Our Beautiful Universe - Photos and Videos

[Drakkith]

Western Veil Nebula
Just finished this image tonight. Lost a lot of exposures due to bad focusing, stray light from the full moon, and other problems, but it still came out alright.

 

[chemisttree]

Western Veil Nebula
Just finished this image tonight. Lost a lot of exposures due to bad focusing, stray light from the full moon, and other problems, but it still came out alright.

View attachment 266285

Very nice. The blue margin on the bottom of the nebula is very prominent in this image. Is this a narrowband image? Same 80mm scope as always?

 

[DennisN]

I just heard about the newly discovered comet NEOWISE.
It is said to be visible in the Northern Hemisphere:

By July 2020 it was bright enough to be visible to the naked eye. For observers in the northern hemisphere, in the morning the comet appears low on the northern-eastern horizon, below Capella. In the evening it can be seen in the north-western sky. In the second half of July 2020 it will appear to pass through the constellation of Ursa Major, below the asterism of The Plough (Big Dipper).

The comet is notable for being one of the brightest visible to observers in the northern hemisphere since Comet Hale–Bopp in 1997. Under dark skies it can be clearly seen with the naked eye and is expected to remain visible to the naked eye throughout most of July 2020.

If the sky stays clear, I'll go out searching for it later.
Fellows, grab your gear!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C/2020_F3_(NEOWISE)

 

[Drakkith]

Very nice. The blue margin on the bottom of the nebula is very prominent in this image. Is this a narrowband image? Same 80mm scope as always?

Yes, same scope and it is narrowband. Using the Hubble pallet.

 

[Andy Resnick]

first attempt comet stacking: no tracking mount (106 1s exposures @400/2.8 ISO 1250).

If it's clear tomorrow I'll try again with the 105mm lens...

 

[Drakkith]

first attempt comet stacking: no tracking mount (106 1s exposures @400/2.8 ISO 1250). If it's clear tomorrow I'll try again with the 105mm lens...

Very nice!

 

[bruha]

Hi, it is beautiful!
Can I ask how is approx. relative angular speed of comet?

Thanks

 

[DennisN]

first attempt comet stacking: no tracking mount (106 1s exposures @400/2.8 ISO 1250).

Gorgeous! I'm still waiting for clear skies here...

 

[Andy Resnick]

Hi, it is beautiful!
Can I ask how is approx. relative angular speed of comet?

Thanks

Slightly faster than the angular speed of the stars? I'm not being snotty, that's the best answer I have... sorry! You can see the comet being 'dragged' along as the stacking program tries to align frames according to the star positions.

 

[Drakkith]

The angular speed is changing too as the comet swings around the sun in its orbit.

 

[bruha]

Hi and thank you for answers.- I was not lucky up to now as did not have possibility to observe really low horizont.. .
But I think it is still time till half of august...

 

[chemisttree]

How is the new camera/video working, Bruha?

 

[bruha]

Hi, I installed similar application for android Open Camera, but did not have possibility up to now. But as I see,
there is option of very high delay (1 min ) so I hope I will get sharper images.

 

[DennisN]

I've been out looking for Neowise, but I had no luck. It was partly cloudy and the spot I chose in the city was not good, too much light pollution. If the sky gets clearer I will try another spot at the northern edge of the city. There are some nice photos of Neowise here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C/2020_F3_(NEOWISE)#Gallery

 

[bruha]

Hi, I attach two Saturn images by phone camera with adapter and Hyperion 8 mm. Anyway, I spot the Neowise yesterday but not very brightly (due to quite light western sky and pollution) -I found as better binocular than scope which has to big magnification to see whole tail and enough bright core.
Lot of succes...

 

[bruha]

Hi, here is next two Saturn images -little bigger , original and Gimp processed. (I try to lower ISO what is resulting in longer exp. time). Anyway, how you are succesfull with Neowise image? (I just observe , but not enough brightly for imaging...

 

[bruha]

 

[bruha]

Hi there is still one image -just very slightly Gimp. processed .

 

[chemisttree]

... Anyway, how you are succesfull with Neowise image? (I just observe , but not enough brightly for imaging...

Here’s mine. Canon 30D with a 50mm at f2.0, ISO 1000, 10 sec exposure. I took ten of these, untracked, and stacked them in Registax 6.0. Levels in Photoshop CS2. Taken on 07/22/2020 at 10:10-10:20 pm CST. Below the big dipper at that point.

