Venus

Yesterday, before Merope, I tried to photograph Venus. It was low on the horizon. The result is quite poor...

Venus

Celestron C8 and CCD Imaging Source DMK31AU03.AS Monochrome. 800 frames at 1/200 sec elaborated with Registax.

Merope

Yesterday night it was so cold that my telescope froze! Before to go back inside, I obtained some images of Merope (one of the Pleiades). It is the star surrounded by the major part of the nebulosity (look at my previous post). After processing of the final picture I had a surprise: if you look at the star, you can see a small spot attached on the right side of the disc. I thought it was due to a dust grain on the lens, but then, searching on the internet, I discovered that it is a little nebula (IC349) distant only 0.06 light years from Merope!

Merope and IC349

Canon EOS 1100D at the prime focus of C8 (tracking not guided)

80x30 sec frames , 20 dark , ISO 800 

stacked with DSS and elaborated with Gimp

Here a detail of IC349 in a black and white image elaborated to decrease the luminosity of the star:

Pleiades

The night of my last Moon pictures I decided to try the Pleiades (just after the moonset) with the Canon piggybacked on the telescope. I programmed to do 120 shots of 1 min each. Unfortunately quite soon it became cloudy, so I got only 15 frames... This is the result:

Pleiades

Canon EOS 1100D piggybacked on GE mount (no guide). 200mm macro lens. f/5.6, ISO 800, 15 RAW frames 1 min expo each + 10 dark frames, stacked with DSS and elaborated with Gimp.

Back to the Moon

After long time yesterday I turned back to the Moon. Images are made with Celestron C8 and CCD Imaging Source DMK31AU03.AS Monochrome, keeping the best 10% of about 1500 frames at 1/125 sec elaborated with Registax.

Apenninus mountains with craters Archimedes (the big one) and Eratosthenes (on the right).

Craters Clavius (the big one in the shadow), Maginus (central position) and Thyco (the round one with high borders)

Craters Ukert (central position) and Agrippa (top left). Between them the Ryma Hyginus.

Craters Alphonsus and Arzachel on the bottom left.

Craters Plato (the big one) and Cassini (centre top). Between them the Alps mountains.

The Moon without telescope

Moon

Canon EOS 1100D macro lens 300 mm

single shot 1/1000 sec  , ISO 800

...and Uranus

Uranus single 1 sec shot:

Uranus

Canon EOS 1100D at the prime focus of C8 (tracking not guided)

1x1 sec frame , ISO 800 

Far away galaxies

Another wet night, but the sky was clear enough to look at two faint spiral galaxies:

M 74

Canon EOS 1100D at the prime focus of C8 (tracking not guided)

63x60 sec frames , 20 dark , ISO 800 

stacked with DSS and elaborated with Gimp

NGC 278

Canon EOS 1100D at the prime focus of C8 (tracking not guided)

50x60 sec frames , 20 dark , ISO 800 

stacked with DSS and elaborated with Gimp

A difficult nebula!

This was one of my favorite objectives and finally I got it! 

The Crab Nebula, located in the constellation of Taurus, is a supernova remnant, the result of a cataclysmic supernova explosion in the year 1054. This explosive death of a star was so bright that it could be seen in the daytime sky for 23 days, and was documented by astronomers in China.

It was not an easy night, so wet! For the first time I used a hairdryer against the dew on the corrector plate and it worked pretty well. I made two sessions of 30 1 min shots each, using the hairdryer before and in between the two sessions.

M1 - Crab Nebula

Canon EOS 1100D at the prime focus of C8 (tracking not guided)

60x60 sec frames , 20 dark , ISO 800 

stacked with DSS and elaborated with Gimp

Andromeda night

Yesterday night I wanted to obtain a long exposure of M31. The sky was quite good, clear with a decent seeing.. So I programmed the Canon for 100 shoots of 2 min each (total 3h 20 m). I went inside to play chess. After one hour I checked the sky: it was cloudy :-(
Only 25 frames were good enough to be processed and this is the result

M31 - Andromeda

Canon EOS 1100D piggybacked on a GE mount (no guide). 200mm macro lens, f/5.6, ISO 800, 25 x 120 sec RAW frames + 5 dark frames elaborated with DSS and Gimp.

During rainy days...

A new processing result for M81:

Experiments with planetary nebulae

Last session of this fantastic three nights campaign. I managed to shot a faint on edge galaxy and experimented a bit with two small planetary nebulae...
Quite honestly I didn't know how to approach them because before I only had worked with two very brilliant PN (Ring and Dumbbell). I tried several exposure discovering that over 10 secs the frames were overexposed. So I shooted 30 10secs frames of each, but when composed in DSS the result was a bright disk with no details. Here attached you find single 10 secs images.

