Recent Images

The Flame Nebula and the Horsehead Nebula

NGC 2024 and B33 IC 434

Orion

09/01/25

This is from the third clear night in a Week! I have captured both the Flame and the Horsehead before but not together. The bright star is Alnitak, the Eastern star of Orion's belt. The Flame, next to Alnitak, but in front of, not associated with it, is an Emission nebula and the iconic Horsehead dark nebula Barnard 33 is on the edge of the HII star cloud IC 434.  I captured this with 60 second exposures to help prevent Alnitak from becoming too saturated. 219 x 60 second LRGB. 3 hours 40 minutes total exposure. Humidity and frost threatened the session again so I parked the scope at 22:20 just prior to the meridian flip. There was a waxing gibbous Moon not too far away so I'm pleased this came out as well as it did. The PI Lockhart Gradient Removal Tool is a life saver!

Stellarium, Pegasus Unity, CPWI, NINA, PHD2. Stacked and Processed in PixInsight 1.9.2. 

The Orion Nebula

Messier 42

NGC 1976

Orion

08/01/25

The Orion Nebula M42 is a diffuse nebula in Taurus just below Orion's belt. It is one of the brightest nebulae and is visible with the naked eye. My mount refused to guide so I captured this one with 30 second exposures. 144 x 30 second LRGB. 1 hour 12 minutes total exposure. Humidity and frost ended the session again.

Stellarium, Pegasus Unity, CPWI, NINA, PHD2. Stacked and Processed in PixInsight 1.9.2. 

Messier 46

M46

NGC 2437

Puppis

08/01/25

One more to add to my Sky Searchers Astronomy Forum Messier quest. M46 is an Open Star Cluster but it has the additrional bonus of a small Planetary Nebula too. My mount was unable to guide for some reason and the plan was to capture 30 second exposures but I forgot to change the exposure times in the NINA sequence so this image was captured using 3 minute unguided exposures. 18 x 180 second LRGB. 54 minutes total integration.

Stellarium, Pegasus Unity, CPWI, NINA, PHD2. Stacked and Processed in PixInsight 1.9.2. 

Taurus Open Cluster Triplet

NGC 1746, NGC 1750, NGC 1758

Taurus

08/01/25

This is the Sky Searchers Astronomy Forum January Deep Sky Challenge target.  A fine collection of clusters. All in they look like a long thin cluster across the centre of my image with a more distant cluster above and off centre to the East. Then the pair of clusters are bordered by lines of stars above and below. The field is littered with loads of interesting asterisms scattered about.

Stellarium, Pegasus Unity, CPWI, NINA, PHD2. Stacked and Processed in PixInsight. 

The Rosette Nebula

Caldwell 49 and Caldwell 50

NGC 2244 and NGC 2238

Monoceros

02/01/25

The Rosette Nebula C49 is the H II region of a giant gas cloud. The stars in the Open Star Cluster C50 formed in the nebula. This is my first astro image for 2025. 59 x L, 19 x RGB @ 180 seconds. Total integration is 5 hours 48 minutes. I could have done another hour or so but the temperature had dropped to -3°C and the humidity was at 99% all night. Everything was covered in frost.

Stellarium, Pegasus Unity, CPWI, NINA, PHD2. Stacked and Processed in PixInsight. 

The Phantom Galaxy

Messier 74

Pisces

29/12/24

I did 15XL 5XRGB @ 2 minutes each then copied them all so that PI could stack them. This one would have been better in the SCT but I used the refractor since it is on the pier! So with that and the limited integration, I was quite pleased with how it came out.

Stellarium, Pegasus Unity, CPWI, NINA, PHD2. Stacked and Processed in PixInsight. 

The Pleiades

Messier 45

Taurus

29/11/24

I set up just to calibrate my guiding as I put the wrong focal length into PHD2 last time! And mist was forecast for 18:00. The guiding calibration went well and the mist stayed away so I managed another go at M45. This time I used two minute subs and got a better result than the last attempt using one minute subs. My NINA sequence was capturing 9xL, 3xR, 3xG, 3xB for five iterations. Then I packed up, not wanting to subject everything to any more 99% humidity. I got almost three hours integration. 

Stellarium, Pegasus Unity, CPWI, NINA, PHD2. Stacked and Processed in PixInsight. 

Mirach's Ghost

NGC 404

Andromeda

20/10/24

This is NGC 404, Mirach's Ghost. It's a Lenticula Galaxy, almost lost in the glare of the bright star Mirach, 7 arc-minutes away. Captured using the 110mm APO and the ASI1600MM in LRGB. I managed 30 odd minutes of clear view over the roof tops before the 92% lit Moon rose with the Pleiades. So I captured about half the time with the Moon about 30° away. I tried 2 minute exposures and was pleased to see that Mirach's Ghost was well clear of the star's interference so the Lost Pearl can be seen as a distant Galaxy with a bright core to the right and below Mirach.

18 x 120 seconds Luminance, 6 x 120 seconds RGB. Stellarium, Pegasus Unity, CPWI, NINA, PHD2. Stacked and Processed in PixInsight. 

The Cygnus Wall 

C20, NGC 7000

Cygnus

28/08/24

Here's my go at Caldwell 20, the North America nebula or more specifically, the Cygnus Wall part of it. Seems to be a popular target this week! I captured data over two nights, 2 hours on 26/08/24 and 7 hours on 27/08/24. The first session was intermittent cloud so I didn't use any of it in the end. The second session was very clear all night long. While I was at it I did an All Sky Video of the night sky. 

54 x 240 seconds Luminance, 17 x 240 seconds RGB. Stellarium, Pegasus Unity, CPWI, NINA, PHD2. Stacked and Processed in PixInsight. The colours are a little unexpected but the Photometric Colour Calibration Process seemed happy with it.

Tweedledum Cluster 

NGC6633

Ophiuchus

21/08/24

In my rekindled love of the Open Cluster, here's NGC6633, the Tweedledum Cluster. The blue/white cluster stars stand out well from the background stars. It's a bit of an experiment in that since the NBers use RGB for their stars, I limited the number of Luminance exposures and did loops of 10 x L, 10 x R, 10 x G and 10 x B, all at 120 seconds. Not sure if it worked! The ability to rotate the imaging train easily on the refractor is brilliant! That with the NINA Slew, Solve and Rotate function makes composition so much easier, even if you do have to recalibrate the guiding! 90 minutes total, Pegasus Unity, CPWI, NINA, PHD2, PixInsight, GraXpert, Irfanview. No calibration frames. I must put a new Dark Frame Library together for the refractor now that we have a few days of cloudy weather and try and get into the habit of doing twilight flats in leu of building a new light box! 

Perseid Meteor 

Cassiopeia

20/08/24

This is a single frame from my new All Sky Camera setup. A week after the peak of the Perseid Meteor Shower. The camera was running all night and this meteor flew across at 03:00 in the morning.

Polarissima Cluster 

C1, NGC 188

Cepheus

06/08/24

I'm getting right into Open Star Clusters! Here is the first on Patrick's list. An Open Cluster with another one behind it in the distance and then another one behind that at an even further distance!