rsliva

@rsliva@astrodon.social

Retired Data Engineer who loves maths, physics, astronomy, art and music. And Linux.

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rsliva, to astrophotography

This is the Running Man Nebula in Orion taken on 18th with the Celestron C11. It's only 38 minutes of integration because as I was shooting and watching the sub previews I was convinced the 70% moonlight was impacting the image quality too much. But when I stacked the subs I was surprised by the result.
My son said it's the "Falling Man out of his chair" nebula because of how I framed it.
#astrophotography #Astrodon

rsliva, to astrophotography

I haven't used the Celestron C11 ever since I acquired the 16" Sky-Watcher 400P in November on account of I poached the auto focuser off the C11 and put it on the 400P. This week I poached the auto focuser off the 5 inch refractor and put it on the C11. My main target was NGC 4565, a beautiful edge-on spiral #galaxy that I kept meaning to capture last spring but never did. Hard to see here, but in the original there are so many distant galaxies in the frame.
#astrophotography #Astrodon

rsliva, to astrophotography

My take on NGC 2359 aka Thor's Helmet. Taken with the 16" reflector, the nebula's position in the sky required many short exposures, 656x10s. A shout out to the #ASTAP application for being able to stack the hundreds of subs I throw at it in a reasonably fast time.
#astrophotography #Astrodon

rsliva, to astrophotography

I was able to capture the #supernova SN 2024gy in the #galaxy NGC 4216 last night. I did not highlight it but it is the "star" in the upper right edge of the center galaxy in this photo.
This was taken with the Celestron C11 and the Nikon D750 at ISO 800, 46x120s exposures.
#astrophotography #Astrodon

rsliva, to astrophotography

The Horsehead Nebula with the Flame Nebula.
275 x 10s exposures taken with the 16" reflector using the ASI2400MC-P camera and a dual band filter. The halos around the bright star are an artifact of internal reflection. Artifacts of field rotation are also visible upon close inspection, but for me this is pure joy and why I love my hobby.
#astrophotography #Astrodon

rsliva, to astrophotography

The open clusters Messier 46 top left and Messier 47 right. The small blue ring that appears to be part of Messier 46 is the planetary nebula NGC 2438. Thirty minutes of integration (15x120s) with the unmodified Nikon D750 and 5 inch refractor.
#astrophotography #Astrodon

rsliva, to astrophotography

This is NGC 2174 also known as the Monkey Head Nebula. I've seen it done so well by others here. Taken on the 5th, this is just shy of 2 hours of integration using the 16" reflector with an ASI2400MC-P camera and a dual band filter. The 1800mm focal length of the #telescope and the full frame camera sensor results in a fairly large head!
#astrophotography #Astrodon

rsliva, to astrophotography

I targeted the Rosette Nebula again with the 16" reflector #telescope but this time for 2.5 hours instead of just 23 minutes which I previously shared here. But the tracking on the Dobsonian mount was flakey all night and I ONLY got 41 minutes worth of decent shots. Crazy.
#astrophotography #Astrodon

rsliva, to astrophotography

The weather has been prohibiting but I setup anyway and just shot through the clouds. It is amazing to me how much light a 5 inch #telescope can pull in even when appearing blocked.
I went with a bright target, Messier 42 and 43. The clouds had a bigger impact on the bright stars than the nebula. This is only 24 minutes of integration since eventually the clouds won out.
#astrophotography #Astrodon

rsliva, to astrophotography

Despite the -4F temperature last night I took the opportunity to shoot some #galaxies and friends. Here is the planetary nebula Messier 97 with the galaxy Messier 108. They make a nice pair.
3 hours (60x180s) of integration using the unmodified Nikon D750 on a 5 inch refractor.
#astrophotography #Astrodon #freezing

rsliva, to astrophotography

The #galaxies M81 (center), M82 (top), and NGC 3077 (left).
This is a combo stack of two previously stacked images, one from the 10th of this month and the other from February of last year. Both were taken with a Nikon D750 on a 5 inch refractor. Last year's used 3-minute exposures at 800 ISO and this year's used 2-minute exposures at 200 ISO. Last year's was better. But the combo is better still.
#astrophotography #Astrodon

