Wednesday, July 27, 2022

7-26-2022 : A Comet and Star Clusters


Comet C/2017K2 PANSTARRS

IC4756

NGC 6823

IC4665


IC4725

M11 (Wild Duck Cluster)

M26 (NGC6694)

NGC6709

Thursday, July 21, 2022

July 20, 2022 Summer Favorites

All images were acquired with Celestron 8 SCT on AVX mount with ZWO ASI294MC Pro using Starizona Night Owl operating at F/4 and light pollution filter.  Subs for the comet, Sh2-142 and Sh2-155 were 30s typical for the Harvard, MA area. I'll revisit the Sharpless targets with 60s exposures in the future to try to bring out more nebulosity. Exposures respectively for M27(my better half's favorite)  and M13 were 8s and 15s. 

M13
Comet C2017K2 PANSTARRS
Sharpless 155
Sharpless 142
M27

Wednesday, July 13, 2022

Globular Clusters

This is the time of the year to image globular clusters, some of my favorite targets. The bulk of them tend to be low in the southern sky which is a challenge considering seeing and refraction. M13 was included in the previous post. Several others acquired on the same night appear below. M55 was acquired on a later night. Images were averaged from 30x30s subframes acquired at 120 unity gain. Configuration was Celestron 8 , Starizona NightOwl 0.4x focal reducer, ZWO ASI294MC Pro CMOS camera. 

Messier 3

Messier 4

Messier 5

Messier 10

Messier 12

M55

Tuesday, July 12, 2022

Seasonal Favorites

It's that time of the year, mid summer, to revisit old favorites. I never tire trying to better myself imaging these or other targets. All my recent imaging has been done from increasingly light polluted Harvard MA. Poorly targeted and excessive LED lighting is really trying to kill off night. Nonetheless the Milky Way can still be glimpsed overhead from Harvard. Typically 30 to 60 30 second exposures are acquired at F/4 using the Starizona Night Owl focal reducer corrector, light pollution filter and ZWO ASI294MC Pro using 120 unity gain. Subframes are stacked and averaged with Autostakkert! 3.  Images histograms stretched and images processed in PaintShop Pro 2021. Additional processing done in using Microsoft Photos bundled with Windows 10. 

IC5146 - Cocoon Nebula

Messier 8 - Lagoon Nebula

Messier 16 - Eagle Nebula

Messier 17  - Swan or Omega Nebula

Messier 20 - Triffid Nebula

NGC7023 - Iris Nebula

NGC7380

NGC6992 Eastern Veil Nebula

Messier 13 - Hercules Globular Cluster