Our Beautiful Universe - Photos and Videos

Our area in Redding, CA uses LED, can’t filter out…

Hello, here is my last attempt of Orion Neb. center with trapezium -Bohmerwald, Bortle 6-7 as was full moon, Newton 1000 x 200 mm, Iphone camera with eyepiece adapter (eyepiece 8 mm). Is it clear that without drive is not possible with these condition and system to get better result.

The Pleiades asterism, open star cluster, and reflection nebula (a.k.a., M45, NGC 1432, the "Seven Sisters," "Subaru," "Matarii," "Yunggarmurra Water Girls," "Seven Rishis," and many other names). Imaged from my back patio in January, 2024. The Pleiades can be seen with the naked eye in the constellation Taurus, and lie about 444 light-years away (give or take, roughly).



I'm guessing that the Pleiades (or by whatever name they were called), may have been used by early humans as the original vision test. "How many individual stars can you discern in the Pleiades?" I imagine people asking each other. As you can see in the image above, there are more than 7 stars in the asterism. But without the aid of a telescope, and without my contact lenses or glasses, I can see exactly zero of them. I'm sure most people fare better. I'm guessing that if you can distinguish six or seven separate stars, it means you have pretty good eyesight.

Equipment:
Explore Scientific 80ED-FCD100
Sky-Watcher EQ6-R Pro
Orion Field Flattener for Short Refractors
Off-axis guider (OAG) with guide camera
ZWO LRGB filter set
ZWO ASI2600MM-Pro main camera

I took 4871 subframe images total (not counting the bad frames). Each subframe image is 26 megapixels. Together with all the calibration frames and whatnot, this project takes about 1 terabyte of space on my hard drive.

Software:
N.I.N.A.
PHD2 guiding
PixInsight with
o Generalized Hyperbolic Stretch plugin
o RC-Astro plugins

I have a couple of sisters. I can only imagine the joy and chaos of growing up with seven of 'em.

Acquisition/Integration:
Location: San Diego, USA
Bortle class 7 (maybe 8 ) skies.
All subframes binned 1x1, stacked with drizzle algorithm
R: 1364×10s = 3.79 hrs
G: 2148×10s = 5.97 hrs
B: 1359×10s = 3.78 hrs
Total integration time: 13.53 hours.
.

Here’s an oldie but goodie from 2 years ago…

Its been a while since I’ve done any shooting, hopefully this will motivate me back under the stars again…

This is looking towards the south out over Whiskeytown lake to the west of Redding, California USA. The length of the timelapse is 1 or 2 hours I can’t remember exactly.

A few targets, all acquired during the past month or so:

NGC 2244 (Rosette Nebula):


Nikon D810 + 400/4 lens, Losmandy GM8 mount, unguided. Cropped view, total integration time = 20.7 hours. It's a tricky target- very faint. Over time, my technique has improved enough that individual exposures are now 15s, up from 5s 2 years ago.

M44 (Beehive cluster):


D810 + 800/8 lens, etc. Total integration time 4h. I'm not sure why I spend time on this... I can't seem to reproduce the jewel-tones you can find in other images. Maybe this needs to be shot at 400mm so it doesn't look so empty?

Lastly, M81/M82:


Shot using 800/8, lightly cropped, 10.2 hours integration time. Surprisingly difficult target (for me) to acquire, partly because it is so faint (the brightest stars are 9th magnitude) but it marks the start of "multiple galaxies in my field of view" season, running through Leo and culminating in Virgo/Coma Berenices.

NGC 3166 (left) and NGC 3169 (right) captured from my back patio Dec. 2023 - Jan. 2024. These spiral galaxies, which can be seen (from Earth) in the constellation Sextans, are spiraling into each other before they ultimately merge into one.

The much smaller galaxy to the upper left is NGC 3165.

This is the last image I plan on taking with the Meade 10" LX200-ACF telescope setup for a while. If you're curious about its replacement, see this thread:
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/documenting-the-setup-of-my-new-telescope.1059921/



Equipment:
Meade 10" LX200-ACF fork mounted on an equatorial wedge.
Off-axis guider (OAG) with guide camera.
Optolong broadband filter set.
Optolong L-Pro filter
Optolong 3 nm Hα filter
ZWO ASI6200MM-Pro main camera.

Software:
Nighttime Imaging 'N' Astronomy (N.I.N.A.)
PHD2 guiding
PixInsight with RC-Astro plugins

Acquisition/Integration:
Location: San Diego, USA
Bortle class 7 (maybe 8 ) skies
All subframes binned 3×3
Stacked using drizzle algorithm
R: 91×5 min = 7.58 hrs
G: 90×5 min = 7.50 hrs
B: 99×5 min = 8.25 hrs
L-Pro: 110×5 min = 9.17 hrs
Hα: 73×10 min = 12.17 hrs
Total integration time: 44.67 hours