North Amercian nebula

A few days of clear nights left me with sleepless nights, sleepy days at work, and a lot of exposures on my harddrive. I decided I needed to exploit these nights as much as possible. I tried som filtered exposures. Like the propeller nebula previously posted.
On Friday, I was supposed to go out of town and to a darker place with some guys from my local astroclub. But the weather changed suddenly. And the area was wet with fog. So after waiting for a while for it to clear, I finally gave up. I packed up my gear, and on the way back, I decided to drive up to a spot on the hill overlooking the city. I had been there before to image a comet with another guy. The place was too close to the city to be really dark, but it as high enough to leave the fog and smoke of the city below. And this affected the light pollution. So the night sky was actually quite clear and relatively dark. I decided to try my luck at imaging with DSLR and my own "quasi-h-alpha"-filter that I have described here earlier.
I pointed at the North American nebula (NGC7000) in the constellation Cygnus. Trained the autoguider and set off a number of 10-minute exposures. Then laid back in the front seat of the car and slept for a few hours. The guiding was so-so, but adequate for me to get relatively round stars in the images. When I got home, I processed the images, and was pleased to see a clear and detailed image of the nebula. It probably could do with some more exposure to get more details out of the darker area, but for now, this experiment was successful. The filter I used is simply a deep red filter mostly used to take IR-photos in daylight. Since these are filters for photo-lenses, they do not come in 48mm sizes. The nearest was 46mm. So I ordered a 48mm-46mm stepdown adapter. This made it possible to attach it to any 48mm filter holders. There is, of course, some vignetting. But nothing that a good set of flats cannot compensate. It is NOT a substitute for a true narrowband H-alpha filter. But it is a much better alternative than nothing. And it is cheap. Very cheap.

Tech details : Pentax K5, ISO640, 18x10 min exposures. 0 darks, 0 bias, 20 flats. William Optics FLT98 @F/5 w/ WO AFR-IV. Celestron AVX mount. QHY 5II guide camera controlled by PHD2. Stacking in DSS, processing in FitsLiberator and PS.

Propeller nebula

Ever since I saw an image of this nebula, I wanted to image it. The shape was so unusual. Normally, a nebula is a beautiful caos, but this one? Like s off-shaped propeller. Like the name suggests. A few weeks ago, I started testing my new CCD-camera with narrowband filters. So far, I have only tried the h-alpha filter. It is truly a blessing in the city. Cutting through the light pollution like a knife. So I have tried my luck on a few objects. And the past week, the skies have cleared every night, so I tried longer exposures on the nebula. Many of the exposures had crappy guiding, but I managed 7.5 hours of 10-minute exposures. And I managed to draw the nebula out quite nicely.

Tech spec : Atik 420M camera, -15C, 47x10 min 1x1 binning, 50 darks, 50 bias, 20 Baader 7nm H-alpha filter. William Optics Star 71mm F/4.9 telescope. Celestron AVX mount, QHY5II guide camera controlled by PHD2. Stacking in DSS, Processing in FitsLiberator, PS, and IrfanView.

Pacman

First (almost) light with my CCD-camera. I bought it at NEAF in 2014, but haven't really gotten around to start using it. I even bought a set of Baader NB filters and a wheel. But it had mostly been sitting there unused. On Sunday, the skies clear. Sort of. and I wanted to give it a try. After some checking on starmaps, I found that the Pacman nebula would be nice. Using my 71mm apo refractor, the field would be a bit larger than the nebula, so it would be nicely framed. The chip on the CCD is so small compared to the DSLR that I had a hard time finding and framing the object. It took me a while to get used to working with the "straw-view" of the skies. But I finally found the image on my screen. And I set up a sequence of images to be taken before I went to bed. Let the autoguider do its work and hoped the morning would find a nice image.
I had set up a sequence of 48 5-minute frames through a Baader H-alpha filter. I stacked them, and the image was far from good. When I got back from work, I checked through the images, and found that 16 of them either had bad guiding or had clouds drifting through them. I removed them and restacked. Much better. But still not what I had hoped. I figured that what was missing, was dark frames. The next night, I put the camera in a small plastic box (without lid) outside, set the temperature to the same as the night before (-15C) and let it run through a sequence of darks during the night (which was cloudy). 50 darks each for 30s, 1, 2 and 5 minutes. I picked the 5 minute darks and restacked the image with darks and the flats I had taken the morning of the imaging session. MUCH better. The following is therefore the first "real" light of my new camera. I am hoping for more clear nights in the months ahead so I can gain some experience using CCD with a filter wheel.