 

[bruha]

Hi, it is very nice (so its made just with camera , no scope..?)

have nice day

 

[chemisttree]

Hi, it is very nice (so its made just with camera , no scope..?)

have nice day

Yes, a camera without a scope. I found the same thing as you. It was best viewed with binoculars.

 

[DennisN]

I was on an improvised astronomy tour with one of my friends a couple of days ago, out in the countryside away from city lights. We tried to located the comet, but we failed.
But we saw a lot of other things, e.g. the Moon, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Venus, the Andromeda Galaxy and the Pleiades.

Here's my first Deep Sky photo through my cheap telescope, the Pleiades:
(sadly a bit of startrails are present, I regretfully chose a bit too long exposure time)

Jupiter, stacked frames from a movie (Pipp & Registax & postprocessing in Lightroom):

Moon in the sky, panorama:

The Moon:

Moon detail:

Me with a Moon in the sky in the background, photographed by my friend:

... and a UFO!
Well, rather, it's a water tower in the city built in 1973.
The small dot visible at the lower right of the tower is Venus.

 

[bruha]

Hi, its very nice nad interesting images (up to know I am not able to catch Jupiter "strips"- with high ISO its images some moons but not strips with low ISO. I add as well two Saturns little Gimp processed. Anyway, yesterday I first look at Mizar as I read recently about this sextuple star group and see bright Mizar as two close dots and distantly below not so bright Alcor as one dots. Have you imaging these sometimes ?

Lot of succes

 

[DennisN]

Hi, its very nice nad interesting images (up to know I am not able to catch Jupiter "strips"- with high ISO its images some moons but not strips with low ISO.

I usually don't see the bands/stripes of Jupiter in the scope myself. I get them out through the processing of frames, and postprocessing (lowering exposure and increasing contrast).
However, this time when I was observing with my friend, I tried mounting a couple of different filters to the eyepiece. There was one filter I used which actually made it possible for us to observe the bands of Jupiter directly in the telescope. I don't remember which filter I used, but I will definitely try filters some other time.

You could have a look at this page:
Choosing a Color/Planetary Filter

Anyway, yesterday I first look at Mizar as I read recently about this sextuple star group and see bright Mizar as two close dots and distantly below not so bright Alcor as one dots. Have you imaging these sometimes ?

I haven't. I'm quite new to this, so there is a lot for me to explore.

I am actually planning to buy a new telescope, but I'm still considering which one to go for. There are so many alternatives, so it takes time to think it through. I've been seriously considering one of these Newtonians:

• Celestron NexStar 130SLT Computerized Telescope
• SkyWatcher Star Discovery 150P (with Wifi)

(these are not made primarily for photography, but at least the SkyWatcher can be modified for photography)

Recently I've become quite interested in these two, since they are suitable for photography:

• Sky-Watcher Explorer 130P-DS
• Sky-Watcher Explorer 150P-DS

And I would like to have a mount that supports GoTo and WiFi.

 

[chemisttree]

What will you be looking at with the scope? Mostly. Planets and Lunar? Definitely the SkyWatcher 150PL (longer focal length of 1200mm). Muuuch better gooder on the Moon and planets.

 

[bruha]

Hello and thank you for filter reference, I will study it and choose suitable one..
Have nice day...

 

[DennisN]

What will you be looking at with the scope? Mostly.

You mean besides my neighbors? I guess the sky. Maybe 50-50. Nah, maybe 80% my neighbors and 20% sky.
No, seriously:

What will you be looking at with the scope? Mostly. Planets and Lunar?

I would like an allround scope (Solar system objects and Deep Sky objects). I have a feeling I will focus more on stars and deep sky objects when I get a better scope than I have now. Hopefully the scope will focus too.

Definitely the SkyWatcher 150PL (longer focal length of 1200mm). Muuuch better gooder on the Moon and planets.

Thanks for the suggestion, I will have a look at it!

 

[collinsmark]

Taken from my back patio a few nights ago. Jupiter, Ganymede and Io (plus Ganymede's and Io's shadow transits).

(captured at ~2020-08-15 05:06.9 UT over the course of 9 minutes [3 minutes each for Red, Green, Blue channel]).

Ganymede is easily seen to the right of Jupiter. Shadows of Io and Ganymede are easily seen on Jupiter from left to right, respectively. Io itself is technically visible in the image, just below Ganymede's shadow on the same band edge as its own shadow, but is blending into the background clouds so seamlessly it's practically invisible. Io is performing one heck of a camouflage effect. It can't hide from its own shadow though.

