Neptune at opposition: I really needed a bigger scope to do this justice, as I had my Altair 60EDF with 0.8 x FR rig up and running with a mono ASI 533MM Pro camera getting ready for DSO imaging. As I was cooling the camera down at the start of the evening of the 19th November and doing my final alignment checks for imaging, I noticed that Neptune had just passed opposition, so I took 30 mins of 30s RGB subs (20 of each channel) to try to detect the pale blue gas giant lying at the edge of our solar system. Despite this only effectively being a 2" scope and me not using a planetary camera, I was able to resolve the disc of Neptune by its pale blue colour and possibly its largest moon Triton too, very close to the planet itself. I integrated the image in Pixinsight and ran the image through astrometry and Pixinsight's own" annotate image" facility to confirm this and also cross referenced it with positional data for Triton published in the Sky and Telescope. This shows that it is possible to capture this tricky object from a rural back garden with simple equipment when it is at opposition.
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Neptune at opposition
M31 (The Andromeda Galaxy): Over the nights of the 12th, 19th, 20th and 21st November I took 6 hours of RGB and Ha data of M31 using my Altair 60EDF with 0.8 x FR using a mono ASI 533MM Pro camera which I combined with a similar amount of the best LRGB/Ha data taken over the last two years with the same rig using NSG (Normalize Scale Gradient) in Pixinsight. I used ~ 80% of the combined data set to integrate and process them into an LRGB/Ha image comprising an effective 9 hrs total integration time. Using NSG helps to remove the weakest data impacted by clouds etc. to maximise the S/N ratio to produce as higher definition image as possible. The Ha data was integrated via the continuum subtraction method within Pixinsight to highlight the various nebulae visible in our nearest galaxy.
IC1805 (The Heart nebula): on the night of the 19th November I shot 6 hours of SHO data on this object to combine with the previous data set, to make a total integration of around 15 hours which was compiled and filtered using NSG in Pixinsight to retain the best data which was then processed in Pixinsight and Adobe Photoshop 2024.
IC1848 (The Soul nebula): On the night of the 21st November I took around 5 hours of SHO data of this object which was combined with a further 2 hours of the best data taken over the last two years with my Altair 60EDF doublet refractor fitted with a 0.8 x FR to produce a combined 7 hour integration processed using the NSG script in Pixinsight. The data was completed using Adobe Photoshop 2024.
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