Rosette-Ha-OIII-8each5min.jpg

Here is an image of the Rosette Nebula that I did last night (December 20th, 2017).  This is 8 Ha and 8 OIII images that are 5 minutes apiece.  I was planning to collect a lot more data, but I had some distractions and did not get my equipment set up as early as I wanted to.  But my guiding was very good the whole night!  The stars are ever so slightly elongated because I included the very first image that I took, even though it was taken before I autofocused.  I didn't mean to include it, but I finished the processing and then realized it was in there. Also I need to take new darks, since I used a very old master dark for the processing.  But, its still pretty good even with those issues.  I might go back and reprocess it after I take more darks and I might even get some more data to improve the signal to noise ratio.  And of course toss the out of focus image.

Astrophotography Articles

Awesome week for Astrophotography
Published: 03-22-2018 Hits: 5389
These last few days have really been phenomenal nights for Astrophotography!  I was set up in my own driveway on Wednesday night, I was at a friend's helping him with his setup on Thursday ...
Imaging Spring Galaxies in 2018
Published: 03-21-2018 Hits: 1736
It's Galaxy Season!! Since it is now Galaxy Season, I was thinking that it is a good time for me to switch back to my big scope, my homemade 10 inch f/6, to image galaxies.  I had not yet ...
Imaging the Butterfly
Published: 03-22-2018 Hits: 5381
I had a little time last night (Oct 18th, 2017) to do some imaging in this great week of clear skies.  I chose the “Butterfly Nebula” near Sadr in Cygnus as my target.  I did not have ...
Imaging the Flaming Star and KStars Stacking experiment
Published: 03-22-2018 Hits: 5788
One of the features that has often been requested for KStars is Real Time Stacking.  So I decided to invest some time into writing some algorithms that could be used to process, align and stack ...
Imaging The Great Mexican Space Dragon
Published: 03-21-2018 Hits: 1789
On September 23rd 2017, I went to an astronomy special interest group meeting.  It was the first time I have had my equipment out since July and I think this was a good restart. ...
Imaging the Jellyfish with new powerbox
Published: 03-22-2018 Hits: 1763
I kind of wore out my big 100 AH battery a couple of weeks ago, so I have been working on solutions.  First, on Saturday Feb 17th 2018, I solved part of the problem by getting a new 100AH ...
Imaging the Lobster Claw and solving guiding issues
Published: 03-22-2018 Hits: 1763
On November 17th, I solved a huge problem I have had with guding. First, a little backstory, I have had some strange issues with guiding that I could never quite pin down for quite a long time. ...
Imaging the Pelican
Published: 03-22-2018 Hits: 5366
On July 19th, 2017, a friend and I had some fun doing astronomy experiments ;-). It was a beautiful night aside from intermittent clouds every now and then.  We carefully put the ...
Imaging the Rosette Nebula
Published: 03-22-2018 Hits: 5564
Here is an image of the Rosette Nebula that I did last night (December 20th, 2017).  This is 8 Ha and 8 OIII images that are 5 minutes apiece.  I was planning to collect a lot more data, ...
Imaging the Tadpoles and More guiding experiments
Published: 03-22-2018 Hits: 1790
Last night (November 21st 2017) there was slightly better weather than the previous night, but again I got clouded out.  Anyways, I did some more guiding experiments and I did some imaging of a ...