Swansea Astronomical Society Blog

61 minutes worth of 10s exposures were captured with a Seestar S50 in mosaic mode of the Copeland's eyes part of the Markarian chain. The image was stacked in the Seestar and AI denoised with the Seestar app. The image was further processed in Photopea and Gimp 3.0. An overlay for the image was made with Astrometry.net.

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Copeland's eyes part of the Markarian chain

With overlay

Steve Wainwright and Nicola Mackin

posted by astroimager  # 6:12 PM 0 Comments

79 minutes on NGC 2244 in mosaic mode so that I could get the full Rosette. This is the first time I used a light shield with it, which certainly improved the edges of the shots. Bortle 5, then AI denoised and processed in the Seestar app to bring out the red.

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NGC 2244

Nik Whitehead

posted by astroimager  # 5:03 AM 0 Comments

Paul Howat (SAS) gave a thoroughly researched and illustrated presentation on Dark Nebulae. Dark nebulae and other types of nebulae were discussed in relation to how they can be observed/imaged, where to find them and their relation to star formation. The talk was well attended in the room and online.

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The talk was followed by a lively discussion

posted by astroimager  # 11:00 PM 0 Comments

M95/M96/M105 with NGC3384 and NGC3389:  Just one hour of LRGB/Ha data on these two groups of galaxies in a 1 deg2 part of Leo taken with a Sky-Watcher 80 Esprit with field flattener using an ASI 533MM Pro camera. I was pleased with how M95’s distinctive barred spiral shape turned out for such a short integration of this galaxy which is some 33 million light years away, whilst its companion M96 (a double barred spiral galaxy) lies 31 million light years away. M105 is an elliptical galaxy some 37 million light years away and the two NGC galaxies NGC3384 and NGC3389 are of similar distances and are lenticular and spiral in shape respectively. 

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M95/M96/M105 with NGC3384 and NGC3389

Chris Bowden

posted by astroimager  # 5:18 PM 0 Comments

My image of NGC 2419 the Intergalactic Wanderer, a Globular Star cluster in Lynx using my 80ED APO Refractor Skywatcher telescope with my 1300D DSLR Canon camera with a field flattener. The telescope was mounted on my EQ5 GOTO Mount. Settings were 50s 800ISO, 50 images. 30 flat frames and 30 dark frames were all stacked in DSS and processed in Siril and Gimp 2.10. I used an intervalometer to control the camera and a Bahtinov mask to focus on a bright star. 

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NGC 2419 

Chris Playle

posted by astroimager  # 5:15 PM 0 Comments

22 x 5 minute exposures of the Copeland's Eyes part of the Markarion Chain of galaxies, NGC 4438 captured with AstroDMx Capture through a William Optics 81 mm ED APO refractor with an Altair Hypercam 533C 14 bit OSC CMOS camera with an Altair quadband filter..

The data were debayered, calibrated, stacked and SpectroPhotometric Color Corrected and stars removed in PixInsight; post processed in the Gimp 2.10, Background extraction, initial denoising and stretching in GraXpert and SetiAstro's Cosmic Clarity for sharpening and final denoising.

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Copeland's Eyes

posted by astroimager  # 8:30 AM 0 Comments

My Image of the Monkey Head Nebula,taken with my 80ED APO Refractor telescope and my 1300D DSLR Canon camera with a field flattener the telescope was mounted on my EQ5 GOTO Mount. I captured 50 images 30 flat frames and 30 dark frames all stacked in DSS, Settings were 45s exposure and 800ISO. The images were processed in Siril, and StarNett++ and finished in Gimp 2.10. I used an intervalometer to control the camera and a Bahtinov mask  to focus on a bright star.  

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The Monkey Head Nebula

Chris Playle

posted by astroimager  # 12:17 AM 0 Comments

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Sun in white light: A William Optics ZS71 doublet refractor was fitted with a Herschel Wedge  and a Player One Apollo-M-Mini camera fitted with a x2 Barlow was used to take a 6,200 frame SER with Astro DMx Capture. Some 15% of the frames stacked in Autostakket!4, wavelet processed in Registax and post processed in Pixinsight/PS.

