Swansea Astronomical Society Blog

I was out last night adding more data to my Tulip nebula from a few days ago.

I used my SX694, 6-inch Ritchey Chretien on the CEM60 mount. 10x600s subs using , Ha, Oiii and Sii, 5 hours total. I also tried 60 minutes of 120s subs using RGB filters but ran out of time on the blue filter. I therefore used the narrowband stars.

This time I just used Pixinsight for stacking and processing. The stars were removed in the linear stage then, after balancing the nebula using narrowband normalisation and an SHO palette, I recombined everything.

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The Tulip nebula

Anne Startup

posted by astroimager  # 3:30 PM 0 Comments

Jonathan Gale - Observing the lunar 100. Jonathan gave a fascinating and insightful illustrated talk on observing various aspects of the Moon. The talk was followed by lively questions and discussion.

Photographs by Chris Bowden

posted by astroimager  # 11:00 PM 0 Comments

Image of the waning, 92.1% Moon with an old, cheap Meade RB-70 refractor, an SVBONY 705C camera with a UV/IR cut filter and AstroDMx Capture. Stack of 1200 SER file frames, wavelet processed in waveSharp and post processed in the Gimp 2.10

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Saturation and chroma enhanced image

Steve Wainwright and Nicola Mackin

posted by astroimager  # 3:33 PM 0 Comments

IC59 & IC63: This is the so-called “Ghost of Cassiopeia'' lurking very close to the central star γ Cas in the “W” shaped constellation. which is also known as “Navi”; a name that Gus" Grissom gave it after his own middle name (Ivan) spelled backwards. There are two nebulous regions nearby that are being light up by radiation from Navi that glow strongly in the red light of hydrogen as a result of the nebula absorbing the stars ultraviolet light from the blue subgiant star which is some 40,000 times more luminous than our own star. One of the nebulae does indeed look very much like Casper the ghost!

This is an integration of 10 x 5 min Ha subs taken with an ASI 533MM Pro camera attached to an Altair 60EDF doublet refractor, fitted with a 0.8 x FR. Data were acquired in NINA and integrated/processed in Pixinsight using Graxpert to remove gradients. Final processing was done in Adobe CS2. 

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IC59 & IC63

Chris Bowden

posted by astroimager  # 3:24 PM 0 Comments

Image2 with an old, cheap Meade RB-70 refractor, an SVBONY 705C camera with a UV/IR cut filter and AstroDMx Capture. Showing that old, cheap equipment can still produce results.

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Lunar images

Chroma enhanced image

posted by astroimager  # 10:44 PM 0 Comments

The Heart Nebula: 75 mins (5 min subs) of SHO data taken during a full moon with an ASI 533MM Pro camera using an Altair 60EDF doublet refractor fitted with a 0.8 x FR. Data acquired in NINA and integrated/processed in Pixinsight and Adobe CS2.

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The Heart nebula SHO image

Chris Bowden

posted by astroimager  # 6:32 PM 0 Comments

The Heart and Soul nebulae from an SV605CC OSC camera, an Altaire 60mm ED scope with Focalderucer/flattener with an Altair Quadband filter and AstroDMx Capture were re-processed to produce a different rendering resembling an HOO palette.

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The Heart Nebula

The Soul nebula

Steve Wainwright and Nicola Mackin

posted by astroimager  # 3:39 PM 0 Comments

I was doing focuser tests last night with my mono rig and took some LRGB/Ha data of M31 (10 x 1 min subs each) using an ASI 533MM Pro camera on an Altair 60EDF doublet refractor fitted with a 0.8 x FR. The sky conditions weren't too great and the Moon was really bright, but I managed a reasonable integration in Pixinsight using Graxpert. Later on the hazy skies produced an enormous halo around the moon, so I grabbed my phone and Sony A77 milc camera to take some images. I couldn't quite fit it all in a 16mm lens with the A77, so I took two images top and bottom to combine them in Adobe CS2. You can see Orion's belt at the bottom and the Pleiades top right which shows how large the halo was.The full moon image is from the previous morning using a Sony A77 with a 200mm Tamron zoom lens and is just a single exposure.

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Chris Bowden

posted by astroimager  # 3:27 PM 0 Comments

Part of the Heart nebula taken with my 1300D DLSR Canon camera. The camera was mounted on an 80ED APO Skywatcher refractor telescope with a field flattener and an Optolong L-enhance  2inch filter. The telescope was mounted on an EQ5 GOTO mount. Settings were 50s and 1600ISO. I used an intervalometer to control the camera and a Bahtinov mask to focus on a bright star. The image is a stack of 290 images stacked in DSS and processed in Adobe photoshop and Gimp 2.10.