Acquisition details:

Equipment:
Telescope: Meade 10" LX200-ACF mounted on an equatorial wedge
Camera: ZWO ASI290MM
TeleVue 2x Powermate (essentially a Barlow lens) to bring optical system to f/20, focal length 5000 mm.
ZWO Atmospheric Dispersion Corrector (ADC)
ZWO EFW Electronic Filter Wheel
Astronomik Deep-Sky RGB filter set

Adjustments of Atmospheric Dispersion Corrector (ADC) was done visually using an eyepiece immediately before swapping the eyepiece with the filter wheel + camera. (Atmospheric dispersion effects are a lot easier to detect in color, rather than when using a monochrome camera.)

Midpoint timestamp of acquisition: ~2020-08-15 05:06.9 UT, in order of Red, Green, then Blue, 3 min each.
(Total amount of raw data: ~90 GB. That's not a typo. Ninety gigabytes. Almost a tenth of a terabyte. Around 30 GB per channel)

Software and processing:

Autostakkert!
Registax
WinJUPOS
Gimp
(All software packages are free, btw.)

Each channel (Red, Green, Blue) were stacked separately using Autostakkert!
Each channel image was then processed separately using Registax's wavelet sharpening.
Channel images were then de-rotated and combined using WinJUPOS.
Gimp was used for color, contrast and brightness adjustments, and final cropping. Also Gimp was also used for bit of color alignment retouching involving the moons and their shadows (see below).

Jupiter rotates quite quickly, making a full rotation in only about 10 hours. As a rule of thumb, any image or image sequence (of Jupiter) longer than ~3 minutes will show signs of rotation (blurring, etc). My image sequence is 9 minutes total, so I need to account for this. WinJUPOS software can "derotate" images of Jupiter by several minutes, so I used that to derotate the Red and Blue channels to match up with the Green.

WinJUPOS worked quite well for Jupiter itself, but unfortunately, Io, Ganymede and their shadows do not move at the same speed as Jupiter's rotation. So the end result left a little color fringing around the moons' shadows and Ganymede.

So I used Gimp's warping tools to gently "nudge" the reds and blues into the greens in the areas of the moons' shadows and Ganymede (I didn't touch Io itself, since that wasn't even discernible in the individual channels either). I concede that this "nudgining" isn't a particularly graceful solution, but, well, what else am I going to do.

Overall though, I'd call the image mostly a success.

 

[collinsmark]

Here's another attempt at Jupiter. Data was taken the same night as from the last post. Can you believe that I almost threw away the raw data because a hazy cloud passed over?! It wasn't until I decided to process the data for practice that I realized an important lesson.

Lesson I learned: Do not be afraid of occasional light cloud cover when taking planetary images, even if a light cloud passes over during a pass, particularly if the seeing is good. Seeing is king, and sometimes hazy light clouds and good seeing go hand in hand.

Anyway, the processing is pretty much the same as described in the last post, including a bit of "nudging" to correct the color fringing around Ganymede and moon shadows. I think I did a little bit better job this time though. (And Io is sort of visible this time, too!)

Timestamp of acquisition midpoint is 2020-08-15 04:33.7 UT

 

[Drakkith]

C34-Western Veil Nebula in HA and OIII.

 

[Drakkith]

M27-Dumbbell Nebula
HA & OIII Narrowband

 

[davenn]

I usually don't see the bands/stripes of Jupiter in the scope myself. I get them out through the processing of frames, and postprocessing (lowering exposure and increasing contrast).

ohh ? which scope ?

 

[Andy Resnick]

I've been working on creating a few panoramas of various nebulae in the constellation Cygnus for the past few weeks- I'm hoping the final results are print-worthy. The star density in Cygnus is amazing; the large diffuse emission nebulae like IC 1318 and Tulip nebula are tricky to bring out. Last night I took a break from the region near the Tulip nebula and instead imaged NGC 6819; here's the result: first the entire image and then a 1:1 crop:

Deets: 45 minutes total integration @400/2.8 ISO 64, acquired 15 seconds at a time. I am particularly pleased that almost 50% of the acquired images were 'stackable'.

 

[Andy Resnick]

Here's a preliminary panorama of the Milky Way, scaled down to 6%:

Images taken at 105/1.4, 2s @ ISO 64, about 40 images per stack. No tracking mount- took these images while on vacation. There is some trailing apparent at 100%, but very tolerable:

 

[Drakkith]

Monochrome image of NGC 3324 in Hydrogen-Alpha taken several years ago that I only processed just now due to not having any other color data. And since it's in the southern sky I'd have to rent an online telescope to get more data, which I can't do at the moment.

@phinds I think I see your face in here!