TAG Nebula
Deep Sky / Long Exposure Photography
IC1396, Emission Nebula in Cepheus
Sometimes you luck out when you’re “just testing”. I am still shaking out the kinks in my 350D workflow. I put the Ha filter back on the 350D last night. Focusing with […]
Deep Sky / Long Exposure Photography
NGC7000, The North America Nebula in Cygnus
This is my first HaRGB shot. It’s a combination of grayscale luminance data that I captured while camping at Coyote Lake, CA over the weekend, and color data that I captured from […]
Deep Sky / Long Exposure Photography
NGC7000, The North America Nebula, from Coyote Lake, CA
This is my deepest image yet of NGC7000, 5 full hours (15x20m). This is with my normal Levels-and-Curves treatment in Photoshop, but it’s the full FOV. This was first light for my […]
Deep Sky / Long Exposure Photography
NGC281, The PacMan Nebula in Casseiopeia
This is my first shot of NGC281. I attempted it a couple of years back, but came up essentially empty. Normally, the Casseiopeia Milky Way is not available until autumn, but I […]
Deep Sky / Long Exposure Photography
NGC 6888, The Crescent Nebula in Cygnus, from Coyote Lake, CA
In retrospect, I probably should have shot RGB from the dark sky site and left Ha for the backyard. In addition, it was very windy, so I probably should have dumped Cassie […]
Astro knowledge / Deep Sky / Long Exposure Photography
M57, The Ring Nebula in Lyra
The C9.25 finally brings some pixels to this tiny object. Shooting with a DSLR brings a different perspective on “useful astronomy targets” compared with most dedicated astrocams. In the beginning, there was […]
Deep Sky / Long Exposure Photography
Imperfection
Another long clear night. Since the webcam was already installed and focused, I started the evening working WCS to refine my polar alignment. Azimuth was essentially perfect. Elevation started around 200 and […]
Deep Sky / General / Long Exposure Photography / Maintenance / Observatory / Observing Reports
Five hours of Guided images
…with zero dropped subframes. I spent a little time refining the polar alignment last night. I am still getting some drift while running unguided; I calculated it to be about 6′ from […]
Deep Sky / Gear / Long Exposure Photography / Mount / Telescope
Veronica gets a shot at the NJP
Buoyed with the success of the NJP with Pumpkin, I decided to start upping the ante. Pumpkin was mounted offset to one side, but I decided that Veronica should be balanced over […]
Deep Sky / Gear / General / Long Exposure Photography / Observing Reports
NGC2244, The Rosette Nebula in Monoceros
With the newly-tuned mount, I decided to try Pumpkin on some more unguided imaging. After the “baseline” from the previous night, I now wanted to see what this MFWB could really do. […]
RECENT UPDATE
Polar Alignment Calculations
Here’s a page that derives Polar Alignment Calculations. (update 5/2020: the original site is gone, so I found the text on Wayback and am inserting it below. This is by the original […]
Gear / Observatory / Telescope
Special Guest Star takes the mount at Hilltop O
The Astro Jedi needed somewhere to store his light sab—- I mean, bucket, and I was only too happy to accommodate him. I have decided that I need to come to a […]
General / Maintenance / Observatory
Dome shutter is motorized again!
I finally decided to bite the bullet and fix the shutter motor. Things went sideways last winter, and I’ve been opening the shutter manually (and tying it shut with rope, so we […]
Trixie 2017 – tube mods
I finally got around to cutting the MTA-UTA tubes to length; the only eyepiece that would come to focus with the focuser spacer in place is the Televue 55mm Plossl. If I […]
MOST COMMENTED
Observatory
Observatory 2.0 – Time has come today!
General / Maintenance
First Light, a deeper look
Mount / Observatory / Telescope
Observatory 2.0 – Result!
Observatory
Observatory 2.0 – The Pier goes in
Gear / General / Maintenance
Martin Farmer Wormblock installation notes
Deep Sky / Long Exposure Photography
NGC2244, The Rosette Nebula
Deep Sky / Long Exposure Photography
Another beautiful night.