We finally made it! This is the result of a group of 15 amateur astronomers (which I am part of) who have shared their data in an effort to get as much data on this pair of galaxies as possible. The result is over 400h of exposure time (where over 200 are in narrow band Hydrogen-Alpha).
This allowed us to create the deepest and most detailed image of M81 and M82 probably done by amateur astronomers ever! The red, faint Hydrogen "exploding" outwards from Messier 82 is truly a sight to be seen.
Every month I get one chance to photograph the nearly-full moon as it rises over sunlit terrain. Some months the sun is 5, or 7 degrees above the horizon as the moon rises, which makes the foreground bright compared to the moon.
This month the sun was only about 1 or 2 degrees up as the moon started showing in the trees, so the terrain is dark compared to the moon.
This time the sky was cloudless. Other months the clouds add some texture to the sky.
Hello #Mastodon! My first post, trying to figure this all out.
This is a shot I took of the Northern Lights, in Northern Illinois, at the end of April when we had an unbelievable evening where we could see them at our latitude.
I have always managed to forget to take the headlamp when going out for astrophotography and have always depended on my friend for some red light to set my equipment up for the shots. This time I was going alone and I did not want lack of light to ruin my once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to shoot the #milkyWay at #DeathValley#NationalPark so I stuffed it down the of the jacket that I usually wear. I woke up at 3 AM and drove to #badwaterBasin only to realize the damn thing was nowhere to be found. I did not want to waste time searching for it and so hiked about a mile in total darkness for this shot. When I packed up for the day, I trudged back to the car and found the headlamp right there on the seat along with my jacket! It was so hot that I did not think about wearing my jacket - The things one has to go through for some shots... ;-) #landscape#photography#LandscapePhotography#astrophotography#fujifilm
Messier 13 - The Hercules Cluster. Over 100,000 stars and 25,000 light years away. Imaged with a Vespera scope from my roof 🔭🌌 #astrophotography#astronomy
Newly processed M51-whirlpool galaxy observed last week. Hard to balance nouse reduction vs not destroying data. #astrodon#astrophotography shot with 150mm f5 Newton from Bortle 7-8. Total integration time of 4.5 h.
So my timeline has become a bit of a downer because it's full with depressing content about the climate crisis and how poltics fails to adress it. I don't want to unfollow because it's so important. But it would be nice if it was mixed with other topics from time to time, or just with something uplifting/fun.
So: Any suggestion who to follow for interesting/fun/trivial content? Cool maps, nerdy facts, photo projects, memes, you name it?
@mfi@academicchatter consider following hashtags instead. I follow #astrophotography for example, for soothing pictures of space from time to time in my timeline. and others.
Oh dear, I forgot to turn off a bunch of stuff on the imaging laptop, so it ran out of power after only an hour and a half and I have no dark or bias images to reduce noise.
Still, you can at least see what it is supposed to be, so I guess it's OK for a first try :-)
You're looking at (in blue) the tenuous remains of a star that exploded about 12,000 years ago. The visible area is about the size of your fist at arms-length.
Last night, a dream came true - I saw and captured the Aurora Borealis (aka Northern Lights) over Rhossili Bay. I've had this location in mind for years if the conditions were right. And last night it happened!