“Lynx is home to the fascinating globular cluster NGC 2419. Although visually faint and small what makes NGC 2419 special is its distance; at 275,000 light-years it’s one of the furthest known Milky Way globulars. In fact, twentieth century American astronomer Harlow Shapley nicknamed it ‘The Intergalactic Tramp’ believing it to have possibly broken away from the Milky Way and headed off into deep inter galactic space. However, recent observations indicate Shapley hypothesis was incorrect and NGC 2419 is still gravitationally bound to the Milky Way just moving in a highly eccentric orbit.” – FreeStarCharts.com
The evening of Jan 12, 2026 was was finally clear enough to do some astrophotography with the Seestar S50. First night this year. The Pleiades was high enough out of the strong LP in my area to get something decent, so I went with that. I combined what I got with 63 minutes from last November for a total of 198 minutes and below is the result:
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.
It was a little hazy with below average transparency Christmas Eve night 2025, so before it got too bad, I decided to try and take a mosaic of the Double Cluster, instead of a nebula or galaxy as a target. Taken with my Seestar S50 for 48 minutes using 30 sec sub-images.
Double Cluster, Dec 24, 2025. Seestar S50 mosaic mode, 48 minutes using 30 sec sub-images.
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.
The February Full “Snow” Moon of 2024. AT60EDP, QHY294C, Antlia Triband filter. The best 20 frames of 45, stacked in AutoStakkert. 1.5x enlarged crop.
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.
Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks on Feb 25, 2024 (Feb 26 UT.) 17×60 sec, QHY294C, AT60EDP at F/5, Antlia Triband filter. Full field.Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks on Feb 25, 2024 (Feb 26 UT.) 17×60 sec, QHY294C, AT60EDP at F/5, Antlia Triband filter. Star Freeze cropped version.Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks on Feb 25, 2024 (Feb 26 UT.) 17×60 sec, QHY294C, AT60EDP at F/5, Antlia Triband filter. Star Streaks cropped version.
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!
IC 446. 79×180 sec, QHY294C, Antlia Triband filter, AT60EDP at F/5.Cone Nebula area. (IC446 is on the right.) This is only 12 x 3 minute sub-mages. AT60EDP, QHY294C, Antlia Triband filter.
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:
The Orion Nebula on 2/20/24. 68×180 sec, QHY294C at -10C, Antlia Triband filter, Astro-Tech AT60EDP at F/5. Full Field.The Orion Nebula on 2/20/24. 68×180 sec, QHY294C at -10C, Antlia Triband filter, Astro-Tech AT60EDP at F/5. Cropped.
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 in the Virgo Cluster. 68 x 180 sec, QHY294C at -10C, Astro-Tech AT60EDP at F/5, Antlia Triband RGB Ultra filter.
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. 11 x 3 minutes with a QHY294C, Antlia Triband RGB Ultra filter from a Bortle 8-9 zone.
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.
It was a clear Sunday evening on Jan 28th, 2024 and I had to do some tweaking to the scope, so I took advantage of the good weather and did some imaging to test the results.
After the tweaks and adjustments for the scope, I went straight to Comet 144P/Kushida, which was well placed in the early evening sky. I took 45 minutes worth of subs and above are the two images I generated from this data.
M35 Open Cluster and NGC 2158, taken on Jan 28th, 2024. 40×180 sec, QHY294C, Astro-Tech AT60ED, Antlia Triband filter.
I shot of few sub-images of M35 the last time I was out and wanted to return to it now that I tweaked the scope. I got two hours of data on it and it came out reasonably well.
By the time I finished M35, the moon had risen high enough to drown out any dim nebulae and whatnot, so I shot the moon itself. It was still rather low in the sky, but did not come out too bad:
The Moon on Jan 28, 2024. QHY294C, Astro-Tech AT60ED, Antlia Triband filter.
I resized it 200% for this display image and did some sharpening with the AstraImage Maximum Entropy Deconvolution filter in PS. Yes, not too bad at all for a 60mm scope.
M45, the Pleiades. 21×180 sec, QHY294C at -10C, Gain 1600, Offset 50, Antlia Triband RGB Ultra filter, Astro-Tech AT60ED at F/4.8.
It is a Wednesday in the middle of the week, but the weather is clear and earlier that day I just received my new ZWO tilt-plate adapter. The goal of getting it being to fix my skewed field of view of the AT60ED with the QHY294C camera.
I stuck it on, hooked it to the scope and twisted just one screw up and down a couple of times to see what it would do, then just barely turned it, just a bit and locked it down with the screw beside it. This screw was in line with the landscape orientation of my camera and also the way the field seemed to be tilted.
I crossed my fingers and started shooting 3 minute exposures. It had looked good with 2 sec shots, but I was not convinced until I saw the first normal sub-image.
Amazingly, the field was almost perfectly flat with just a little elongation in one corner! It’s possible the extension tube I removed to put the adapter in place had sagging issues, but I think I just got lucky with the adjustment. Maybe both. lol 🙂
M78 and part of Bernard’s Loop. 83×180 sec, QHY294C at -10C, Gain 1600, Offset 50, Antlia Triband RGB Ultra filter, Astro-Tech AT60ED at F/4.8.
I wasn’t planning on staying out long, since this was supposed to be just a test of the adapter session. I thought I would be adjusting it all evening and not trying to shoot keeper images.
I picked the M78 area, since I had some data from the last session that got cut short by clouds. It needed more time and this was going to be it.
I bagged 47 sub-images and with the 36 from the last session added to it in PS, the image above is the result. The bad parts from the previous session with the worst star elongation were replaced with the new, which was mainly the top left corner.
Finally! Success! I was about to spend more money on a Petzval scope. Glad I waited and tried this first.
Images of Comets, Nebulae, Galaxies and Star Clusters
