I had three nights with clearer skies. I took 70, 3 minute Ha, 70 3 minute Sii, and 100, 3 minute Oiii. 30 Darks, 100 Bias, and 50 flats for each NB filter used. So 12 hours of exposure total. I used Sequence Generator Pro for the heavy work and PSCC for layering, blending, and noise reduction.

I also took R, G, and B lights - 20 each all 3 seconds for the stars but I haven't added those yet. I will eventually eliminate the stars in this photo and replace with the RGB ones.

Gear: Stellarvue refractor, wide field SV70T - ASI1600MM-C cooled ~-20 with .80 reducer/flattener - Atlas Pro Mount.

I pointed the scope in the general direction of NGC-884 a few nghts ago. Had a full moon, but also had a clear sky, so I couldn't resist shooting SOMETHING!!! Wasn't trying to center on the cluster, I put it down in the lower right and did a 2-minute exposure using the ST-80 scope and the QHY camera. A longer exposure and a little better color balance would have helped, but I think it is pretty. The second shot is somewhere near NGC - 7000. I did this also as a 2 mintute shot, then shut down and went to bed. I don't think I was on NGC -7000 cause I am not seeing nebula. Of course, it is possible that 2 minutes with that camera and scope just wasn't enuf exposure. I will try for the nebula again next good night I get. Anyway, they look good as my desktop at work. I like to use my astro photos as my desk top. Gets lots of "ooohhh" and "aaahhh" from some of the other folks. Hey, I am an old man and the job is volunteer - if I let loose a little ego -well - that's fine!

After I finished with Andromeda back on the 13th, I noticed the Pleiades rising in the east so I pointed at them and just let my camera run for a while with 30 second exposures at iso1600 to see what I could get and this is the result.

Also known as the Seven Sisters. M45 in the Messier catalog. An open star cluster containing middle-aged stars in the constellation Taurus. Among the closest star clusters to Earth at an average distance of 444 light years. You can see them in the evening now, rising in the eastern sky through the night. Astronomers estimate that the cluster will remain for about another 250 million years before gravitational interactions within its galactic neighborhood rearrange and disperse the stars. If you ever listen to Coast-to-Coast AM on the radio at night, sooner or later you will hear alien abductee stories or tales of alien visitation and the folks claiming these tales will often say our "visitors" come from the Pleiades 👽🤔


Nikon D810
Explore Scientific 127mm APO refractor
47x30sec iso1600
30 Dark, 30 flat, 33 bias
Aligned/stacked in DSS
Processed in Pixinsight

Veil Nebula (Now The Network Nebula); And The Filamentary Nebula
Supernova remnants.

I always enjoy shooting these to try and get good images.
I've been having intermittant problems and last night substituted another USB cable and it fixed part of the problem.
Then my Atik Infinity shown some non-functioning problems I finally nailed down to my power supply connections.
After those corrections, finally smooth sailing again.

I can't help but wonder what worlds might have perished in the remnants of these final Supernova's...

(I also wonder what fidgiter is renaming these, and why. Veil > Network (?))

Here's the fruits of the evening:

Even though "Florence is gone the humidity and 90s hasn't left until this week, humidity is still high but, the temp is finally in the 80s. I was trying to get the settings set for the Asi174MM cooled and efw. I've never shot with the efw and especially not Mars but, there's no time like the present . Even though setting up and getting my alignment wasn't anything short of a sweat bath, I've got my settings set and I'll be ready when I can get back out after the humidity leaves. Flipped and rotated 2000 fr ea. channel.

Here's my second attempt at Andromeda with my DSLR attached to my 127mm refractor. My last image was riddled with vertical color streaks and I never did figure out why. I tried again last night with a much better result. No color streaking! I don't have a guide camera for my reflector, just a tracking mount so I'm pretty much restricted to 60-90 sec exposures before I start seeing some elongation of the stars. I have a couple of 150 second exposures in this image and they did affect the stars a bit. I threw out a bunch of 150 and 90 second exposures. It's interesting how some frames show nice round stars while others of the same exposure length show badly elongated stars. Anyway, I'm waiting on a control panel from Meade before I can start doing guided imaging with my LX850. It's too big to do Andromeda but should be great with other targets....I hope.

Explore Scientific 127mm refractor with an unmodified Nikon D810 camera.
44 x 30 sec exposures, 8x 90 sec, 5x150 sec. All at iso1600.
30 Dark frames, 33 Bias frames, 30 Flat frames.
Aligned and stacked in Deep Sky Stacker
Processed in Pixinsight following Kayron Mercieca's tutorial.