Submissions: 2023 December

[RonanHunt]

Please see attached a recent shot of M78 shot with a Samyang 135mm Lens and ZWO 2600mc Pro over a few nights in mid december. 9 hour integrated exposure using 3 minute exposures. Shot using my remote rig in Trevinca Spain.

M78_135mm2_stars by Ronan Hunt, on Flickr

[Oliver64]

Merry Christmas
A little picture of the rising of the constellation Orion on the side of the mountain taken during my last astro weekend!

This was done with a non-mod camera the r6mk2 and a sigma art 135mm f1.8 lens (here f2.8, tracked with star adventurer mount with 60 second exposures for the sky with a stack of 80 photos.
The landscape was done on a long exposure of 180 seconds.

Treatment Philippe Bernhard



Merry Christmas!

[Lucadinoi]

Ic 434

IC 434 is an emission nebula visible in the constellation of Orion; thanks to its presence it is possible to observe the famous Horsehead Nebula, a dark cloud that overlaps it on our line of sight.
This is an H II region that extends south of Alnitak, on the southwestern edge of the large Orion B cloud; it has a very elongated shape in a north-south direction and receives the ionizing wind directly from the star σ Orionis, a bright member of the large Orion OB1 association.
The nebula reaches 70' in length and is easily shown in long exposure photos or CCD images, although its thickness is only a few arc minutes.

The temperature of the region was measured using various methodologies and exploiting various radiation ratios, initially obtaining values ​​between 8000 K and 7600 K;
subsequently this value was reduced to 3360 K and even less depending on the map taken as reference. A study on electronic temperature conducted in 1992 instead provided a value more similar to the previous ones, which is around 6000 K.

Acquisition Telescope
Tecnosky APO Triplet 152/1216

Camera
Omegon VeTec 571C latest version

Mounting
iOptron CEM120

Homemade flat box, with Ascom 50x50 dimmer

Filters
Optolong L-Pro
Optolong L-Ultimate

Accessories
Primaluce Lab SESTO SENSO 2 • WandererRotator • Electronic control of anti-condensation bands • ZWO 7x2" filter wheel • Riccardi flattener 0.75x

Software
Adobe Photoshop · Astrometric STAcking Program (ASTAP) · iOptron ASCOM Driver and Commander · Planewave Platesolve2 · Pleiades Astrophoto PixInsight · Stark Labs PHD Guiding · Stefan Berg Nighttime Imaging 'N' Astronomy (N.I.N.A. / NINA)

Guiding Telescope
Omegon 90/500

Driving Camera
Asi Zwo 224MC

Image full resolution: https://flic.kr/p/2poQsWD

[a.carrozzi]

The Sun in H-Alpha on Christmas Day (December 25th, 2023). Lots of sunspots, filaments, and a huge prominence completely detached from the edge.
William Optics Megrez 90mm with Daystar Quark Cromosphere. ZWO ASI 174MM. Mosaic of 3 panels.

Christmas Sun - Sun in H-Alpha, December 25th 2023 by Alessandro Carrozzi, su Flickr

[moladso]

Full Moon, LRGB real enhanced color - v2
100.0% illuminated Moon.
Jaime Fernandez


Click on image for full sized, 1816x1864 pixel, moon image or the following link: https://www.astronomica.es/imagen_big.a ... =584_3.jpg

Despite appearances, the surface of the Moon has color and it is possible to capture it with a camera. Each color is due to the large-scale presence of some type of mineral in the lunar crust, from basalts and iron oxides to titanium.

The color tones are very subtle, but real (there is no synthetic color on this picture), so during image processing the color saturation must be increased to make it visible.

The technique used here takes three images obtained in a monochrome camera with RGB filters, using the green channel as luminance.

Capture and processing details:
Telescope LongPerg ED80 + WilliamOptics Flattener 0.8x III, camera ASI 178MM, Astronomic LRGB Type-II filters, captured with ASICap 2.9.1, 4000 frames SER video @20fps (8bit), processed with Autostakkert 3.1.4, Registax 6 and PixInsight 1.8 Ripley. Taken on 26/dec/2023 from Madrid (Spain), at an height 811 mts ASML.

Credit: Jaime Fernandez https://www.astronopithecus.es


Edition note: I received some feedback from my colleagues suggesting the original version had an excesive color saturation and unbalanced color, so I decided to start again from scratch and create this version 2 of the colored moon that looks better to me.

