star Nebula (and friends.) 33 x 300 sec, Gain 11, Offset 17, QHY183c at -20C, Astronomic L-3 UV/IR filter, TPO (Askar) 180mm, F/4.5.
Next, after waiting till 2:30-3:00 AM, I took images of Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF). It is small and still kind of dim, but has a long, faint tail. I have two data sets with about an hour each of exposure.
Star Freeze version of Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF). 11×300 sec, guided on the comet, Gain 11, Offset 17, QHY183c at -20C, Astronomic L-3 UV/IR filter, TPO (Askar) 180mm, F/4.5.Star Streaks version of Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF). 11×300 sec, guided on the comet, Gain 11, Offset 17, QHY183c at -20C, Astronomic L-3 UV/IR filter, TPO (Askar) 180mm, F/4.5.tar Freeze version of Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF). 12×300 sec, guided on the comet, Gain 11, Offset 17, QHY183c at -20C, Astronomic L-3 UV/IR filter, TPO (Askar) 180mm, F/4.5.Star Streaks version of Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF). 12×300 sec, guided on the comet, Gain 11, Offset 17, QHY183c at -20C, Astronomic L-3 UV/IR filter, TPO (Askar) 180mm, F/4.5.
Moon and Mars. 37 x 1/1000 sec, Gain 11, Offset 17, Astronomik L-3 UV/IR filter, QHY183c at -20C, TPO (Askar) 40mm, F/4.5, Atlas EQ-G.
Tiny Mars right below the full moon of Dec 2022. Here in Cajun Country, we saw a near miss of Mars being occulted. Further north and west was where you could see it go behind the Moon.
I used the smallest scope I have to take this (only 180mm of focal length) because it was ready to go and I didn’t have much time to prep. Sure wish I would have had my old C-8 for this instead. Oh, well…
This crop is at 100% of the camera’s native resolution.
AutoStakkert processing of 41 sub-images with the best 20 used for the moon. The background stars were processed in IRIS and all 41 sub-images were used. The two images were then composited together. Equipment: TPO (Askar) 180mm UltraWide Astrophotography Lens (40mm objective, F/4.5) and a QHY183c at -20C, gain 11, offset 17, exposures of 4 seconds each.
Enhanced version of above with harder push on star brightness.
10 sub-images added together in AutoStakkert with color and sharpening in PS. Astra Image Maximum Entropy Deconvolution PS plug-in filter used for final sharpening.
I woke up at about 3:00 am after just a few hours of sleep to catch this. I had setup the scope earlier that evening and was ready. I have images from throughout the event, but these were the better ones during totality.
Canon T3 with Astro-Tech AT60ED scope at F/4.8, 4 seconds at ISO 800.
Bonus: In addition to the eclipsed moon, in the wide angle crops or full-frame images, the planet Uranus and at least one of its moons are visible at the extreme left edge:
M31 – 10×180 sec, Gain 11, Offset 30, QHY183c at -20C, UV/IR filter, TPO 40mm, F/4.5.
Only 30 minutes of exposure for this test image of the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) with a TPO 180mm F/4.5 Ultrawide Astrophotography Lens. Askar is the OEM and the lens is a small APO triplet with 40mm objective that has 2 elements of FPL-53 glass and includes a triplet reducer/flattener, making it a sextuplet full-frame astrograph. The spot diagram for this lens shows that it doesn’t quite produce perfectly round star images, however, even at the center. But, some of that is correctable during post-processing and the lens produces a pretty flat image regardless.
I also did 70×3 min subs for the Veil Complex that I took before the M31 set. That turned out like this:
Veil Complex. 70 x 180 sec, Gain 11, Offset 100, QHY183c at -20C, UV/IR filter, Askar 40mm, F/4.5.
Here is a lighter version:
Veil Complex, lighter version. 70 x 180 sec, Gain 11, Offset 100, QHY183c at -20C, UV/IR filter, Askar 40mm, F/4.5.
The middle of a work week and I go and pull an all-nighter imaging session. Weather was too good to pass up the chance. I must be insane or obsessed – or both. lol
It was worth it. I got some good data and was able generate these 3 images so far. They’re still in the preliminary stages, though. Each were essentially saved as seen from SharpCap v4’s LiveStack module. I just did some basic adjustments in PS to make them pretty but are not the final product. I’ve been so busy with work and also recuperating from a bout of some kind of a stomach bug that I haven’t had time to devote to make final renditions.
I got 3 hrs for M31 and about an hour each for the Orion and Horse Head Nebulae. I used 5 minute sub-images for most of this session. I little too long for my mount’s sometimes iffy guiding, perhaps, but mostly correctable in final post-processing, which I will eventually get to.
Update: Finished the Orion Nebula / Running Man post-processing job and also work on the very first image taken during this session, the Eagle Nebula. I actually got the Eagle going first and then put it on the back burner, since I did not have very much time on it.
