Horsehead and Flame Nebulas

This is a picture of the Horsehead area made with my modified Canon 1100D piggybacked onto the C8. I decided to desaturate to get a b/w image.
At the end of the processing a dark narrow band appeared on the photo. I have erased it with the retouch tool... I must understand what it was.

Horsehead and flame nebulae

Modded Canon EOS 1100D piggybacked on a GE mount (no guide). 300mm macro lens, f/5.6, ISO 
800, 90 x 60 sec RAW frames , 30 dark frames, processed with DSS and Gimp.

Here the color version:

M96 Galaxy in Leo

M 96 galaxy

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

70x60 sec frames , 30 dark , ISO 800 

stacked with DSS and elaborated with Gimp

First attempt at the Horsehead Nebula

An excellent seeing last night, so i tried to photograph the Horsehead Nebula with my C8. Unfortunately the 2m focal length without focal reducer is not the best solution...
The result of 50 min integration is very poor, the horse is hardly visible on the right side; the light on the left is the star Alnitak and you can see part of the NGC 2023 at the very bottom:

Horsehead Nebula

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

50x60 sec frames , 10 dark , ISO 800 

stacked with DSS and elaborated with Gimp

M1

Yesterday night work:

                                               M1 Crab Nebula

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

20x120 sec + 30x60 frames , 10 dark , ISO 800.

stacked with DSS and elaborated with Gimp.

Increased integration time...

I have added the two images of Orion (before and after camera modification):

M 42 - Orion Nebula

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

90x60 sec frames , 10 dark , ISO 1600/800 

stacked with DSS and elaborated with Gimp

Modified Canon 1100D

Yesterday I went to Engen (DE) to DSLR AstroTEC, where Tobias converted my Canon taking off the IR filters.
http://www.dslr-astrotec.de/index-eng.html
Now I can photograph the emission nebulae because the HII line is not cut off anymore...
This is my first attempt with the Orion Nebula. You can compare it with the last one made before the conversion.

M 42 - Orion Nebula

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

42x60 sec frames , 10 dark , ISO 800 

stacked with DSS and elaborated with Gimp

Orion Nebula

M 42 - Orion Nebula

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

50x60 sec frames , 10 dark , ISO 1600 

stacked with DSS and elaborated with Gimp

Jupiter

Celestron C8, CCD Imaging Source DMK31AU03.AS Monochrome with a yellow filter.
800 frames at 1/20 sec elaborated with Registax.

Supernova in M82

On 24/01/2014 I obtained this picture of the new supernova SN2014J in the Cigar galaxy M82 at a distance of 12 million light years.

M 82

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

100x60 sec frames , 10 dark , ISO 800 

stacked with DSS and elaborated with Gimp

HD Moon

Yesterday there was a very good seeing...
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.

Venus in Infrared

Yesterday at 16.45 from my garden in Binningen :

Venus

Celestron C8 and CCD Imaging Source DMK31AU03.AS Monochrome with a IR filter. 1500 frames at 1/200 sec elaborated with Registax.

Three objects during a clear night

Nice spiral galaxy in Camelopardalis:

NGC 2403

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

60x60 sec frames , 30 dark , ISO 800 

stacked with DSS and elaborated with Gimp

Hubble's Variable nebula in Monoceros:

NGC 2261

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

60x60 sec frames , 30 dark , ISO 800 

stacked with DSS and elaborated with Gimp

The Iris reflection nebula:

NGC 7023 - Iris Nebula

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

30x60 sec frames , 30 dark , ISO 800 

stacked with DSS and elaborated with Gimp

New image of Merope

I have reprocessed the Mereope picture adding 30x60 sec frames:

The Big Red Spot

Clear and dry night! Here is Jupiter with its red spot (in B/W):

Celestron C8, CCD Imaging Source DMK31AU03.AS Monochrome with a red filter.
800 frames at 1/20 sec elaborated with Registax.

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