Tech details : Atik 420M camera, 32x5 min binning 1x1 through Baader 7nm H-alpha filter. William Optics 71mm f/4.9 5-element flatfield apo, Celestron AVX mount. Guided with QHY 5II and PHD. Stacked with DSS, DDP in FitsLiberator. Enhancements in PS and Irfanview.

Cats and war and peace

There are a number of beautiful nebulas in the constellation of Scorpio. I have tried to image a few of them. The image below is a framing of two of them. The "Cat's Paw" nebula and the "War and Peace" nebula. The first one I understood the naming of. It is obviously a cat's paw. But the second I didn't. Read up on it, and the story is that in infrared, the scientists studying it, thought one part looked like a skull and the other like a dove. Hence War and Peace...
Anyhow. This image is a 6-hour exposure of this area. Taken over two nights in Namibia. For all the objects I imaged, I tried to keep them above 40 degrees altitude. This to minimize the difference in extinction between the highest and the lowest point during the night.

Tech details : Pentax K5, ISO640, 60x6 minutes for a total of 6 hours exposure, William Optics Zenithstar 71mm F/4.9 five-element flatfield apo, Skywatcher EQ6 mount, guided by QHY5II and PHD. Stacked in DSS, DDP by FitsLiberator, processed in PS and IrfanView.

100 billion stars

The Milkyway strecthing across the skies is truly a wonderful sight. Every night, when waiting for my exposures to finish, I lie on a sunbed and just enjoy the view. Watching a few meteors burn in a long streak of light. I brought a wideangle zoom lens with me. And I decided to take a widefield image of the beauty. I needed three images to get most of the parts that are not visible from Norway. At the lower right, the Large Magellan Cloud is visible. Click on the image to get a full view of the Milkyway in all its glory!

Tech details : Pentax K5, ISO640, Sigma 10-20mm @10mm, three panels of 12x5 min each. Stacking with DSS, DDP with FitsLiberator, and stiched with Microsoft ICE. Enhanced and cropped in Irfanview.

Blue horsehead nebula

This beautiful nebula lies in the Rho Ophiuchi area, where the star Jabbah is the "eye" of the horse. This star is the source of the light in the nebula The nebula was a bit difficult to image, given its low brightness. Even with 4 hours of exposure, I needed to do some stretching and enhancements to pull it out of the background.

Tech details : Pentax K5, ISO640, William Optics Zenithstar 71mm 5-element flatfield apo, Mounted on an Skywatcher EQ6 guided by QHY5II and PHD. 24x10 min subs, 30 flats. Stacked in DSS, processed in FitsLiberator, PS and Irfanview.

Antares area

Antares is enveloped in a beautiful reflection nebula. It glows in yellow from the star. Nearby are even more nebulosity that shines in red and blue. And even some dark nebulae to complete the picture. As if the nebulosity wasn't enough, there are even a couple of globular clusters thrown in for good measure. One of the most beautiful patches of the sky. During my trip to Namibia, I got the chance to photograph this object among other beautiful objects on the southern skies. Click on the image for a larger version.
Tech details : Pentax K5, ISO 640, William Optics Zenithstar 71mm 5-element flatfield APO, 24 x 10 min subs, 4 hours total. 30 flats. Stacked in DSS, processed in PS and Irfanview.

The Sun in H-alpha 14th May 2015

Lunt 35mm H-alpha telescope. Capture software FireCapture 2.2. 1.5 mS exposures. Processed in Registax and Gimp.

Jupiter 17th April 2015

This is an image made from a video taken with a 6" f/9 RC. With just above 1300mm focal length, I didn't excactly expect stunning details to pop out. So I am satisfied with actually getting anything out. If you study the picture, you can even see three of the moons of Jupiter.