NGC891

Canon at the prime focus of C8 (tracking not guided)

160x60 sec frames , 50 dark , ISO 800 

stacked with DSS and elaborated with Gimp

NGC7662 - Blue Snowball Nebula

Canon at the prime focus of C8 (tracking not guided)

10 sec single frame, ISO 800 

NGC6543 - Cat Eye Nebula

Canon at the prime focus of C8 (tracking not guided)

10 sec single frame, ISO 800 

Yet another nice night

Clear sky continues... God chance to take a couple of pictures. The Triangulum Galaxy M33 that came out of the eastern tree in my garden at midnight and the nice open cluster M52. Here they are:

M33 - Triangulum Galaxy

Canon at the prime focus of C8 (tracking not guided)

68x60 sec frames , 50 dark , ISO 800 

stacked with DSS and elaborated with Gimp

M52 - Open Cluster

Canon at the prime focus of C8 (tracking not guided)

17x60 sec frames , 10 dark , ISO 800 

stacked with DSS and elaborated with Gimp

A beautiful night

September 2th 2013, what a memorable night! Perfect seeing: it was easily to distingish, by naked eye, many details in the Milky Way. I pointed my C8 towrds the center of the Andromeda Galaxy obtaining these images of the galactic nucleus:

M31 - Andromeda galactic nucleus

Canon at the prime focus of C8 (tracking not guided)

160x30 sec frames , 50 dark , ISO 800 

stacked with DSS and elaborated with Gimp

M31 - Andromeda galactic nucleus

Canon at the prime focus of C8 (tracking not guided)

160x30 sec + 40x60 sec frames (tot 2h expo) , 50 dark , ISO 800 

stacked with DSS and elaborated with Gimp

First night after holidays

Yesterday it was a full moon night... I thought it was impossible to do anything, but I was wrong.
As a first target I choose the globular cluster M14 in Ophiuchus when the moon was just under the orizon, then I did some shots at Albireo and last I pointed at the NGC6503 dwarf galaxy that was exactly in the opposite direction of the moon. These are the results:

M14 globular cluster

Canon at the prime focus of C8 (tracking not guided)

60x30 sec frames , no dark , ISO 800 

stacked with DSS and elaborated with Gimp

Albireo

Canon at the prime focus of C8 (tracking not guided)

2x30 sec frames , no dark , ISO 800 

stacked with DSS and elaborated with Gimp

NGC 6503

Canon at the prime focus of C8 (tracking not guided)

60x90 sec frames , 4 dark , ISO 800 

stacked with DSS and elaborated with Gimp

M16, M17, M23 and M25

Wide field image with two nebulae and two open clusters. Image taken on July 26th in Noto (Sicily).

M16, M17, M23 and M25

Canon EOS 1100D mounted on tripod with Vixen Polarie.

55mm lens, ISO 1600, f/5.6, single shot 2 min exposure.

M31

What a nice night! Yesterday the sky was fairly clear and I went with my friend Stefano up to Basati, a small hamlet on the Alpi Apuane not far from Pietrasanta. Just parked the car and we immediately saw the bright ISS (International Space Station) passing fast from west to east. Then we started to set the camera, pointing it towards the Andromeda galaxy. After 85 frames with 20 secs of exposure, we have obtained this picture:

M31 - Andromeda Galaxy

Canon EOS 1100D mounted on a tripod with the Vixen Polarie Astro-tracker.

200mm macrolens, f/5.6, ISO 800. 85x20sec frames stacked with DSS and elaborated with Gimp.

Yet another Milky Way picture..

Milky Way view in the Aquila constellation.

Canon EOS 1100D on a tripod with Vixen Polarie for tracking. 18 mm focal length, f/5.0, ISO 1600, 4 min exposure. Elaborated with Gimp.

North America Nebula

This is a wide field picture of the Cignus area captured on 26th of July in Noto (Sicily). The North America Nebula is clearly visible near to Deneb.

North America Nebula - 26/07/2013

Canon EOS 1100D on a tripod with Vixen Polarie astro-tracker.  55mm lens, f/5.6, ISO 800, 5x2min shots stacked with DSS. Elaboration with Gimp.

Moon at the seaside

Canon EOS 1100D, f/5.6, ISO 800, macro 300mm, expo 1/100 sec

Vignetting reduction

Finally I have understood how to manage the problem of vignetting. In GIMP select Filters --> Distorsion --> Lens distorsion then move the cursors "main" and "edge" away from zero and find the right level of "brighten" in the preview mask.
This is the result obtained with my old M81 picture...

Wide field

Twenty minutes total exposure of the M51 area (the galaxy is visible in the middle). Wide field taken with the 55 mm standard objective.

Whirlpool galay - M51

40 frames of 30 secs each with Canon EOS 1100D and standard 55mm lens (ISO 800 f/5.6). Tracking with Vixen Polarie.

