Jupiter 29th September 2022

Jupiter was at its closest to the Earth (perigee) on Monday 26th at about 367 million miles, the closest for 59 years. The sky was cloudy that night but cleared yesterday 29th.

Combined two images taken about 30 minutes apart, the times on the image are UTC.

Compiled from two 60 second videos.

Scope: Celestron C8

Mount: Sky Watcher NEQ6 Pro

Camera: Altair Astro 183C

Image Capture: SharpCap

Planetarium: Cartes du Ciel

Stacked with RegiStax

Processed with Affinity Photo

The Rosette Nebula

Latest image of The Rosette Nebula (NGC 2237-39 or Caldwell 49)

March 18th, 20th, 22nd, 23rd, 24th, 26th and 27th 2022

461 x 120s Stacked Lights + Darks and Flats for a total integration of 15hrs 22mins

Scope:     Sky Watcher ED80 DS Pro
Mount:    Sky Watcher NEQ6 Pro
Camera:  QHY268C

Guide scope: Sky Watcher Evoguide 50ED
Guide cam:   Altair Astro GP-CAM 290M

Image capture: SharpCap
Guiding:           PHD2
Planetarium:    Cartes du Ciel

Stacked in DSS.

Processed in Affinity Photo V1.10.5

Reprocessed using StarXTerminator and High Pass filtering

New Pleiades M45

 Latest image of M45 the Pleiades taken on 2021/12/02

140 x 60s lights + Darks and Flats

Scope:     Sky Watcher ED80 DS Pro
Mount:    Sky Watcher NEQ6 Pro
Camera:  QHY268C

Guide scope: Sky Watcher Evoguide 50ED
Guide cam:   Altair Astro GP-CAM 290M

Image capture: SharpCap
Guiding:           PHD2
Planetarium:    Cartes du Ciel

Stacked in DSS.

Processed in Affinity Photo V1.10.4

A new image of M31 (Andromeda Galaxy), M32 and M110

Image compiled over two nights 29th Sept and 1st Oct. Total integration time of 2.5 hours.

Scope:     Sky Watcher ED80 DS Pro
Mount:    Sky Watcher NEQ6 Pro
Camera:  QHY268C

Guide scope: Sky Watcher Evoguide 50ED
Guide cam:   Altair Astro GP-CAM 290M

Image capture: SharpCap
Guiding:           PHD2
Planetarium:    Cartes du Ciel

Stacked in DSS.

Processed in Affinity Photo V1.10.1 and Photoshop Elements 13.

2022-04-21

Reprocessed. Testing RC Astro StarXTerminator Photoshop / Affinity Photo plugin.

https://www.rc-astro.com/resources/StarXTerminator/

StarXTerminator can remove all stars from an image, leaving just the background and object of interest, in this case the Andromeda Galaxy. This tool enables processing the stars separately from the main object, so stars are kept small and more colourful.

Three nights on NGC7000

Combined sessions from 07, 15 and 17 September 2021.

Scope:     Sky Watcher ED80 DS Pro
Mount:    Sky Watcher NEQ6 Pro
Camera:  QHY268C

Guide scope: Sky Watcher Evoguide 50ED
Guide cam:   Altair Astro GP-CAM 290M

Image capture: SharpCap
Guiding:           PHD2
Planetarium:    Cartes du Ciel

Stacked in DSS.

Processed in Affinity Photo V1.10.1 and Photoshop Elements 13.

07/09/2021 - 95 x 60s Lights + Darks and Flats

15/09/2021 - 120 x 60s Lights + Darks and Flats

17/09/2021 - 120 x 60s Lights + Darks and Flats

Total integration time: 5h 35m.

Jupiter and Moons

Taken with the ED80 scope and QHY268C APS-C camera, captured more detail than I was expecting considering the size of the scope and large sensor.

Scope:     Sky Watcher ED80 DS Pro

Mount:    Sky Watcher NEQ6 Pro

Camera:  QHY268C

Image capture: SharpCap

Planetarium:    Cartes du Ciel

Compiled from a well exposed Jupiter and overexposed to image the Moons.

Jupiter video - 125ms exposure for 60sec

Moons video - 2s exposure for 60 sec

Original frame size 1600 x 1200, cropped to 795 x 509 then doubled in size to 1590 x 1018

Processed in Affinity Photo V1.10.1 and Photoshop Elements 13.

Moons left to right Callisto, Europa, Io and Ganymede

NGC7000 - The North America Nebula

First light with a new QHY268C camera.

Scope:     Sky Watcher ED80 DS Pro
Mount:    Sky Watcher NEQ6 Pro
Camera:  QHY268C

Guide scope: Sky Watcher Evoguide 50ED
Guide cam:   Altair Astro GP-CAM 290M

Image capture: SharpCap
Guiding:           PHD2
Planetarium:    Cartes du Ciel

Stacked in DSS.

Processed in Affinity Photo V1.10.1 and Photoshop Elements 13.

95 x 60s Lights + Darks and Flats