Enjoy it.

[Jean-Baptiste Auroux]

NGC 6668 & its Ha environment

Click to view full size image

Full version : https://team-ouranos.fr/wp-content/uplo ... o_site.jpg

Here's the open cluster NGC 6866, located in the constellation Cygnus. The cluster features around a hundred young stars, including a large number of beautiful bluish stars.

It lies in the foreground of the Cygnus-X complex, a giant cloud of gas and dust around 5000 light-years away and some 700 light-years long, which we highlighted with a long series of Ha exposures.

In the end, the contrast of colors between the red of the emitting gas and the intense blue of the stars gives a more spectacular aspect to the object... itself rather unimpressive because of its medium density.

--------------------
TEC 140 - EM200 - ZWO ASI 6200MM
Baader RGB-Ha 6nm filters
Ha: 150 x 120s
R/G/B: 136/82/37 x 120s
May 23/July 15, 2023 - Alpes-Maritimes (France)

Copyright: Team OURANOS (Jean-Baptiste Auroux, Jean Claude Mario, Mathieu Guinot & Matthieu Tequi).
https://team-ouranos.fr/
https://www.astrobin.com/users/Team_OURANOS/

[Jean-Baptiste Auroux]

Arp 188 - The Tadpole Galaxy

Click to view full size image

Full version : https://cdn.astrobin.com/thumbs/JxAAgnK ... TZ0INm.png

The Tadpole Galaxy, also known as UGC 10214 and Arp 188, is a disrupted barred spiral galaxy located 420 million light-years from Earth in the northern constellation Draco.
Its most dramatic feature is a trail of stars about 280,000 light-years long. Its size has been attributed to a merger with a smaller galaxy that is believed to have occurred about 100 million years ago.
The galaxy is filled with bright blue star clusters triggered by the merger, some containing as many as one million stars.
It is the largest disrupted spiral galaxy of its sort.

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AstroSib 360 - AP 11000GTO - G4-16000 - Chroma Filters (3nm)
L: 108 x 300s
R/G/B: 30/30/22 x 180s
Total : 13h06
30 May to 8 June 2023 - Corsica (France)
Pixinsight & PS

Copyright: Team OURANOS (Jean-Baptiste Auroux, Jean Claude Mario, Mathieu Guinot & Matthieu Tequi).
https://team-ouranos.fr/
https://www.astrobin.com/users/Team_OURANOS/

[max.nti]

Road to the Milky Way
https://www.instagram.com/max.nti/
Copyright: Max Inwood

Click to view full size image

Image date: 12 June 2023

This image was captured in New Zealand's Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve, under one of the darkest night skies on earth. I was out imaging the sky with a friend when I noticed the Milky Way and Magellanic Clouds framing the road, and shot a quick two image panorama at 14mm. In the image you can see the band of the southern Milky Way from Scorpius to Vela, with the bright Crux/Carina region right above the road. The 'emu in the sky' is also contained in this section of the Milky Way band, standing upside down.

[astrohokie]

Wizard Nebula (HOO) NGC 7380

"YOU SHALL NOT PASS!!"

NGC 7380 is a young open cluster of stars in the northern circumpolar constellation of Cepheus, discovered by Caroline Herschel in 1787. The surrounding emission nebulosity is known colloquially as the Wizard Nebula, which spans an angle of 25′. The nebula is known as S 142 in the 1959 Sharpless catalog (Sh2-142). The NGC 7380 complex is located at a distance of approximately 8500 light-years from the Sun, in the Perseus Arm of the Milky Way.
The cluster spans ~20 light-years with an elongated shape and an extended tail. Age estimates range from 4 to 11.9 million years. At the center of the cluster lies DH Cephei, a close, double-lined spectroscopic binary system consisting of two massive O-type stars. This pair are the primary ionizing source for the surrounding H II region, and are driving out the surrounding gas and dust while triggering star formation in the neighboring region. Of the variable stars that have been identified in the cluster, 14 have been identified as pre-main sequence stars while 17 are main sequence stars that are primarily B-type variables.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/194543639@N07/
https://www.instagram.com/mark_hoffman_photography/

