This was 3 hrs in one continuous run using 20 sec sub-images using the Seestar S50. Taken on Jan 1, 2026 in the early morning hours in Bortle 8/9 conditions.
Category Archives: Nebulae
The, “Ghost of Cassiopeia,” on Dec 30th & 31st, 2025
Over 4 hrs of integration stretched out over 2 days for this one. Still needs more time, but I did what I could with what I had and it is not too bad.
The Ghost of Cassiopeia – 4.2 hrs exposure over Dec 30 & Dec 31, 2025.
Seestar S50 Image of The Crab Nebula
The Crab Nebula supernova remnant in Taurus. The Chinese, Mayans and others saw It when it blew up in the year 1054. It contains a pulsar (neutron star) at its center.
This was taken with a Seestar S50 Smart Telescope using 30 sec sub-images. It has about an hour of total integration time that finished up just after midnight last night (12:24 A.M., Dec 24, 2025.)
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M78 Reflection Nebula in Orion – Dec 23, 2025
It was not the best night in terms of transparency, so I put a lot of time imaging this object thinking I could get past that with enough sub-images. Unfortunately, 2.5 hrs was still not enough under those conditions.
I couldn’t boost this image the way I wanted since it was still pretty noisy. Plus, my flat, which I have since replaced, was faulty with a green blotch on the mid-right side. I think I’ll re-image this one now that I can better calibrate it with a new flat.
Orion Nebula Seestar S50 Combined Data
A rainy day project to combine all the data taken with the Seestar S50 that was not parts of any mosaic mode sessions. It seems you can only restack non-mosaic mode sub-images, so I did that and came up with this image below.
More Seestar S50 Images – September 2024
First Light With New Telescope – The Seestar S50
After waiting a while for the tech to mature, I decided that a Smart Telescope would be fun to play with. So, I got the cheapest one on the market.
ZWO built it originally and they spun off a new company called Seestar to market it. In this case, the unit is the Seestar S50, a 50mm triplet in an all-in-one design including mount, camera, computer and storage.
Here’s the first light images from it:
March 11, 2024 – M42 Core Update
I was trying to get more data on 12P/Pons-Brooks, but it was too cloudy and the comet was too low. So, I moved on to M42 and tried to get some shorter 30 second exposures that would not overexpose the core. They were added into what I had from the last session in the image above.
Feb 24th/25th Imaging Sessions
I normally don’t image during a full moon, but the weather was beautiful and I had a new telescope to do more testing with. Plus, there was a comet just begging me to take it’s picture. I couldn’t pass up the chance.
I ended up taking images both Saturday and Sunday nights. I tried to give lots of time to single objects and not jump around so much, for a change.
The comet was very low in the west at dusk. I had to quickly get shots and didn’t notice a building’s awning was in the shot along with street lights casting reflections from that direction. Clouds coming and going didn’t help, either.
But! This comet is bright enough to show up (with a tail!) that low in the muck of a Bortle 8-9 zone! That’s quite bright, by most comet imaging standards!
The Cone and the IC 446 Nebula area. It was well placed and I shot 4 hours for IC446 on one night and did a short run on the Cone next door the following night.
I always enjoy seeing M13 again after it emerges in the late winter morning skies high enough to get imagery. The colors got washed out with all the moonlight, unfortunately. I created a darker version with more color enhancement, but the washed out look remains:
Oh, well… I had fun taking it and processing it. 🙂
First Light – Astro-Tech AT60EDP
Here’s the very first stacked image taken with my new Astro-Tech AT60EDP. It’s a 60mm, F/5 Petzval telescope with 300mm focal length. This was 64×180 sec using the new scope. Location was a Bortle 8-9 zone with a bright moon out, 48F, clear and above average transparency. The second version is the full field.
Comet 62P/Tsuchinschan near the galaxies NGC 4608, NGC 4596. Also included are M58, M59, M60 and other faint galaxy fuzzies in the Virgo Galaxy Cluster.
M4 Globular Cluster, Antares and friends in Scorpio. It was still the 1st light night for my new AT60EDP, but at 5:00 AM the next morning. This is 11 x 3 minutes with a QHY294C, Antlia Triband RGB Ultra filter from a Bortle 8-9 zone. Still noisy with only 33 minutes and there was some twilight, but I’m sure I’ll be able to add to it in time.