The Fireworks Galaxy

I’ve never been happy with the images I’ve taken of NGC 6946, aka the Fireworks Galaxy, even those taken with the big rig. This image is a little better than most I have managed. It’s around 6 hours of integration time, including 75 minutes of narrowband integrations, which didn’t really contribute much to the image. It was stacked and processed in Siril, Affinity, and Topaz.

The Hunter's Supermoon--October 17, 2024

 This is an image of the Hunter's "Supermoon" on Octover 17, 2024. It was processed from the best 10% of frames from a 70-second AVI. Stacked in Autistakkert and processed in Registax and Topaz. Click and zoom to see details.

Comet C/2023 a3 (tsuchinshan-atlas)

 

This is a 5 minute stack (captured over 30 mins or so), which was stacked in Astrosurface, The software did a greaat job of focusing on the comet, allowing us to see the motion of the comet in the star trails.

The Sun on September 11, 2024

 AR3814 (center of disk) is flaring with X-Class flares.

The Sun on September 10, 2024

 AR3814 (center of disk) is producing M-Class flares.

The Sun on September 9, 2024

 Multiple ARs have the potential to produce M-Class flares.Multiple ARs have the potential to produce M-Class flares.

The Sun on September 7, 2024

 AR3806 (at 3 o'clock position) has the potential to produce M-Class flares.

The Sun on September 5, 2024

 AR 3806 has the potential for M-Class flaring.

The Sun on September 3, 2024

 AR3813 (largest spot toward bottom of the disk), has the potential to produce M-Class flares.

The Sun on September 1, 2024

  AR3806 (center left on disk) has the capability to produce X-Class flares.

The Sun on August 31, 2024

AR3806 (the spot group towards the bottom of the disk), has the potential to produce X-Class flares.

The Pelican

 The Pelican Nebula.is part of the North America Nebula complex, and is an active stellar nursery. There are several Harbig-Haro objects in this image. Harbig-Haro objects are bright patches of nebulosity associated with newborn stars. This image is a stack of about 2 hours of integration time. It was processed in Siril, Topaz Denoise, Affinty, and Photoshop Express.

A Bit of Fun with the Pachyderm’s Snoot!

 Just for fun, here’s a”Hubbleized” version of my last post of the Elephant’s Trunk.

The Elephant’s Trunk Nebula

 The Elephant’s Trunk Nebula (IC 1396), is a site of star formation, and a tempting target for the Seestar. This image has a total integration time of just over four hours. Stacking, histogram stretch, and star processing in Siril, with tweaks in Affinity and PS Express.

The Sun on August 27, 2024

M-Class flaring continues from 5 major spot groups on the solar disk.

The Sun on August 26, 2024

 The Sun continues to be active with M-Class flaring.

The Sun on August 25, 2024

Many of the spot groups have the potential to produce M-Class flares.

The Heart of the Heart

 These images were created from a stack of 3 hours of integration time on IC 1805--the Heart Nebula. This image is of the core of the Heart; the cluster Melotte 15. I've posted a version with stars, and a starless version that shows the complexity of the nebulosity.

The Tulip Nebula

 SH2-101, the Tulip Nebula, is an HII emission nebula in Cygnus. This image has around 3.3 hours on integration time. The lovely OIII component did not visualize in this image. It probably needs much more integration time. Processed in Siril, Topaz Denoise, and Affinity.

The Omega Nebula

 M17, the Omega Nebula (among other names). M17 is one of the brightest and most massive stellar nurseries in the galaxy. The open cluster of stars, NGC 6618, powers the nebula. This image is a stack of 380 x 10s integrations. I stacked and processed in Siril, and tweaked in Affinity. It was quite a challenge to bring out the subtleties in the nebulosity without blowing out the central region. I ended up with this image, which looks rather like the fireball of an explosion.

The Trifid Nebula

 A combination of an emission nebula, a reflection nebula, and a dark nebula, the Trifid is a wonderful object for amateur imaging. I could only manage an hour of integration time, but under Bortle 5 skies (I'm visiting my daughter in rural Indiana), the Seestar really performed. My last image of this object (it's never visible from my home observatory due to trees) was with my 14 inch scope in 2016. This image is far superior, which shows just how far imaging has come in 8 years! The image was stacked and processed in Siril and Afinity.

The Witch’s Broom

 NGC 6960, aka the Western Veil Nebula or the Witches Broom, is a supernova remnant in the constellation of Cygnus. Almost all light from the nebula is emitted in the O III band, hence the dominant blue/blue-green color. I could only manage an hour of integration on this object, but it is bright enough to give a decent image even at this short integration time.

The Sun on August 24, 2024.

AR3790, AR3799, AR3800 and AR3801 have the potential to produce M-Class flares.

The Sun on August 23, 2024. Are we just at the start of Cycle 25?

 AR3790 and AR3796 (the spot groups to the left of and above and below the single spot on the right side in this image), have the potential to produce M-Class flares. Note also the small group of tiny spots below and in line with the single spot. This is AR3800. It is a relatively high-latitude spot and it tells us something about the current solar cycle (number 25). High latutude spots tend to appear at the early stages of a solar cycle; spots migrate towards the equator as the cycle matures and moves toward maximum. The presence of these spots indicates we are still in the early stages of cycle 25, and could have another 2-3 years of strong solar activity.

Two Treatments of the Pacman Nebula

 Here's two treatments of the Pacman Nebula. The stack has a total of 2.75 hours of integration. I processed one image in Siril using photometric calibration, the other using manual calibration to achieve a more Hubble-like effect.