Copyright: Mark Hoffman, @mark_hoffman_photography

With Stars:
Wizard Nebula (NGC 7380) with stars by mark h, on Flickr

Starless:
Wizard Nebula (NGC 7380) starless by mark h, on Flickr

“Wizard Nebula” NGC 7380
Equipment/Capture Details:
Celestron Edge HD8 w/ 0.7x reducer
EQ6R-Pro
Celestron Autofocuser
Celestron OAG
ZWO ASI 174MM
ZWO ASI 294MM Pro
ZWO ASI 7 position EFW
Kendrick Dew Heater
Pegasus Pocket Powerbox
1.25in Chroma 5nm Ha, 3nm O3
1.25in Chroma RGB filters for stars

Processed in Pixinsight and Photoshop (Camera Raw Filter)

[Davide75]

NGC 7822


Young, hot stars, cosmic pillars of gas and dust seem to crowd into this splendid emission nebula. NGC 7822 is located at the edge of a giant molecular cloud, called Sharpless 171, towards the northern constellation of Cepheus which grazes its neighbor Cassiopeia. Inside the nebula, bright edges and dark shapes stand out in this colorful celestial panorama. The image you see includes data acquired with narrow band filters for approximately 15 hours, which maps the emissions of third oxygen, hydrogen and second sulfur in blue, green and red shades. I used a photographic technique developed by NASA to record the objects of the deep sky with the Hubble space telescope which allows you to have excellent images, even under a polluted sky, which will scientifically show you the composition of the nebulae.

Technical data and tools
light : HA : 110x180s, O3 : 95x180s, S2 : 90X180s
data acquisition: Asi Air Plus
telescope: Skywatcher 80ED with 0.85x reducer/flattener
main chamber: Asi 2600 MM pro
guide: Oag-L + Asi 290 MM mini
filter wheel: Efw 7x2
focuser: Eaf 5v
mount: Skywatcher EQ6R-pro
Processing: Dss, PixInsight and Photoshop
Bortle 6, sqm 19.30

https://www.flickr.com/photos/196894264@N07/
https://www.instagram.com/nardullidavide/


Copyright : Davide Nardulli


NGC7822 Finale by davide nardulli, su Flickr

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/534 ... aa4c_k.jpg

[Davide75]

The Seven Sisters - Pleiades Cluster (M45)

Daughters of the titan Atlas and the oceanic Pleione, seven nymphs transformed into stars consumed by their own pain or, according to others, in an eternal escape from a stubborn suitor.
Seven girls for the ancient Greeks, but also for many other peoples and cultures. The seven Pleiades were Maia, Electra, Taygete, Alcyone, Celeno, Sterope and Merope. The brightest stars of the Pleiades open cluster bear the same names as the seven mythological sisters and their two parents.
First monochrome job with the Asi 2600 MM pro camera, I wanted to shoot the magnificent seven sisters, a classic winter target that always has its great charm, shooting from home in LRGB for 6 hours, bortle sky 6, sqm 19.30.

Technical data and tools
L: 90x120s, RGB: 90x120s
dark : 15
flat: 15*4
data acquisition: Asi Air Plus
telescope: Skywatcher 80ED with 0.85x reduction
main chamber: Asi 2600 MM pro
guide: Oag-L + Asi 290 MM mini
filter wheel: Efw 7x2
electronic focuser: Eaf 5v
mount: Skywatcher EQ6R-pro
Processing: Dss, PixInsight and Photoshop


https://www.flickr.com/photos/196894264@N07/
https://www.instagram.com/nardullidavide/


Copyright : Davide Nardulli

M45 Finale by davide nardulli, su Flickr

[Oliver64]

Last weekend with good weather, I started the California Nebula at the beginning of the night, with a dual band filter, so here is a simple treatment done by Philippe Bernhard for 4 hours of exposure.
We were surprised by the number of IFNs around the nebula, so I'm going to try to reframe the image and make some exposures in RGB in order to bring it all out more cleanly!

Canon 300mm f2.8 lens
Unfiltered Canon R6 camera

[Oliver64]

Rise up of soul nebula, heart nebula, and double amas perseus on the alps moutains



https://astrob.in/so5w41/B/rawthumb/hd/get.jpg?insecure

[Oliver64]

Earth Rotation from basc country
4h exposure to see the mouvement of the earth



https://astrob.in/x1c0sd/0/rawthumb/hd/get.jpg?insecure

[Richardwhitehead]

The Horsehead and Flame Nebula ,plus some other nice reflection nebulae like NGC 2023 seen between these in blue is a region almost everyone has imaged, but it doesn't stop it being beautiful and fascinating. This is an LRGB image cropped to about 50% taken on my Takahashi FSQ106EDX4 from Animas, NM. I'll be adding some Ha and more time as soon as the moon is out of the way. Hope you like it .

