Decided to use my C11 for capturing galaxies. This was my first target, the Pinwheel Galaxy. The image below is a small size copy as I’m still working on the image server that can hosts good large quality images.
Anyway here it is, only 3 hours of integration time
I’ve decided to use the Celestron 11″ for capturing the galaxies. I have a lot of galaxy pictures that was taken by the Explore Scientific 127ED.
I usually use this scope for planetary targets and I have a couple that has a very good quality specially that they are raw videos.
This one is pretty good as it clearly shows the Great Red Dot in Jupiter
And Saturn here
And of course Mars
Astrobin suffered a data loss where I’m hosting my astrophotographs. Because of that unfortunate event, I’m still re-creating the images in this site. I hope I will be able to find the time to do it but I’m still thinking of where to upload those images. I’m paying a premium to Astrobin because of the specific features that I want like plate solving and watermarking.
Anyway hoping for clear skies.
It’s been a while since I captured the last deep sky object, processed and shared. My astrographs were deleted or for a lack of a better word corrupted from Astrobin. Good thing that the data wasn’t corrupted but I need to upload my images again. This is somehow good because I learned from my fellow amateur backyard astronomer, that never upload the high resolution image to protect yourself from someone getting it and claiming it is theirs. Another reason was the weather, it’s been cloudy and raining. It could have been a good chance for me because of the shelter in place because of the COVID-19 virus.
I want to get back in doing what I love doing. I need to get that inspiration again that somehow got lost. I was too focused on finishing something that is getting delayed. It’s time to get my gear up and running again. Time to remove the dust from my equipment. Time to get back to what I love doing.
It’s September, too bad, wasn’t able to do much here. I started capturing the Pickering’s Triangle last June 26, 2019 and ended July 7, 2019. Taken hundreds of photos but ultimately used 270 frames. 80 Ha, 90 O3 and 100 S2 using the Astronomik narrowband filters.
About the Pickering’s Triangle, it is part of the Veil Nebula. It consists of 3 major parts, the western, eastern veil nebula then the pickering’s triangle.
Funny thing here is when my daughter saw this image. She immediately suggested that the title should be “Fire and Ice” which makes sense because of the color.
The weather wasn’t cooperating for a long time. Wasn’t able to do astrophotography, but one thing that is also good, we were able to take some vacation. This time taking advantage of the snow in the Sierra. Driving up to Lake Tahoe is really challenging and here are some of the video I got from my dash cam. No sound and edited the video to correct the lens curvature or bending to give a more realistic perspective of the video.
NGC 7380 is an open cluster discovered by Caroline Herschel in 1787. William Herschel included his sister’s discovery in his catalog, and labelled it H VIII.77. It is also known as 142 in the 1959 Sharpless catalog. This reasonably large nebula is located in Cepheus.
Imaging telescope or lens:Explore Scientific 127mm ED APO triplet
Imaging cameras:ZWO ASI 120MM-S ZWO ASI 120 mm s, ASI 1600 MM – Cooled ASI1600MM-cooled
Mount:Orion Atlas EQ-G
Guiding telescope or lens:Orion ED80T CF APO Triplet Refractor
Guiding camera:ZWO ASI 120MM-S ZWO ASI 120 mm s
Focal reducer:Explore Scientific 0.7 Reducer/Flattener
Software:Sequence Generator Pro, Photoshop CC 2017, PHD 2 Guiding, Stellarium, PixInsight 1.8 Ripley
Filters:Astonomik S2, Astronomik O3 – 12 nm, Astronomik HA
Accessories:ZWO 8x 1.25″ Filter Wheel (EFW), EQ Switch, EQ Focuser
I photographed the same image last year and this is how it looks like 
One of my October project is capturing the Crab Nebula (M1). It is one of the most interesting object that I want to photograph. It is because that this supernova remnant was observed by Chinese Astronomers in 1054 when a very bright star (brighter than the sun) was observed that disappeared in a couple of days. That supernova left a remnant which is now known as the Crab Nebula.
The image below is just my initial version as I’m still gathering data. This is the result of almost no post processing aside from combining the narrow band channels to RGB.
2 years ago, I took a photo which looks like below.
I’m working on capturing the Elephant’s Trunk Nebula, Wizard Nebula and the Triangulum Galaxy.
The Elephant’s Trunk Nebula is now coming into a good result. Combining the data that I took a year ago with a total of around 11 hours integration, the details are becoming visible. The initial result is here if you want to see the details.
And here was the image taken last year.
I’m still capturing and adding more data and hopefully the weather cooperates. The goal is to get around 20 hours of data and that should be enough to show all the necessary details that I’ll be happy with.The Triangulum GalaxyTwo years started capturing the Triangulum Galaxy. Year by year since equipment and skills are improving, the results are improving also.
[Will update]