The Sun Today--April 4, 2025

The Sun today, showing some interesting spot groups. The spots in two linear groups toward the center of the image, has the potential to produce M-Class flares.

The Moon with the Dwarf 3

I was able to capture the moon under superb seeing conditions last night. This image is a stack of the best 350 from 700 captures. It was stacked in Autostakkert with very minimal wavelets in Registax 6. There's lots of detail if you zoom in. The image is a testament not only to the seeing conditions, but to the optics of the Dwarf 3. There are three craters in the center of the disk on the terminator. The first is Theophilus, is a 60-mile-wide ring that borders the shore of Mare Nectaris (Sea of Nectar). On this image, you can see the long shadow cast by the cluster of mountain peaks at Theophilus's center 4,600 feet in height). Next to Theophilius is Cyrillus. Part of its circumference has been breached by Theophilus. The adjacent crater,Catharina, is similarly-sized, but it lacks a central peak and its walls have partly disintegrated. Near Catharina's rim you can see the Rupes Altai mountain range. Not bad for a 35mm lens :) Compare this image with the Seestar 50 image posted earlier.

The Moon with the Seestar S50

I was able to capture the moon under superb seeing conditions last night. This image is a stack of the best 500 from 1000 captures. It was stacked in Autostakkert with very minimal wavelets in Registax 6. There's lots of detail if you zoom in. The image is a testament not only to the seeing conditions, but to the excellent optics of the Seestar S50. There are three craters in the center of the disk on the terminator. The first is Theophilus, is a 60-mile-wide ring that borders the shore of Mare Nectaris (Sea of Nectar). On this image, you can see the long shadow cast by the cluster of mountain peaks at Theophilus's center 4,600 feet in height). Next to Theophilius is Cyrillus. Part of its circumference has been breached by Theophilus. The adjacent crater,Catharina, is similarly-sized, but it lacks a central peak and its walls have partly disintegrated. Near Catharina's rim you can see the Rupes Altai mountain range.

Today's Sun with the Dwarf 3

I'm impressed with the quality of the D3 solar filter. It really pulls out detail on the sun, including the solar granulation, which I did not expect to see with such a small aperture. This image is today's Sun. It's a stack of 39 x 1000th sec images. The stacked PNG was wavelet processed in Registax 6 to resolve the fine detail and then cropped.

The Christmas Tree Cluster

7 hours of integration on the Christmas Tree Nebula in Bortle 8/9 pulls out a reasonable amount of detail. This is a cropped image, stacked, drizzled, stretched and star processed in Siril, with final processing in Affinity 2 with JR macros.

The Rosette Nebula

The Rosette Nebula. This image has a total integration time of 4.5 hours (individual integrations of 45s at gain 60). Processed in Siril, Topaz Denoise, and Affinity Photo. Bortle 8/9.

M 42–6 hours of integration

6 hours of M42. Processed in Siril and Affinity Photo 2 with JR Macros. Zoom in on the core to see the 4 stars of the Trapezium.