6" F/9 RC, QHY 5II mono camera, FireCapture 2.2. Processed in RegiStax and GIMP.

Sun 18th April 2015

Lunt 35mm h-alpha telescope. QHY5II mono camera. FireCapture 2.2. Processing in RegiStax and GIMP

M81 & M82

I tried a deep exposure of the area around the M81/M82 pair with my Zenithstar astrograph. I had earlier the night tried to get a few hours on the California nebula, Unfortunately, a lid on my pc-box blew off and slammed into my mount. Made PHD loose its star and the rest of the frames where "jittery" at best. So I settled for trying this pair without guiding. Just to make sure the same time didn't happen again. I managed to get 4 hours of good exposures.

Tech specs : Pentax K5, ISO 400, 81x3 min unguided, Williams Optics Zenithstar F/4.9 5-element, Celestron AVX mount, 20 flats. Stacked with DSS, processed in PS.

Total solar eclipse of March 20th, from Svalbard

Pentax K5, ISO 400, exposures from 1/4000 s to 1/2 second. Williams Optic Zenithstar 71mm f/4.9 5-element flatfield apo. Berlebach tripod, SkyWatcher Star Adventurer camera tracker set to solar rate.
Click on images to get large sizes.

Combined 7 images to get this one

Today (March 21, I managed to take a photo of the Moon at around 32 hours after totality from Harestua Solar Observatory outside of Oslo. The clouds rolled in, so I only managed this before it disappeared behind a band of clouds.

Rosette once more

Yesterday, I managed to polar adjust the mount a bit better. Autoguiding still acted a bit weird. Have to look into that. But with a proper poar adjustment, I was able to take longer exposures at lower ISO. This would mean higher dynamic range on the camera. I actually haven't tried setting the ISO to its lowst and see what happens, but maybe next time.
The Rosette nebula. I never really payed any attention to this one, since The Orion nebula and the Horsehead was nearby. And the elusive Simeis-147 has been on my list of things I wanted to image. But it is by no means a boring nebula. Beautiful in itself, and quite large. So imaging with even the tiny 71mm f/4.9 telescope, it fills large parts of the frame. It probably could do with twice the exposure, but that will have to wait until I get a few nights of clear sky a little bit earlier in the season. Now it goes too low at midnight or thereabouts. Still getting back into processing. But getting better and rmembering more of the tricks. But still have a long way to go. The image is cropped slightly. Also, minimized the stars to make the nebula stand out more from the background.

Tecch specs : Pentax K5, ISO800, 54x2m30s unguided exposures, Astronomik CLS filter, Zenithstar 5-element apo, Celestron AVX mount. Stacked in DSS, processed in PS and Irfanview.

I also added the red channel here to show how much nebulosity has been recorded. If I could just get this out more precicely and smoother.

Flaming Star nebula

I never tried this before, and when the skies cleared yesterday night, I decided to give it a go. Didn't know how much exposure it needed, and the other objects I wanted to image were already too low for any longer integration. It is obvious the image needs some more exposure, and maybe could use some narrowband imaging. It has been a while since I last did any processing of tricky images, so I will probably need some time to get the hang of it again. And an image like this needs som careful processing. That much is clear. And it probably also needs a lot more exposure to get the dynamics of the nebula right.

Tech specs : Pentax K5, ISO 1600, 120x1min unguided exposures, 20 flats, WO 71mm Zenithstar 5-element apo, Astronomik CLS filter, Celestron AVX mount. Stacked in DSS, processed in PS and Irfanview. Cropped from original image.

Virgo-cluster

It is amazing browsing through the Virgo cluster in the sky. It feels like no matter where you point your telescope, you can find at least a couple of galaxies. Makes you feels small and insignificant. What I glorious feeling. :-)
I shot this image halfway centered around M87. The big elliptical galaxy almost in the centre of this image a bit below the middle. Up to the right is the Markarian Chain. A chain of galaxies like pearls on a string. And dottet around in the image are several Messier-galaxies, NGC-galaxies and probably some PGC-galaxies as well. I haven't checked properly, but I guess there are a couple of dozen galaxies in this single image.

