Deep Sky

Andromeda Galaxy

Last night were great viewing conditions, clear skies, almost new moon (which rose fairly late), good seeing (low atmospheric turbulence) and not too hot or too cold... Had a bit of issues to get the setup to work properly again (since I had taken it apart for my Montana travel), but ended up getting about one hour of integration time. Very happy with the outcome though. This is the Andromeda Galaxy. A bit over 2.5 million light years away. 6 Light frames (10 minutes each), 50 BIAS frames, 10 Dark frames, 20 Flat frames and 20 dark flat frames. Nikon D750, Nikon 500 PF, SkyWatcher AZ-gte, ZWO ASI120 Mini Guide Camera with 50mm Guide Scope, Custom Autofocuser

Lagoon and Trifid Nebula Bright Stars

This is the Lagoon nebula on the right and the Trifid nebula one the left. Taken at the Glacier National Park. 52 one minute exposures over the course of about 4 hours. ISO400, f/5.6, Nikkor 500 PF on a Nikon D750. Stacking and processing done in Siril.

Lagoon and Trifid Nebula Muted Stars

This is the Lagoon nebula on the right and the Trifid nebula one the left. Taken at the Glacier National Park. 52 one minute exposures over the course of about 4 hours. ISO400, f/5.6, Nikkor 500 PF on a Nikon D750. Stacking and processing done in Siril. In this version, I muted the stars a bit to bring out the nebula a bit more

Lagoon and Trifid Nebula Starless

This is the Lagoon nebula on the right and the Trifid nebula one the left. Taken at the Glacier National Park. 52 one minute exposures over the course of about 4 hours. ISO400, f/5.6, Nikkor 500 PF on a Nikon D750. Stacking and processing done in Siril. This is the starless version

Lagoon and Trifid Nebula

This is the Lagoon nebula at the bottom and the Trifid nebula at the top right. Taken at the Glacier National Park. 52 one minute exposures over the course of about 4 hours. ISO400, f/5.6, Nikkor 500 PF on a Nikon D750. Stacked in Deepsky Stacker, processed in Photoshop.

North American Nebula

North American Nebula Reprocessed

This is the North American Nebula. It's a stacked image of 62 one minue exposures that I took in Glacier National Park to test the tracking mount and guide setup. I originally processed it in Photoshop and wasn't overly happy with the result. This is processed in Siril and I got so much more detail out of it.

Supernova in Pinwheel Galaxy

Despite poor seeing (i.e. a lot of atmospheric turbulence) and only about 1 hour of integration time (total amount of exposure taken), at least I can show the brand new Super Nova 2023ixf... It was discovered by Koichi Itagaki in Japan and can be found in the Pinwheel Galaxy (M101). This galaxy is about 21 million light years away, so the Super Nova we are currently witnessing happened 21 million years ago... Our night sky is basically a time machine into the distant past. Usually for a faint target like this one, my setup would require at least 8 hours or so of integration time to get a decent quality image out of it. But, you have to take what you can get 🙂