[pagm]

Geminids 2023 at Observatorio del Teide

The picture is composed of a series of 1369 images, each lasting 13 seconds, captured from December 14th, 2023, at 21:38:26 UTC to December 15th at 02:46:24 UTC, covering a total of 5 hours and 8 minutes. To obtain the final image, I used Nebulb to create a sky mask, analyze each image to extract meteors and other objects, and then merged these meteors with the stacked sky images to create the final composition. The final image was subsequently adjusted for contrast, brightness, and color. The images were taken at the 'Observatorio del Teide' in Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain), a part of the 'Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias' (IAC) astronomical facilities. The picture shows around 334 meteors, yielding a Zenithal Hourly Rate (ZHR) of 109-88 meteors/hour. From left to right at the top of the image, we can see the Orion Nebula (M42) and the Pleiades (M45). The bright spot is Jupiter, and to its right, we can barely discern the Pinwheel Galaxy (M33). We can also see some 'calima' (Saharan dust) as thin orange clouds and a slight airglow. The mountain in the background is Mount Teide, the highest peak in Spain.

Geminids 2023 at Observatorio del Teide by Pedro González, on Flickr


Summary:
- Equipment: Sony A7 IV + Sigma 14mm f1.8
- Images: ISO 4000 f/2.2 13s
- Number of images: 1369
- Total Exp. Time: 5h 8m (14/12/2023 - 21:38:26 to 15/12/2023 - 2:46:24 UTC)
- Number of meteors: 334 [THZ ~ 109-88 met/h]
- Location: Observatorio del Teide (IAC), Tenerife, Canary Island, Spain.
- Base image time: 15/12/2023 - 1:14:19 UTC
- Objects: Orion Nebula (M42), Pleiades (M45), Jupiter, Pinwheel Galaxy (M33)
- Software: Nebulb

[Jose Luis Bedmar]

M16 The Pillars an classic
Copyright: Jose Luis Bedmar

[RonanHunt]

The Flaming Star Nebula

Shot using my remote scope from Trevinca Skies. Using an Esprit 100 and ZWO 294mm Pro.

22 Hours exposure shot over multiple nights in mid December. I was please capture significant amounts of background Ha. The image is LHaRGB combination with Ha enhancing the red channel.

The Flaming Star by Ronan Hunt, on Flickr

[ChapuSis]

Elephant Trunk Nebula IC1396 in SHO
https://www.flickr.com/photos/155741151@N07/
Niko Sisto


IC1396 or SH2-131 is in Cepheus contellation and it size is around 170 minutes of diameter.

This image of IC1396 is the SHO combination of
12x900" for the red channel with SII filter
21x900" for the green channel with Ha filter
10x900" for the blue channel with OIII filter
Total exposure 10:45, taken during two nights on Ares, Galicia, Spain.

Redcat51, ASI2600MM, Baader filters, SW AzEq6 and ASIAir Pro.
Stacked and edited in Pixinsight and Ligthroom.

https://www.facebook.com/nikosisto
https://www.instagram.com/chapusis/
https://www.instagram.com/sistoastrophoto/

[Julien Looten]

Between Earth, Sky, and Sea

Copyright: Julien Looten
full image : https://www.flickr.com/photos/julienloo ... en-public/





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Between Earth, Sky, and Sea.

At the heart of this fusion between Earth, Sky, and Sea, rises majestically the medieval church of Sainte-Radegonde, the keeper of time in Talmont-sur-Gironde, a fortified French village with alleys steeped in history. Perched on the cliffside, overlooking the Gironde estuary, this Romanesque church, akin to a sentinel of the past, was erected in the 12th century by Benedictine monks.

It has inspired numerous authors and writers:
- Pierre-Henri Simon wrote: "At the tip of the rock, wounded but immutable, the winds never cease to strike it; on stormy days, it is enveloped in foam. It truly is the ship anchored on the waves. I know of no more beautiful image (...) of the eternal in the heart of history."
- André Malraux, in front of a poster depicting the fragile church, once declared to visitors: "See these sublime stones, indifferent to the rumors of ages..."

