The Horsehead Nebula with the Dwarf 3

Here's an image of the Horsehead Nebula captured under my Bortle 8/9 skies. There's 2.38 hours of total integration time, captured in 45s/gain 60 individual exposures with DB filter. I processed the image in Siril, Topaz Denoise, and Affinity Photo.

The Moon--First Light with the D3

This is my first light image with the Dwarf D3. The moon was low in haze, and moved between tree branches during the imaging session. Nevertheless, the D3 captured a decent amount of detail for a 35mm imaging lens. This image is heavily cropped as the scope has a very wide field of view. The scope captures MP4 videos, and I took 1000 frames, coverted them to AVIs in PiPP, and stacked and processed 700 of them in Registax 6.

A New Toy--the Dwarf D3 telescope

Another toy arrived yesterday--the DWARFLAB D3--a tiny scope with a 35 mm 6-element apochromatic main imaging lens and small wideangle lens for Milky Way imaging (among other things). Of course, the clouds rolled in, but I was able to do some imaging, most of it through the clouds themselves. My first light object was the Moon, just to check focusing and function. I'll post that image later. The second was M42 because it is relatively bright and easy to capture. Setting up the scope in EQ mode was a simple, semi-automated process. The imaging chip in the scope, a Sony IMX678 Starvis 2 does an excellent job of capturing faint images with relatively low noise. I captured 40 minutes of M42 before heavy cloud came in, using the built-in narrowband filters in the scope. I drizzle processed the image stack in Siril as the scope significantly undersamples (making the native 4K frame 8K). I then heavily cropped the image horizontally, and the result (below) is quite pleasing. The original frame was much wider, and promises to offer great capabilites to image larger DSOs (like the Heart Nebula, for example). The scope is so small, you could almost clip it to your belt, so its a definite travel scope for me.

A Runaway Star

A runaway star careening through space at 36 miles per second, emitting a storm of radiation that energizes the nebula it ploughs through. While this scenario sounds like science fiction, it can be found easily in the night sky in the form of the Flaming Star Nebula. IC405 is both an emission and reflection nebula in the constellation Auriga. The central star, AE Aurigae, is a runaway and probably began its journey in the area of Orion’s belt, perhaps as part of a high radial velocity binary system from which it was ejected when its companion went supernova. The nebula itself is about 9 light years across, and is a turbulent mix of gas and dust, The presence of dust in the region of the star suggests that it only recently entered the nebula and that the period of the cloud’s most extensive modification lies ahead. This image is a stak of 4.5 hours total integration, processed in Siril and Affinity.

Seestar S50 mosaic of M81 and M82

This is a mosaic of M81 and M82I captured last night with the S50. I set the scope in EQ mode and captured just over 5 hours of data in 20s individual integrations. I did not use the DB filter. I used the FIT format mosiac put together by the Seestar, and tweaked it in Siril and Affinity Photo. I'm very pleased with the way mosaic mode is working now. It seems to be faster and it does a better job of assembling the mosaics.

M42

M42 is a tempting target for a small scope. Even a few minutes of imaging will capture a surprising amount of detail. Though easy to image, the nebula is tough to process as the bright core inevitably "blows out" unless great care is taken. My aim in this image was to capture subtle details and colors in the main nebula and the attendant Running Man Nebula, while leaving the stars of the Trapezium visible in the heart of M42. This image has a total integration time of 3.3 hours. It was processed with Siril and Affinity Photo.

The Monkey Head Nebula

This image of the Monkey Head nebula has 7 hours of integration (20- and 30-second exposures). Stacking and initial processing in Siril, tweaks in Affinity. The nebula is being rapidly eroded by the high stellar winds from the young stars it contains.

IC 410--The Tadpoles

Located in the constellation of Auriga, IC 410 looks like a pair of tadpoles swimming through space. This 100 light year across nebula of ionized hydrogen is shaped by the stellar winds from the hot, young stars of the open cluster NGC 1893. This image consists of 3.8 hours of integration, processed in Siril and Affinity Photo.

M 78

Messier 78 (NGC 2068) is a reflection nebula in the constellation of Orion and is the brightest visible reflection nebula. Charles Messier added it to his famous Catalog in 1780. This area if part of the Orion B molecular cloud complex, which contains adjacent nebulae NGC 2064, 2067, and 2071. In the 19th Century, Lord Rosse, with his massive telescope in Birr Castle, Ireland, thought he saw evidence of a spiral structure in the nebula. The nebula is energized by young, hot stars which give it its distinctive blue color. This image is a small stack of 442 x 10s integrations with the Seestar. I plan on capturing more data.

Lunar Occultation of Mars

On the 13th of January, the Wolf Moon occulted (moved in front of) Mars for observers here in the US. This event is hard to image due to the brightness of the moon and the relative faintness of Mars. These images are very close crops and follow the event right to the points at which Mars vanishes behind the moon.

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.