I finally put back together my wide-field setup based on my SkyWatcher 72ED and Nikon D5300. I wanted to give it a quick test last night, since the sky was actually clear for once. It was running nice and smooth until after I fell asleep, when a cable snagged and… Continue Reading... "A quick wide-field of M101"
NGC 2403 is a less popular circumpolar galaxy that lies about eight million light years from us. It was the first target that I attempted to do multiple nights of, and it seems to be bad luck for me over all. This integration had a terrible background, hence my previous… Continue Reading... "NGC 2403"
This was a target that I did last year, but I was not happy with it for several reasons. I decided to re-image it from scratch. I began imaging it at the end of September, and October was nothing but clouds each and every night. I was finally able to… Continue Reading... "Deer Lick Group and Stephan’s Quintet"
A long while ago, I had purchased a 50mm lens for the Nikon D5300 to attempt to do some Milky Way shots. I’ve finally got around to trying it on the EQM-35 mount in star tracker configuration. I was able to polar align decently using the built in polar scope.… Continue Reading... "First lens wide-field"
I was really displeased with how I processed the Western Veil the other day. This field is especially difficult because of all the stars in it obscuring the target. PixInsight’s StarAlignment reported over 50,000 stars, though I imagine the real count is at least double that. I became very overwhelmed… Continue Reading... "Retouching the Veil"
With the moon approaching full, I don’t want to start another full imaging project. I’ve learned my lesson with trying that. Instead, I took a nice clear night and did a little Electronically Assisted Astronomy. From the comfort of my desk, I was able to look at over 10 objects… Continue Reading... "A little moonlit EAA"
The next project for my little 72mm rig was the Veil Nebula. I have not managed to fix my field curvature issues, I need to get some shims or something and play around with the backfocus one night. Also, I’m not super great at processing “bi-color” images. Although the Baader… Continue Reading... "Western Veil"
The Bubble nebula is a real favorite of mine, and I was really unhappy with the way I did it last year. With more patience, as well as a steadier hand in PixInsight, I am very pleased with the results this year. I decided to frame it to include its… Continue Reading... "The Bubble, with a little Salt and Pepper"
While imaging the Iris Nebula this week, I also had my new widefield rig imaging Caldwell 20, the North America nebula. It mostly worked out well, and I got two nights of images totaling about 13 hours of exposure. There seems to be a bit of a bug in the… Continue Reading... "North America nebula"
It’s been a very cloudy summer so far. I haven’t been able to image since June! I was also having a lot of problems with the stock focuser on my SkyWatcher imaging Newtonian, and I wanted to wait until my new Starlight 2″ focuser arrived before I started another big… Continue Reading... "Iris Nebula"
