The Horsehead Nebula

This image of the Horsehead Nebula consists of just over 4 hours of total integration time. Stacked and processed in Siril, GraXpert, Affinity, and Topaz.

M 45

M 45 has several names in different cultures: the Pleiades (Greece), the Seven Sisters (Europe), Subaru Japan--(they can famously be seen in the car maker's logo, where there are only 6), the Seven Star Girls/the Orphan Boys (Native American cutures, Yunggarmurra Water Girls (Australian Aboriginal culture), the "Netted Star" in Tolkein's Middle Earth, etc. They were an importantherald to the navigation season in the Meditarranean Sea in classical Greek times, and they have great significance in many other cultures. The cluster is dominated by young, hot, blue stars. The nebula surrounding them is not thought to be related to the cluster, but is an interstellar nebula through which the cluster is passing. This image was created from a 10s stack, with a total integration time of about 8 hours. My Bortle 8/9 skies made managing gradients problematic, but the overall image is not too bad, and some decent detial is visible in the nebula. The rainbow nebulosity appears to be an artifact created by the star removal process during processing.

Messier 33

M 33 is a part of the Local Group of galaxies and is about half the size of our own galaxy. At magnitude 5.7, it's a good object for amateur imagers, but capturing fine detail in its dust lanes can take several hours or more of integration time. This image was created from just over 12 hours of total exposure, including 2 hours of narrowband integrations to show some of the active HII regions in the galaxy. Processed in Siril, Affinity, Nebulosity and Topaz denoise.

The Crab Nebula

The Crab Nebula (M 1) is one of my favorite objects at this time of year. This remnant of a supernova observed by Chinese astronomers in 1054, is expanding rapidly (1500 km/sec). The inner part of the nebula contains a pulsar that produces high velocity stellar winds which dominate the central part of the nebula. It emits highly energetic gamma rays, and was the first identified astronomical source emitting gamma rays of over 100 TeV. This image was produced from 1256 x 10s integrations (approx. 3.5 hours). Captured with a Seestar. Initial processing in Siril, with noise reduction in Topaz and tweaking in Affinity and Nebulosity.

M 33

This is just over 4 hours of capture with M33. I'm going to try to add some narrowband data if I get chance over the next couple of nights. It's a mixture of 10 and 20s integrations captured in EQ mode. Initial stacking and processing in Siril, with contributions from Affinity Photo and Topaz.

M 31 Mosaic

This is a mosaic of M31 captured by the Seestar. The whole capture took about 1.5 hours. I can't tease the same detail out as I get with my RASA/Mallincam combo, but it's not a bad image for such a short integration time.

The Helix Nebula

The Helix Nebula is a very tough object for me as it can only be imaged for a brief period as it moves between my neighbor's house and his trees. I only managed about 30 minutes of captures, but Siril, Affinity, and Topaz came through for me and the resulting image isn't too bad. I could never image this object with the big rig, so this is t

he first time I've ever imaged it; I can place my Seestar i just the right place to get at least some captures.