Recent DSO Images

The marriage of the Meade DSI, the C8 SCT and the Advanced VX mount is finally starting to pay off. All of my DSO imaging is done unguided. I do perform a two star align followed by four star calibration with an all star polar alignment (ASPA) on a star near the meridian. This is usually enough to give me nice round stars for less than 30 sec exposures unguided.

All images were acquired using Meade Envisage software in FITS file format. NASA / Fits Liberator 3 freeware was used to extract and enhance  R, G and B TIFF files. Paintshop Pro was used to colorize the TIFF files, apply touches to remove blemishes and to recombine them by merging layers.

                Comet C/2013 X1 PANSTARRS

NGC 884 -- Open Cluster

NGC7635 -- Bubble Nebula

NGC869 -- Open Cluster

NGC457 -- Owl Cluster

NGC7331 Spiral Galaxy

Cold night. Bright Open Clusters.

The plan for 1/11/16 was to acquire images of  open star clusters M35, M36, M37, M38, NGC1664, NGC2129, NGC2158 and M78. Only M35, M36, M37, M38 and NGC2129 yielded pictures worth processing.  Images were acquired by averaging 25 to 50 8s exposures. Celestron SCT8, Celestron 0.63x field flattening focal reducer, Antares 0.5x focal reducer. Imaging was done using Celestron AVX mount using 2+4 star alignment and ASPA (all star polar alignment). Otherwise imaging was unguided. 

Images were acquired in LRGB FITS format. Fits Liberator freeware from NASA/ESA was used to extract the red, green and blue TIFF files and make adjustments to bring out faint stars. JASC Paint Shop Pro 9 was used to colorize and merge the R, G, B layers to get the final images. 

M35

M36

M37

M38

NGC2129