The horizon reveals a sky adorned with multicolored clouds, a rare natural phenomenon called "airglow." This is caused by a chemical reaction in the upper atmosphere, where the sun's rays excite molecules, emitting a very faint light (chemiluminescence) in green and/or orange hues. That evening, it was particularly intense.

To the left of the church, Jupiter emerges as a celestial beacon, its brilliance even reflected in the waters of the estuary.

Above the church, a galactic trio unfolds… First, the Triangle Galaxy and the Andromeda Galaxy. These spirals, composed of billions of stars, are located more than 2 million light-years from Earth. To the right, the Milky Way, our galaxy, our home. The Cygnus constellation gracefully unfolds within it, displaying its red nebulae (North America Nebula, Butterfly Nebula).

Inside the church, a flickering candle gives birth to a warm glow, emanating from the windows.

In this photograph, all elements converge, from the sea caressing the base of the cliff to the steadfast stone of the church, from the starry sky stretching above to the infinite universe.It's a moment frozen in time, where the past, present, and eternity intersect.

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Panorama of 20 photos, Canon 6d Astrodon - Sigma 28mm F1.4. - 19/12/2022
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Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/j.looten/
Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/Julien.Looten.Photographie/

[Jose Luis Bedmar]

WR-134
https://www.flickr.com/photos/186618701 ... ed-public/
Copyright: Jose Luis Bedmar

Click to view full size image

Sky-Watcher Esprit 120ED
ZWO ASI294MM Pro
Sky-Watcher AZ-EQ6 PRO
Sky-Watcher 0.77x Reducer for Esprit 120 (20209)
Pleiades Astrophoto PixInsight
Chroma Blue: 6×200,″(20′) (gain: 200.00) -10°C
Chroma Green: 6×200,″(20′) (gain: 200.00) -10°C bin 2×2
Chroma H-alpha 5nm Bandpass: 24×600,″(4h) (gain: 200.00) bin 2×2
Chroma OIII 3nm Bandpass: 25×900,″(6h 15′) (gain: 200.00) -10°C bin 2×2
Chroma OIII 3nm Bandpass: 10×600,″(1h 40′) (gain: 200.00) -10°C
Chroma Red: 6×200,″(20′) (gain: 200.00) -10°C bin 2×2

[Rafeee]

I wish you Happy New Year with my IC1805 dual narrowband photo


Copyright: Rafael Schmall
https://www.astrobin.com/users/Rafeee/

Image Details:
Equipment: ZWO ASI294MC, SW Quattro 200/800, SkyWatcher EQ6 Pro Goto
Exif data: 100x600sec, gain 120, f4
Processing: Siril, Photoshop

Location: Hungary, Zselic Starry Sky Park, Zselic Park of Stars

[ac4lt]

This is M77 (top) and NGC 1055 (bottom). From my reading M77, aside from the obvious ring structure is a barred spiral galaxy and has an active galactic nucleus though those features are hidden from us at optical wavelengths. NGC 1055 has a distinct dust lane and central bulge making them seem an as different as possible from each other.

This is 29h 50m of RGB data.

Equipment Owner: John Kasianowicz
Image Acquisition and Processing: Linda Thomas-Fowler

Full details at https://www.astrobin.com/k57vxp/

[MrRat]

M42 taken from my backyard in Hartford, AL, USA. 250 shots at 300 seconds each taken with a ZWO ASI2600MC camera, William Optics GT81 telescope, and Losmandy GM811G equatorial mount. The last set of images were taken Dec. 30th, 2023

[Astrodude13]

NGC 206 In The Andromeda Galaxy by Blake Estes, on Flickr

NGC 206 resides in the spiral arms of the Andromeda Galaxy. It consists of over 27 hours of exposure taken over several weeks.

Technical details:
PlaneWave CDK24 Telescope
PlaneWave Ascension A200HR Mount
FLI PL09000 Camera
Astrodon RGB filters
Red: 55 x 600"
Green: 56 x 600"
Blue: 56 x 600"
Processed with PIxinsight, Lightroom, Topaz Sharpen

Location: iTelescope T24 at Sierra Remote Observatories