Two Versions of M27

 Here are two images of M27. One (the slightly less saturated image) is the result from a stack totaling 3.75 hours of integration time. I was quite pleased with the result, and I noticed some faint rings of gas beyond the main nebula. They were visible in stretches where the cire was overblown and the backgound overly bright. I thought I would try a longer integration time to see if I could pull them out. The result is the second image (smaller of the two), which has a total of 5.6 hours of integration (I had more frames to stack, but the number was beyond the current capabilites of Siril and I didn't feel like integrating the workaround in the Sitil script I use). I'm not sure which image I like more. The 5.6 hour image has marginally more contrast, but the faint gas clouds were no more visible and required a bright background to be seen. I'm thinking about getting a trial of Pixinsight to see what it can pull put of the stack :)

IC 1318 --The Butterfly Nebula

 The area around the star Sadr (gamma Cygni) is filled with a dense nebula, IC 1318. This image is a part of the Butterfly Nebula, one of the nebulas that is part of IC 1318 as a whole. This image is about an hour of integration, which is rather short for an f/5 scope, but it does capture some of the complexity of this nebula. To properly image IC 1318 requires a scope with a wider FOV than the one used here (Seestar).

The Sun under Excellent Seeing Conditions, August 22, 2024

 Seeing was superb this morning (August 22) for solar imaging. I've included a pic of AR3790 captured in a zoom right off the Seestar on my phone, and a zoomed, processed image. The raw, single frame capture shows how good conditions were, and the processed, upscaled image shows how much detail can be extracted from an image created by the Seestar's outstanding optics.

A Waning Moon

 The waning gibbous Sturgeon Moon on the morning of August 22, 2024. There's significant detail on this image if you click and zoom, including the terracing on the walls of the crater Copernicus.

The Sun on August 21, 2024

ARs3790 and 3796 (the two largest spot groups in the image) have the potential to produce M-Class flares.

The Sun on August 20, 2024

 AR3790 and AR3796 have the potential to produce M-Class flares.

The Sun on August 19, 2024

 AR3790 (the group above the larger spot at the 5 o'clock position) has the energy to produce M-Class flares.

The Sun on August 17, 2024

 The Sun on August 15, 2024. AR3784 is quiescent today, but could flare again at any time.

The Sun on August 16, 2024

 The Sun on August 15, 2024. AR3784 continues to pose a risk of X-Class flares.

The Sun on August 15, 2024

 The Sun on August 15, 2024. AR3784 continues to pose a risk of X-Class flares.

The Sun on August 14, 2024

 The Sun on August 14, 2024. AR3784 (the largest, singlwe spot, has the energy to produce X-Class flares.

The Bubble Nebula

 This is a 2.4 hour integration of the Bubble Nebula. Initial stacking and processing in Siril, Topaz noise reduction, and final tweaking in Affinity and PS Express.

The Crescent Nebula

 This image is close to 2 hours of integration with the Seestar on the Crescent Nebula under Bortle 8/9 skies. It probably needs another couple of hours to really capture all the details and reduce noise. Processed in Siril, Affinity 2.0, and PS Express. The formation of the nebula is driven by stellar winds from Wolf-Rayet star WR 136 colliding with the slower wind ejected by the star when it was in the red giant phase.

The Sun on August 12, 2024

AR3784 (left on the cropped image) has the potential to produce X-Class flares, as does AR3780 (right on the cropped image). Click the crop to see the full image.

Lagoon Nebula "Hubble" Reprocessed

 I reprocessed my Lagoon Hubble for greater contrast and detail; I also cropped it a little. The result is not too bad, but the "blown" core is a little more apparent.

The Lagoon Nebula in Hubble Palette--an easy way to get this result in Siril without using scripts!

 Here's a reprocess of the Lagoon Nebula with pseudo-Hubble look. I use Siril to achieve this look, but I do not use the Hubble script. I stack using the Seestar drizzle script. I perform the following steps: background extraction, green noise reduction, photometric color calibration, and star removal. I then do the Asinh transformation and the histogram stretch. When I have the image looking as I want it, I go back to the color calibration option. This time, I select the color calibration option. I then draw a small box in the darkest part of the image. I click the "use current selection" under background neutralization and click the background neutralization button. I then draw another box over the brightest and most colorful part of the nebula. I click "use current selection" under the white reference option (I don't do anything else under this option), and click Apply. The result is a Hubble Palette like image. I boost the saturation on this image, and sometimes do additional processing on other packages (you don't have to). I then add some of the stars back in using the star mask Siril created when I did the extraction. The result can be quite pleasing. Please note, I did not develop this technique; you can find it on YouTube

The Lagoon Nebula in 20 minutes with the Seestar!

 The Lagoon Nebula is a bright gas cloud in Sagittarius. I can’t image it from my home observatory, but I can from my daughter’s home in rural northern Indiana. I hauled the Seestar with me and was able to capture the Eagle Nebula on a clear night. I had no such luck with my attempt to image the Lagoon. I was only able to image 114 x 10 second frames—-19 minutes in all—before the clouds rolled in. However, due to the Bortle 2 skies (!) and the brightness of the Lagoon, I was able to capture a very pleasing image. The first inage is the jpeg straight off the Seestar with no additional processing at all. It’s the image your phone saves when you stop imaging. The second  image

is what you get with additional processing of the FIT files saved by the Seestar. Stacking, drizzling, star removal and reconstitution were performed in Siril, as was the histogram stretch. I made very small adjustments in Affinity; I did not do any noise reduction. It’s amazing how much detail the Seestar captured in a mere 19 minutes!

M16 Hubble Palette

 Here's a pseudo-Hubble Palette image of M16, just for fun.