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Part of the Heart nebula

Chris Playle

posted by astroimager  # 10:00 PM 0 Comments

Four nebulae were captured with AstroDMx Capture, controlling the AVX mount via a newly implemented INDIGO client. The scope was an Altair Starwave 60 ED refractor with an 0.8 reducer/flattener, an Altair Quadband filter and an SV605CC 14-bit OSC CMOS camera. We were testing Nicola's implementation of the INDIGO client. PHD2 pulse auto-guiding was also done via INDIGO.

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The exposures for each nebula were:

Heart nebula 18 x 5 min = 90 minutes

Pacman nebula 17 x 5 min = 85 minutes

Helix nebula 30 x 2.5 min = 75 minutes

Steve Wainwright and Nicola Mackin

posted by astroimager  # 10:29 PM 0 Comments

Members enjoyed some fine seeing at the Brian Stokes Cygnus Observatory on Friday 24th November for some excellent views of Saturn, Jupiter and the gibbous Moon.The frosty conditions brought some steady clear air, allowing some time-lapse imaging of Jupiter to show a partial disk rotation during the transit of the great red spot and its moon Ganymede. Over the course of 1 hour and 25 minutes some 575,000 short duration images were taken in groups of 3 minute intervals with 70% of them then stacked and processed into a giff animation to show the cloud features movement plus the moon Ganymede and its shadow as it orbited the planet. Members were also able to observe and Image comet P12/Pons-Brooks which has recently been in outburst and also did some narrow band imaging of, the Heart, California and Elephant's Trunk nebulae.

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Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks imaged among the stars of Lyra - 65 mins of RGB data taken with an ASI 533MM Pro camera on an Altair 60EDF doublet refractor fitted with a 0.8 x FR. Data stacked and processed in Pixinsight and Adobe CS2

IC1396 - Elephant Trunk nebula - 80 mins of SHO with 15 mins of Lum stars bended back in (95 mins total exposure). Imaged with an ASI 533MM Pro camera on an Altair 60EDF doublet refractor fitted with a 0.8 x FR. Data stacked and processed in Pixinsight and Adobe CS2

NGC 1499 - California nebula - 7 x 5 min Ha subs (35 mins total exposure) imaged with an ASI 533MM Pro camera on an Altair 60EDF doublet refractor fitted with a 0.8 x FR.Data stacked and processed in Pixinsight and Adobe CS2

Jupiter and its Galilean Moons - 115mm triplet refractor using an ASI 462MC camera. 60% stack of 989 frames taken over 2 minutes in Astro DMx Capture (Ganymede at top). Stacked with Autostakkert 4, wavelet processed in Registax 6 and final processing done in Adobe CS2

Jupiter with GRS and moon/shadow Ganymede - 115mm triplet refractor with x 2 Barlow using an ASI 462MC camera. 25% stack of 36,058 frames taken over 3 minutes in FireCapture. Data stacked with Autostakkert 4, wavelet processed in Registax 6 and final processing done in Adobe CS2

Jupiter animation (giff): Some 17 x 3 min capture runs were done to get a partial rotation animation over the period 01:10 to 02:35. 70% of a total of 574,918 frames stacked with Autostakkert 4, wavelet processed in Registax 6 with final processing done in Adobe CS2 and Adobe ImageReady to make up the gif.

Chris Bowden

posted by astroimager  # 6:21 PM 0 Comments

Despite a nearly full Moon I managed to take a wide filed image of the Lawnmower cluster, NGC663 with my new Rokinon 135mm prime lens at f/2. The lens was mounted on a 1300D DLSR Canon camera. The camera was mounted on a star Adventure 2i pro tracking mount. I used an intervalometer to control the camera and a Bahtinov mask to focus on a bright star. Settings were 45s and 800ISO. The image is a stack of 45 images 30 dark frames and 45 flat frames all stacked in DSS and processed in GraXpert, Gimp 2.10 and Adobe photoshop.

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NGC663

Chris Playle

posted by astroimager  # 12:23 AM 0 Comments

1 hour 5 minutes' worth of 5-minute exposures of The Heart Nebula. Captured with AstroDMx Capture, controlling the mount via a newly implemented INDIGO client. The scope was an Altair Starwave 60 ED refractor with an 0.8 reducer/flattener, an Altair Quadband filter and an SV605CC 14-bit OSC CMOS camera. We were testing Nicola's implementation of the INDIGO client. PHD2 pulse autoguiding was also done via INDIGO.

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The Heart Nebula

Steve Wainwright and Nicola Mackin

posted by astroimager  # 12:01 AM 0 Comments