Wide and cropped views of The Whirlpool Galaxy (M51):  During a members viewing and imaging night at Fairwood a Sky-Watcher 80 Esprit triplet refractor fitted with a field flattener and a ZWO 533 Pro mono imaging camera and filter wheel set was used to take an hour of LRGB data of the Whirlpool Galaxy. The data was integrated with a similar amount of data taken over two previous nights and processed as wide field and cropped images using Pixinsight. The data was annotated to show the neighbouring galaxies also captured in the frame.

M78 luminance and LRGB: During a members viewing and imaging night at Fairwood a Sky-Watcher 80 Esprit triplet refractor fitted with a field flattener and a ZWO 533 Pro mono imaging camera and filter wheel set was used to take 20 minutes of luminance data of M78; an emission nebula in Orion . The data was integrated with 2 hours of RGB data taken on the 3rd March and processed using Pixinsight to produce a refined image incorporating just 17% of new data taken from a darker location. The 20 mins of luminance data was also processed separately.

Chris Bowden

posted by astroimager  # 9:34 PM 0 Comments

14 x 5 minute exposures of the Skull and Crossbones Nebula, NGC 2467 captured with AstroDMx Capture through a William Optics 81 mm ED APO refractor with an Altair Hypercam 533C 14 bit OSC CMOS camera with an Altair quadband filter..

The data were debayered, calibrated, stacked and SpectroPhotometric Color Corrected and stars removed in PixInsight; post processed in the Gimp 2.10, Background extraction, initial denoising and stretching in GraXpert and SetiAstro's Cosmic Clarity for sharpening and final denoising.

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NGC 2467

Steve Wainwright and Nicola Mackin

posted by astroimager  # 5:13 PM 0 Comments

Last night was rather gusty, guiding was not the best and then we had to finish early due to a fire on Fairwood common that cut short the imaging time.

I am happy enough considering the integration time, but definitely need more data (and need to shoot this target earlier in the year!)

Askar SQA55

Player One Ares-M Pro

ZWO AM5  

Antlia 3nm Narrowband H-alpha 1.25" · Antlia 3nm Narrowband Oxygen III 1.25" · Antlia 3nm Narrowband Sulfur II 1.25"

Askar M54 OAG ·

Player One Phoenix Wheel 8x1.25"

Guiding Cameras

ZWO ASI120MM

Antlia 3nm Narrowband H-alpha 1.25": 16×300″(1h 20′)

Antlia 3nm Narrowband Oxygen III 1.25": 16×300″(1h 20′)

Antlia 3nm Narrowband Sulfur II 1.25": 8×300″(40′)

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The Rosette nebula

John Beer

posted by astroimager  # 4:39 PM 0 Comments

An 80mm Ekinox ED refractor was fitted with an Antlia Ca K-line Herschel Wedge. An Altair 462M2 camera was placed at the focus. The scope was mounted on a Solar Quest solar finder and tracker mount. AstroDMx Capture was used to capture two overlapping 1000 frame SER files of the Sun. The best 90% of frames in the SER files were stacked in Autostakkert!4, stiched in MS ICE, wavelet processed in waveSharp and further processed in Gimp 2.10 and ACDSee.

The equipment used

The Sun in Ca K-line light

Steve Wainwright and Nicola Mackin

posted by astroimager  # 8:00 PM 0 Comments

From 13 minutes worth of 10s exposures with a Seestar S50; C58, Caroline's cluster. Processed with PixInsight, GraXpert, Gimp 2.10 and Starnet++ .

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C58, Caroline's cluster

Steve Wainwright and Nicola Mackin

posted by astroimager  # 7:37 PM 0 Comments

For experiment, lunar and solar Seestar S50 data were stacked and completely processed in ASIVideoStack. The lunar data are 75% of frames in a 3 minute RAW AVI and the solar data are 100% of the frames in a 37s RAW AVI captured in a rare gap in the clouds. The data are uncompressed right up until the moment that the processed JPG is saved. It should be noted that a 100% quality JPG is indistinguishable from an uncompressed image to an observer. However, JPGs are not suitable for much further processing as quality will be lost with each saving. However, if a 100% quality JPG is immediately converted to an uncompressed TIFF or PNG then limited further processing is possible. No further processing has been done here. 

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Lunar data  stacking and processing in ASIVideoStack

Lunar image with no further processing

Solar data stacking and processing in ASIVideoStack

Solar image with no further processing other than desaturation (which cannot be done in ASIVideoStack)

Steve Wainwright

posted by astroimager  # 5:16 PM 0 Comments