Andromeda

Yesterday night I spent 6 hours (from 10pm to 4am) experimenting with my new astrotracker Vixen Polarie in Marina di Pietrasanta (Italy). I have attached my Canon EOS 1100D to it, using a simple travel tripod as a base. The result is a perfect tracking! I did 30 secs exposures with a 200mm macro-lens and no problem at all. I should have done longer exposures, probably even a couple of minutes...
Anyway this is the first product:

Andromeda Galaxy - M31

60 frames of 30 secs each with Canon EOS 1100D and macro 200mm (ISO 800 f/5.6). It's my first experiment with the astrotracker Vixen Polarie.

Vixen Polarie

That's my new gadget!

Clouds...

Two nights ago I wanted to work on the Black Eye Galaxy (M64). I begun only at 22.30 when came dark, with a perfect polar alignment, then at 23.00 I started the program of 90 shot with 1 min exposure each. Unfortunately after half an hour the sky was all cloudy, so that at he end I could use only 27 frames...

M64 - Black Eye Galaxy

Canon at the prime focus of C8 (tracking not guided)

27x60 sec frames , 15 dark , ISO 800 

stacked with DSS and elaborated with Gimp

Saturation in DSS

I have discovered that you can adjust the color saturation while elaborating the final image in DSS. Before I saved the images with zero saturation loosing most of the colors...
Here for instance the re-elaborated image of M42, after setting the saturation from zero to 30%:

Good Polar Alignment

This time I have done it properly. Last time the problem was that I choose Vaga as reference star, but it was towards east... Now I have pointed to Arcturus in south direction. So I have done 50 good exposures, 1 min each as usual. This is the Ring Nebula:

M57 - Ring Nebula

Canon at the prime focus of C8 (tracking not guided)

50x60 sec frames , 40 dark , ISO 800 

stacked with DSS and elaborated with Gimp

Then, as the sky was clear and no dew (thanks to the tube) I decided to try with the Dumbbell Nebula. This is the result:

M27 - Dumbbell Nebula

Canon at the prime focus of C8 (tracking not guided)

50x60 sec frames , 40 dark , ISO 800 

stacked with DSS and elaborated with Gimp

The Ring Nebula

Yesterday night I wanted to work on M57 (Ring Nebula). Unfortunately I did a very poor polar alignment and then it was impossible to stack, with DSS or Registax, the 30 1 min frames...
I enclose here just one single 1 min shot. You can clearly see the stars trails.
The photo is ugly but the colors are true and absolutely not corrected in any way.

After an awful May...

Yesterday we have had a clear night after one month of continuous rain. I decided to watch Saturn that is yet near to the opposition. I have tried to shoot it with different filters (red, yellow and green) and have found that the best contrast is obtained with the green one. Here the picture with the technical details.

Celestron C8

CCD Imaging Source DMK31AU03.AS Monochrome with a green filter.

1200 frames at 1/30 sec elaborated with Registax.

Then I changed the camera, connecting the Canon reflex to the telescope, and pointed the M13 Hercules globular. This is the result.

M13 - Hercules globular cluster

Canon at the prime focus of C8 (tracking not guided)

30x60 sec frames , 15 dark , ISO 800 

stacked with DSS and elaborated with Gimp

An unlucky attempt

Last night I spent more than one hour to obtain a decent polar alignment. Then I pointed at NGC 4565, a nice on-edge galaxy, to take 160 1 min shots. The first one showed the galaxy on the bottom left part of the photo, so I did some trial and error samples to center the galaxy. I succeded after 4 shots, then I let the camera work automatically and went to bed. This morning I have discovered that only 47 shots were good because of the late night dew on the correcting glass...
Anyway this is the result.

NGC 4565

Canon at the prime focus of C8 (tracking not guided)

47x60 sec frames , 60 dark , ISO 800 

stacked with DSS and elaborated with PhotoWizard on IPad

M106 in Canes Venatici

Last night I photographed the galaxy M106 in the constellation Canes Venatici

M106

Canon at the prime focus of C8 (tracking not guided)

71x60 sec frames , 60 dark , ISO 800 

stacked with DSS and elaborated with Gimp

Finally some clear sky...

Yesterday night we had a good seeing here in Basel and the temperature was pretty nice. I had the goal to shot M101 and indeed I took 90 frames 1 min each. The result is not very good. Next time I need to increase the total exposure time and probably use single expo longer than 1 min (possibly 2/3 min).

M101 - Pinwheel Galaxy

Canon at the prime focus of C8 (tracking not guided)

90x60 sec frames , 60 dark , ISO 800 

stacked with DSS and elaborated with Gimp

 Then I decide to try with M63 with the same exposures. Unfortunately after about half an hour the glass became suddenly full of dew, so at the end I had only 37 good frames. The result is acceptable anyway...

M63 - Sunflower Galaxy

Canon at the prime focus of C8 (tracking not guided)

37x60 sec frames , 30 dark , ISO 800 

stacked with DSS and elaborated with Gimp