Working on posting my past astrophotography photos from my Instagram account [url=https://pixelfed.social/BiminiBat]@BiminiBat[/url]---- My grandpa and I started astrophotography in the summer of 2021 and have fallen in love with the hobby ever since. It has been a fun journey!
Before I collected the last data of the Elephant's Trunk this month, I slewed to the Ring Nebula before it got fully dark out and imaged it for 17 minutes with the L-eNhance filter. It was considerably smaller than I thought it was going to be at 700mm of focal length, but BlurXTerminator and the 1.1"/pixel resolution came in clutch and allowed me to crop the image substantially to reveal the Ring up close.
34x30s lights (17 minutes), flats, biases stacked and edited in PixInsight.
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🌌 Ring Nebula (M57)
🔭 Meade RB-70 (Scope), SkyWatcher GTi (Mount)
📸 Player One Ares-C Pro (Main)
📅 Bloomington, MN (Bortle 8)
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#ringnebula #nebula #nebulae #planetarynebula #planetarynebulae #m57 #pixinsight #optolong #optolonglenhance #astrophotography #astronomy #playerone #playeroneastronomy #arescpro #playeronearescpro #skywatchergti
Here are some photos that I re-edited with PixInsight over the rainy week. The Fish Head and Cat's Eye are two favorites of ours that I felt needed to be re-done and they are astonishing. The Horsehead photo also needed a new edit because the previous background extraction done with GraXpert was too strong and took a lot of the nebula with it. I've listed the objects in order below:
1. Fish Head Nebula (3.42 hours)
2. The Cat's Eye Nebula (12.28 hours)
3. Horsehead Nebula (9.13 hours)
4. Bode's Galaxy (2.67 hours)
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#nebula #astrophotography #astronomy #photography #telescope #pixinsight #blurxterminator #starxterminator #graxpert
After a few clear nights on the Elephant's Trunk, I had one more clear night before a week of rain so I went after a bright target that would look decent even with just a night's worth of data on it. The Western Veil Nebula (aka the Witch's Broom) is pretty bright object, and we haven't had a chance to image the Veil the past two years, so I gave it a shot. I got 3.85 hours on it with the Newtonian, and it turned out pretty good.
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🌌 Western Veil/Witch's Broom Nebula (NGC 6960)
🔭 Celestron Astromaster 114 (Scope), Skywatcher GTi (Mount)
📸 Player One Ares-C Pro (Main), ZWO 120mm Mini (Guide)
📅 Bloomington, MN (Bortle 8)
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#highpointscientific #veilnebula #nebula #ngc6960 #astrophotography #astronomy #bloomingtonmn #mn #minnesota #minnesota #bortle8 #bortle8sky #optolong #optolonglenhance #playerone #arescpro #playeronearescpro #pixinsight #photography
I’m so glad that I spent more time on the Elephant’s Trunk! A lot of faint nebulae were visible in my last image but now that I have over 10 hours on it, it all just pops out. It gives the trunk a lot of contrast, revealing all of the detailed structure it has. I even gave BlurXTerminator a go which fixed the star shapes and sharpened up the nebulae, and made the already-detailed trunk even more incredible.
421x90s lights (10.53 hours), darks, flats, biases stacked and edited in PixInsight.
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🌌 The Elephant's Trunk (IC 1396)
🔭 Meade RB-70 (Scope), SkyWatcher GTi (Mount)
📸 Player One Ares-C Pro (Main)
📅 Bloomington, MN (Bortle 8)
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#highpointscientific #nebula #elephantstrunknebula #ic1396 #photography #astrophotography #astronomy #pixinsight #graxpert #playerone #playeroneastronomy #sonysensor #arescpro
My grandpa imaged the Needle Galaxy over 4 nights this week. He got almost 8 hours on it but we had to remove about 2 hours bringing the total to 6. I love how this one turned out! Lots of detail and color, and all of that has been carefully preserved in the core. It's naturally brighter than the rest of the galaxy, but dim enough where you can still make out the details in it.
To the left of the Needle is it's satellite galaxy NGC 4562. To the bottom right of the Needle is it's other satellite galaxy IC 3571, represented in a small blue smudge, which is confirmed to be interacting with the Needle due to a bridge of material between them.
90x240s lights (6 hours) stacked and edited in PixInsight
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🌌 The Needle Galaxy (NGG 4565)
🔭 Celestron EdgeHD 8" (Scope), Celestron CGEM-II (Mount)
📸 ZWO 294MC Pro (Main)
📅 Jefferson, WI (Bortle 5)
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#highpointscientific #needlegalaxy #ngc4565 #zwo #294mcpro #zwo294mcpro #galaxy #astrophotography #astronomy #jeffersonwisconsin #wisconsin #jeffersonwi #space
Wow. My first night out with the Ares-C Pro was a HUGE success! I got 4.4 hours on the Elephant's Trunk this weekend, and it blew my last image out of the water! I was expecting there to be a big difference, but not nearly this immense! I can't wait to see what else I can do with more exposure time!
I have another clear night or two this week, so I'll try to get at least 10 hours on it. I'm not sure how much of a difference it will make, but it should reduce the noise and hopefully bring out more of the faint dust in the background. And better yet, this data was taken while the camera was uncooled. I unfortunately missed the part mentioning that the power cable wasn't included with this camera so I couldn't use it during my first night, but luckily I found an old cable that met its power requirements.
177x90s lights (4.43 hours) in narrowband, flats, darks, biases stacked and edited in PixInsight, and background extraction and noise reduction applied with GraXpert.