rsliva, to astrophotography

The reflection nebula Messier 78. Taken over two nights, this is 3 hours (91 x 120s) of integration using an unmodified Nikon D750 on a 5 inch refractor #telescope.
#astrophotography #Astrodon

rsliva, to astrophotography

Back onto the Messier capture project. Most of what I'm still missing are star clusters. This is Messier 38 center, and NGC 1907 bottom.
#astrophotography #Astrodon

rsliva, to astrophotography

El Nino is another name for No Astrophotography.
Here is the globular cluster M15 taken last night between short breaks in the clouds. Of the 140 30-second exposures only 24 were usable. Then I had to haul everything back in before it rained again. Next up for us is snow.
#astrophotography #Astrodon

rsliva, to astrophotography

Still processing data. I acquired 3 hours of data on the Orion Nebula using the 16" reflector, and it is my best capture to date, but the whole nebula has been shared often so instead here is a closeup of the Orion Nebula near the Trapezium star cluster giving a hint at the detail the larger mirror is capable of.
#astrophotography #Astrodon

rsliva, to astrophotography

Yet another M33 shot.

In my recent marathon I tried M33 again, and as usual I was "meh".
What if I stacked 2 "meh" together?
I took 2 meh photos taken with the 16" that were already stacked, and stacked them. Not re-stack, but stack the stacked. Even though they had been built from different exposures and framing I used to stack the stacked together with no darks, flats, or biases since all that was done in the first stacking. It worked.

rsliva, to astrophotography

A quick 40 minute shot of the Bubble Nebula.
300x8s with a 16" reflector.

rsliva, to astrophotography

This photo of NGC 7331 used 30-second exposures since its position due east of me negated most of the field rotation. I've tried to get what I would consider a satisfactory photo of this galaxy many times. I'm getting closer. Stephen's Quintet is at the left edge, so I didn't crop as much of the coma as usual. This is 160 minutes (320x30s) using the 16" reflector.

rsliva, to astrophotography

This is only part of NGC 1499 as the whole nebula won't fit in the field of view. Also called the California Nebula, I guess this would be Santa Barbara.
This is the longest shot taken so far with the 16" reflector, 676x15s exposures. The nebula is at a good location in the sky for my latitude resulting in very little field rotation.
#astrophotography #Astrodon

rsliva, to astrophotography

We had 4 clear nights in a row and I set up 2 scopes each night to shoot.
Robots! Data!
I have well over 100GB to process. What I have so far isn't too bad so I will share a few if you all don't mind.
This is NGC 253.
16" reflector, 300x8s exposures.

rsliva, to astrophotography

Since I acquired the 16" I've been hankering to shoot the Orion . I finally was able to capture 36 minutes on the target two days ago and I was not disappointed.

rsliva, to astrophotography

It's late, may as well post.
An attempt to move the 16" #telescope to the back of the house and a darker sky was too much for my back. So I'll stick to shooting to the east and setting targets like Messier 13 before it says goodbye.
Sky-Watcher 400P scope and ASI2400MC-P camera, 211x8s exposures.
#astrophotography #Astrodon

rsliva,

@petmos @shawncarter NOT so impressive. I should clarify that it does have motors on each axis. A purist would say it is not a Dobsonian then, but if I turn off the motors it is? But I guess it isn't when I turn them on? Anyways I have stopped calling it a Dobsonian in my posts not to confuse.

rsliva, to astrophotography

This is what happens when dew forms on the 16" mirror. I don't have any dew mitigation yet and thought I could shoot just one more target. Nope. This is a minimally processed photo of Messier 77 and NGC 1055. From the location of the center of the circles it looks like the collimation is off!
Maybe this is how Van Gogh saw the world.

rsliva, to astrophotography

I'm very isolated, with my nearest neighbor a quarter mile away, and it's a mile away to my next neighbor. And so on. So it should be dark here, but there's a lone street/security light in the middle of the property and it spoils any shot taken in that direction. The electric co-op owns it but I pay for it. My spouse says we should have them turn it off. It would be very dark.
Here's M33 taken just west of the light. Lots of data lost to glow.

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