Tech specs : Pentax K5, 150x1min unguided exposures, 24 flats, Williams Optic 71mm Zenithstar 5-element apo, Astronomik CLS-filter. Celestron AVX mount. Stacked in DSS, processed in PS and Irfanview. As always : Click on the image for a full version.

O joy! Lovejoy!

Last night was finally a clear night. And I had to exploit it. I drove out of town and brought with me my two refractors. Wanted to use one as the guider for the other. When I arrived, I found that I was unable to reach focus with the guider camera... And I managed to fail the all star polar alignment several times. So in the end I had to settle for 1 minute exposure with the 71mm Zenithstar. One of the objects I tried my luck on, was comet Lovejoy. I missed it slightly (couldn't remember properly its coordinates. When checking the image afterwards, I see that this was a good thing, since I got a few other interesting objects in the same field of view. Down to the left, a weak red nebulosity can be seen. This is Simeis-22. And almost in the middle of the image, lower half, we can see NGC457, the Owl Cluster. And just up to the right from this, the small cluster NGC436. The tail of the comet didn't excactly show up well, but it is there up to the left on the comet. Click on the image for full size.

Tech spec : Pentax K5, ISO 1600, 10x1 minute unguided exposures, 24 flats, 71mm Zenithstar 5-element APO. Celestron AVX mount. Stacked in DSS, processed in PS and IrfanView.

Rosette nebula with new gear

The total solar eclipse of 2015 is coming up, and I'm going to Svalbard to watch it. So, I needed some new gear that would be easy to bring on a plane. I ended up buying a complete new set of everything. A Berlebach wooden tripod, a SkyWatcher Star Adventurer, and the crown jewel of the pack : A William Optics ZenithStar 71mm f/4.9 5-element flatfield apochromat. As always with WO : Beautiful piece of art and engineering.
The weather has been terrible for astronomy this season. Mostly cloudy or partly cloudy. And if there has been any opening in the clouds, it has been for a short while. On wednesday, the clouds finally departed, and I got a chance to try the setup out for a short while. before the clouds came pulling in again. I opted for the Rosette nebula. The Star Adventurer without autoguider was able to give me up to 30 sec exposures without star trails. I could probably have gone a bit higher, but I settled for that. I managed to collect about two hours of exposures. Some of the frames had to be discarded due to clouds, and some due to satellite tracks or airplanes crossing the line of sight. In the end, I had about 1h45m of imaging data. I tried pulling out as much as possible. Not the best result, for sure. But it is OK for testing the telescope and the tracking performance.

Tech details : Pentax K5, ISO 1600, Astronomic CLS filter, WO Zenithstar 71mm F/4.9, Skywatcher Star Adventurer. Stacked in DSS, processed in Maxim, PS and Irfanview.

Lovejoy is in the air again

A new Lovejoy comet is flying across the sky this month. The weather has been dismal to say the least this season, so I have been waiting and waiting for a break in the weather. Tuesday the 13th, the clouds finally parted in the evening. But this night, I had people over, so I didn't have much time to set up the gear. So I opted for real wide field. I originally thought I'd use my 85mm lens, but ended up using my 180mm telephoto lens. It is not as sharp, but I guessed it would show the comet better. I didn't take my time adjusting the polar axis. And I didn't calibrate the Goto. I probably should have. Cause I spent some time trying to find the comet from maps I had on my phone. But eventually I had it in sight. I set my camera timer to take 70 images of 30 second lengths. I forgot to take flats (it has been a while since last time, so I forgot my routine), so I have had some problems digging the tail out from the background. Since I am shooting from the middle of the city of Oslo, there is some light pollution to take into account. I am not very happy with my result, but considering the effort, I guess I cannot expect more. Hopefully, the weather will clear soon so I can make a REAL shot of this comet. BTW : The reason for the "double star" appearance is that there were some clouds that drifted through the field in the middle of the stack, so I removed those frames...

Tech details : Pentax K5, Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar 180/2.8 @5.6, ISO 400, 50x30 sec exposures. Stacked on comet in DSS, processed in PS.