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🌌 The Elephant's Trunk (IC 1396)
🔭 Meade RB-70 (Scope), SkyWatcher GTi (Mount)
📸 Player One Ares-C Pro (Main)
📅 Bloomington, MN (Bortle 8)
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#highpointscientific #nebula #elephantstrunknebula #ic1396 #photography #astrophotography #astronomy #pixinsight #graxpert #playerone #playeroneastronomy #sonysensor #arescpro
It''s nice to be back at Eagle Lake Observatory again! I figured I would go after the Cygnus Wall in the North American Nebula at this Bortle 5 site as I did a shot of it last year at my grandparent's house in broadband so it would be a nice way to see how my skills have improved, especially since this will be my last time under the stars with my trusty DSLR. Yep, you've heard that right, I'm finally upgrading to a dedicated astronomy camera! I've set my sights on the Player One Ares-C Pro (533MC Pro equivalent) and I'm excited to see how it performs! Unfortunately, my shot of the Cygnus Wall seems it is significantly better than my recent attempt at it. Still, I got 3.6 hours on it last year and only got 2.6 this year, and had a slightly better signal after comparing the raw data, so the comparison isn't that great. However, it was just for fun and the DSLR has proved to me that it can do great things when you put the time into each object.
51x180s lights (2.55 hours), darks, flats, flat darks, biases stacked and edited in PixInsight, background extraction and noise reduction applied by GraXpert
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🌌 North American Nebula (NGC 7000)
🔭 Celestron Astromaster 114EQ (Scope), SkyWatcher GTi (Mount)
📸 Canon Rebel T4i (Main), ZWO 120mm Mini (Guide)
📅 Minnesota Astronomical Society (Bortle 5)
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#astrophotography #canon #canonrebelt4i #playerone #playeroneastronomy #imx533 #533mcpro #playeronearescpro #arescpro #sony #sonyimx533 #canonrebel #minnesota #mn #eaglelakeobservatory #minnesotaastronomicalsociety #maseaglelake
I went after the Elephant’s Trunk last week, and it didn't turn out as expected… I first got 3.4 hours of data with my Newtonian and L-eNhance filter only to realize how bad the reflections are in the tube specifically when using it with the filter. These reflections cause a big orange/blue ring to appear on the outside of the frame. It was visible in my photo of the Rosette in March, but only slightly. However, this time it was much worse. I later realized that it was pointed near a bright light which explains why this ring was amplified, but it's still there nonetheless. It's odd how clean the gradients are now when shooting in broadband with that scope, and how many more gradients are present when shooting with the dual narrowband filter. But on the bright side, even shooting broadband in the city with the Newtonian was a bad experience (with the donut sometimes rendering a stack unusable), so it really has come a long way over the past year.
I went after the Elephant’s Trunk again a few nights later, this time with the refractor and away from the light, and it turned out pretty good with just 4 hours of data. There is a lot of walking noise because I can't attach my autoguide to the refractor yet to dither, and there's not much signal due to me shooting with an old unmodified DSLR at f/10. But if I get more time on it, the nebula will really start to pop out; like with my Rosette and Horsehead photos.
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🌌 Elephant's Trunk Nebula (IC 1396)
🔭 Celestron Astromaster 114EQ" (Scope), Meade RB-70 (Scope), SkyWatcher GTi (Mount)
📸 Canon Rebel T4i (Main), ZWO 120mm Mini (Guide)
📅 Bloomington, MN (Bortle 8)
My grandpa captured the Fireworks Galaxy in the middle of May and got almost 5 hours on it! The Fireworks Galaxy is located on the border between the constellations Cepheus and Cygnus. It is a bright, colorful galaxy with a yellowish core, large clusters of blue stars, and many Ha regions (which aren't shown in this image). It's called the 'Fireworks' Galaxy because 10 supernovae have been observed in it over the past century.
70x240s lights (4.67 hours), flats, darks, and biases stacked in Deep Sky Stacker, edited in Siril and background extraction and noise reduction applied with GraXpert.
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🌌 Fireworks Galaxy (NGC 6946)
🔭 Celestron EdgeHD 8" (Scope), Celestron CGEM-II (Mount)
📸 ZWO 294MC Pro (Main), ZWO 224MC Color (Guide)
📅 Jefferson, WI (Bortle 4.5)
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#fireworksgalaxy #galaxy #ngc6946 #spiralgalaxy #astrophotography #astronomy #photography #highpointscientific #jefferson #jeffersonwi #wisconsin #jeffersonwisconsin #wi #suburb #suburban #suburbs #celestron #edgehd #edgehd8 #schmidtcassegrain
After three years, we're graduating from Siril and are upgrading to PixInsight! I used this image of M106 to practice my editing skills in the program. I edited it M106 different times (only the 3rd shown on this post!): in the first edit I used very basic tools, in the second I incorporated curves and SPCC, and in the third, I did a full process using GraXpert, SPCC, masks, histogram, and curves. It went from being very simple to a bit more complex, but the quality of the edits followed.
Looking back, I'm not sure why my second photo is almost worse than my first lol, but I must have learned from it because my third one turned out extremely well, and I'm really getting to know the program.
I really like the final edits I got from both PixInsight and Siril. The main difference between the two is the color. Technically, the one edited with PixInsight is more accurate color-wise, but I also really like the pink/purple look of the galaxy from the Siril edit. However, it was way easier not to overexpose the core of M106 using Pixinsight thanks to the mask and curves tools, instead of using Generalized Hyperbolic Stretch Transformations, which was my best option in Siril.