Eagle Nebula (Pillars of Creation.) 11×240 sec, Gain 11, Offset 100, QHY183c at -20C, UV/IR filter, Astro-Teech AT60ED at F/4.8.Orion and Running Man Nebulae – 12×300 sec, Gain 11, Offset 17, QHY183c at -20C, UV/IR Filter, Astro-Tech AT60ED at F/4.8.
Update 10/31/22: Finished the Horse Head and Andromeda Galaxy post-processing:
Horse Head Nebula on Oct 20, 2022. 10 x 5 min, Gain 10, Offset 0, QHY183c at -20C, UV/IR filter, Astro-Tech AT60ED at F/4.8.Andromeda Galaxy on Oct 20, 2022. 36 x 5 min, Gain 11, Offset 17, QHY183c at -20C, UV/IR filter, Astro-Tech AT60ED at F/4.8.
Lagoon Nebula – 7×240 sec, Gain 11, Offset 100, QHY183c at -20C, UV/IR filter, Astro-Tech AT60ED at F/4.8.The North America Nebula – 26×240 sec, Gain 11, Offset 100, QHY183c at -20C, UV/IR filter, Astro-Tech AT60ED at F/4.8.
I managed to get 2 good images for a short imaging session on Oct 14, 2022 (Oct 15, UT.) I was at my new location on a pretty clear night (at first) and getting good sub-images without any LP filters. Clouds came and eventually shut me down at about 10:30 PM that evening, however. Plus, the moon had risen by that time and would have ended the session anyway. I was lucky to get what I got, I guess.
Both images were captured in SharpCap 4.x and needed very little processing. I wanted to do a mosaic of the North America nebula, but it was not to be that evening. But, I did have some duo-band filtered data taken from the city that was pretty good, so I combined it to do a mosaic anyway:
Combined data of the NA nebula using the data from this session and data taken in June of 2021.
Veil Nebula, Oct 1, 2022. 7 x 240 sec, Gain 11, Offset 100, 65×30 sec, Gain 30, Offset 60, QHY183c at -15C/-20C, UV/IR filter, Astro Tech AT61ED at F/4.8.
I have a new imaging location I tested out for this session. I only shot one object, the Veil nebula, with various exposures to see what the results would be. No filters except a UV/IR (clear) and exposures up to 4 minutes per sub-image.
This is 7×4 minute subs plus 65×30 sec subs for a total of about an hour of integration. I could have almost doubled the 4 min exposures to 8, since the LP was minimal. But, I only had darks up to 4 minutes long and was not going to burn time shooting more, so those were the longest.
Conditions were very good, very transparent, average seeing and not too cold. I was not prepared to stay all night, unfortunately and I should have brought along my insulated coveralls. It got a little chilly just sitting at the computer and not moving.
Update: I had some data of the same object taken from the city using an L-eNhance filter and the same scope, so I mixed a little bit of that in as luminance for just the nebula to see how that would look:
Enhanced with 1 hr of additional L-eNhance Filter Data from a previous session (just the Nebula.)
Lunar Eclipse – Totality. 1×4 sec, Astro-Tech AT60ED, QHY183c, UV/IR filter.Lunar Eclipse – Near End of Totality. Stacked image – 5×4 sec, Astro-Tech AT60ED, QHY183c, UV/IR filter.Lunar Eclipse – Totality. 1×8 sec, Astro-Tech AT60ED, QHY183c, UV/IR filter.May 15, 2022 Lunar Eclipse. Before totality. 2 sec @ Gain 11, Offset 50, QHY183c, UV/IR filter, AT60ED at F/4.8.
Clear to partly cloudy skies and a little humid, but good enough to get shots of most of the eclipse. The four images above were some of the better captures.
Comet Leonard on Jan 4, 2022, 00:33 UT (Jan 3, 2022, 6:33 PM CST.) 9×120 sec, Gain 11, Offset 50, QHY183c at -20C, UV/IR filter, Astro-Tech AT60ED at F/4.8.Comet Leonard on Jan 4, 2022, 00:33 UT (Jan 3, 2022, 6:33 PM CST.) 9×120 sec, Gain 11, Offset 50, QHY183c at -20C, UV/IR filter, Astro-Tech AT60ED at F/4.8. Jet trails intact.
I managed to get some images of Comet Leonard (C/2021 A1) despite it being just under 7 degrees above the horizon at the start of the sequence. Twilight, haze layers, clouds, air traffic, light pollution and atmospheric turbulence were some of the obstacles I had to overcome. Oh, and huge flocks of geese were flying through the field, too! lol
Luckily, the comet was not moving much relative to the stars, so the processing was not too difficult. Exposure was 9×120 seconds. I took 24 shots, but many were in strong twilight or had multiple jets crisscrossing over the comet and ruining the view. Some were when the comet was below 4 degrees and the guiding was horrible due to turbulence.
Images of Comets, Nebulae, Galaxies and Star Clusters
