TAG Nebula
Deep Sky / Gear / Long Exposure Photography / Maintenance
NGC 6960, The Witch’s Broom, part of the Veil Nebula in Cygnus
Another attempt at “The Witch’s Broom” portion of the Veil. Despite this being almost 3 hours of integration time, This still came out pretty dim and noisy. Maybe 3-minute subframes would be […]
Deep Sky / Gear / Long Exposure Photography
M16, The Eagle Nebula in Serpens
I was able to get an hour of M16 tonight, and it was earlier in the night, so the dew/temperature (causing focus shift) wasn’t as bad. It’s still quite a strange object […]
Astro knowledge / Deep Sky / Gear / Long Exposure Photography
M27, The Dumbbell Nebula in Vulpecula
Another attempt. I’m getting the idea that longer integration times lead to better detail and noise reduction…
Deep Sky / Gear / Long Exposure Photography
M16, The Eagle Nebula in Serpens
Up way too late in early June, decided to try out some of the summer nebulae. Only picked up 11 frames before loss of guidestar behind the roof of the observatory. Not […]
Astro knowledge / Deep Sky / Gear / Long Exposure Photography / Observing Reports / Optics
M42, The Great Orion Nebula
fullsize image I finally decided to try out Veronica (the 8” f/5 Newtonian) in the observatory, instead of the ED80. The reflector has two distinct advantages over the ED80; first, it’s about […]
Deep Sky / Gear / Long Exposure Photography
NGC 2237, The Rosette Nebula in Monoceros
An example of serendipity. I was trying to find this nebula, was using GOTO (on the CG-5GT), couldn’t be sure I had it, so I only shot one frame of it. Turns […]
Deep Sky / Gear / Long Exposure Photography
M42, The Great Orion Nebula
Never thought it would take this long to get back to M42… This was my original attempt, a stack of ten 2min subframes. Here’s the image with some more data added (details […]
Deep Sky / Gear / Long Exposure Photography
M20, The Trifid Nebula in Sagittarius
I am continually amazed at how much data the modified camera is picking up down in the light polluted muck near the horizon. The weird “box” artifact is from the application that […]
Deep Sky / Gear / Long Exposure Photography
NGC 6888, The Crescent Nebula in Cygnus
This is my first attempt at the Crescent Nebula. I was surprised at how well it showed up in the final image. Lots of tendrils.
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.