Starship Asterisk*

Copyrights: Raul Villaverde Fraile
Andromeda&TrianguloFinalv2 by Raul Villaverde, en Flickr
https://www.flickr.com/photos/113243238@N08/

FACULAE
The first one with K-line filter and the last two with Solar continuum filters.
Best resolution?
Astrobin
3) https://www.astrobin.com/full/326837/0/?nc=user with powermate 4x
1) https://www.astrobin.com/full/326835/0/?nc=user
2) https://www.astrobin.com/full/326836/0/?nc=user with powermate 4x
EQUIPAMENTS: ESPRIT 150 ED, ASI 174 mm
Location: São Paulo - SP, 12/17/2017 at 16:00
Copyright: Fernando Oliveira de Menezes
Copyright: Fernando Oliveira de Menezes

Copyright: Raul Villaverde & Jose Jimenez
Monoceros RGB+Halfa+datos de Jose Jimenez by Raul Villaverde, en Flickr

Pacman Nebula Close-up by David Dvali, on Flickr

Witch Head Nebula by David Dvali, on Flickr

The way to the Alps

Credits: Adrien Mauduit

After an epic Xmas time with my family and friends, I wanted to share a very wintery picture taken three nights ago as I climbed the Station Monts Jura.
I've always wanted that shot showing the beauties of the winter milky way rising above the Alps with this magnificent view. There were three major hurdles that night though: the 24% moon was setting to the west and it was drowning deep-sky objects in the moonlight, hence the little contrast in the milky way and the bleu hue given to the whole picture. Then the unforgiving light pollution coming from Geneva and its surroundings did not help either. On top of that, occasional haze and airglow caused patches of different brightnesses and colors on the picture. However (and that is going to be the point of my tutorial), you can still take a gorgeous picture under these very challenging conditions, showing a lot of details. It was a very technical shots, because I used a tracker (Vixen Polarie) and a light pollution filter (Pure Night), but the picture consists of:
FOREGROUND: 1 row of 3 single landscape pictures at 50mm, f/2.8, ISO 1600, 40''
BACKGROUND: 3 rows of 3x3 stacked landscape pictures at 50mm, f/2.8, ISO 1600, 40''
Canon 6D Baader modded + Sigma 50mm Art f/1.4. So this blended stacked panorama had the exact same settings, date, time, place, orientation, lenses, camera...
It's a shame that you won't be able to zoom in on Facebook, but this very high quality 80 MegaPixel panorama shows excellent details when you zoom in on it thanks to the successive 50mm frames put back to back. From top to bottom, you can mainly see: Perseus, the California nebula, The Pleiades, Capella (and Auriga), the Flaming Star nebula, Gemini, Messier 35, NGC 2175 (Jellyfish nebula as well) the Hyades (Taurus), Orion (and all its nebulae), the Rosette nebula, the Christmas Tree Cluster, Procyon rising in the bottom left corner (Canis minor). You can also see me at an orientation table showing all the major mountains of the Alpine ridge. It is actually one of Europes most renowned and gorgeous vistas over the Alps (the highest peak to the right is Mont Blanc culminating at 4810m).

***IC 417 *** THE SPIDER NEBULA ***
Copyright: Efrem Frigeni

Location: San Romualdo - Ravenna (Italy)
LX200 12"GPS with Starizona reducer/coma corrector F/7.1
CCD QSI 540wsi cooled -20
RGB Astrodon Gen2 True-Balance I-series and Narrowband Baader H-alpha 7nm e OIII 8.5nm Filters
Autoguide with ASI120MM and PHDguiding2 on ETX105
HA-OIII-RGB: HA 55x6min, OIII 50x6min, R 39x3', G 40x3', B 19x3'

Cristina Cellini

a celestial candle flame - NGC772
Lacerta 10" Photonewton + ASI1600MMC from my home near Vienna, Austria

https://www.astrobin.com/325689/

a celestial firework - Eos6d + Samyang 135mm f/2 from Hakos/Namibia
https://www.astrobin.com/327079/

two brothers in the twins - M35 and NGC2158

full field and annotated version here: https://www.astrobin.com/327487/

wish you a happy 2018!
clear skies, Tommy

NUBECULA MINOR
https://www.flickr.com/photos/7776810@N07/33613274325/

Copyright: Alan C Tough

Irregular galaxy NGC 292 (The Small Magellanic Cloud or SMC) lies about 200,000 light years away in the southern constellation of Tucana. It is the smaller of the Milky Way's two satellite galaxies.

The brightest object within the SMC is the stellar nursery N66, which looks like a mini version of the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Within the heart of this large H II region is the open cluster NGC 346.

There are two magnificent globular clusters in this image: the 4th-magnitude NGC 104 (47 Tucanae) and the 7th-magnitude NGC 362. Both clusters are actually within our own galaxy and are not associated with the Cloud.

In order to capture the complete SMC, I created this 6-pane mosaic from images obtained remotely using iTelescope T12 at the Siding Spring Observatory in New South Wales, Australia.

To compensate for over-exposure in certain main features, I also used iTelescope T31 (Planewave 20" CDK), T27 (Planewave 27" CDK) and T33 (ASA 16" Fast Newtonian Astrograph) to capture some additional, higher-resolution data to include in the mosaic.

The total imaging time, through HaLRGB filters, was 161 minutes.
The hi-res, fully-annotated version of this image can be found here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/7776810@N07/39342182092/

Colourful Moon
Are the colours real? well yes, but they are not as saturated in reality.
With the dark-side added in to give the image more depth and a 3D look.
Taken on 12/29/17 in Australia

Full res and more info https://www.flickr.com/photos/151036289 ... ateposted/

M42 & Horse Nebula
Only in LRGB
Sensor: QHY11
Telescope: TS Star 71mm f/4.9
Mount: Neq6 Pro
c/o Monte San Lorenzo Observatory, in Monte Grimano Terme - Italy
Light:
L 15X450 CLS + 15X30S CLS + RGB 225+225+225.
Luminance: 15x450 CLS
Luminance: 30x30 CLS
RGB: 225+225+225
Filter: Orion LRGB 2", CLS

http://astrofiloneofita.altervista.org/ ... orse-1.jpg

web: http://bzpc.hu/gallery/nebulae/m1/

Messier 1,Crab nebula

http://bzpc.hu/upl/etc/M1.jpg

Jones-Emberson 1 (PK 164 +31). KQ Observatory.

Imaging camera: QSI 660 WSG
Mount: Losmandy G-11
Guiding camera: Starlight Xpress Ultrastar
Focal reducer: Celestron 0.7X
Software: PixInsight 1.8, PHD Guiding 2, Neat Image V7, Photoshop CS3, Sequence Generator Pro, Maxim DL6
Filters: Astrodon 1.25" 3nm OIII, Astrodon 1.25" 5nm Ha, Astrodon 1.25" L
Accessories: Innovations Foresight ONAG SC, Optec FocusLock, Starizona MicroTouch Autofocuser
Resolution: 1893x1306
Dates: Dec. 24, 2017, Dec. 25, 2017, Dec. 29, 2017
Frames:
Astrodon 1.25" 3nm OIII: 26x900" -15C bin 1x1
Astrodon 1.25" 5nm Ha: 27x900" -15C bin 1x1
Astrodon 1.25" L: 126x300" -15C bin 1x1
Integration: 23.8 hours
Darks: ~40
Flats: ~60
Flat darks: ~70
Bias: ~20
Avg. Moon age: 7.59 days
Avg. Moon phase: 51.47%
Mean SQM: 19.50
Astrometry.net job: 1874451
RA center: 119.469 degrees
DEC center: 53.423 degrees
Pixel scale: 0.643 arcsec/pixel

Orientation: 181.041 degrees

Field radius: 0.205 degrees

Locations: Home, Rancho Santa Fe, California, United States

Happy New Years from PST(Pacific Time) timezone

A Green flash occurred twice during the 2018 New Year Sunrise.
Location: Dunedin, New Zealand.
Time: PST(Pacific Time) timezone 2018/1/1 around 6am
Equipment and setting: EOS 7D ISO100 1/13s Borg 71FL+x1.4+x2 cropped
Photographer and credit: Taichi Nakamura