Starship Asterisk*

The Sculptor Galaxy, NGC253

NGC 253, also named Sculptor Galaxy is one of the brightest spiral galaxies visible. This dusty galaxy lies 11 million light-years away.
About 70 thousand light-years across, NGC 253 is the largest member of the Sculptor Group of Galaxies.
The high dust content accompanies frantic star formation, earning NGC 253 the designation of a starburst galaxy.

This data was acquired by me in my hometown and processed by a friend and experienced Astrophotographer Maicon Germiniani who did a wonderfull job.

It was also the first produtcion with my new telescope: a FotonAstro 200mm F4 newtonian astrograph

🗓 October, 22nd to 25th. 2022
Giruá, RS, Brazil. Bortle 4.
FotonAstro 200mm f4 Newtonian
asi533mm camera
🕶 Askar L,R,G,B filters
- 46 x 180s Luminance frames
- 31 x 180s Red frames
- 21 x 180s Green frames
- 36 x 180s Blue frames
- total integration time: ~6,7h
pixinsight

Deer Lick Group, Stephan's Quintet and some IFN

This is 40h 5m of LRGB data acquired on a Planewave CDK14 using an FLI ML16803 at Sierra Remote Observatories in California. Data was acquired rom 16 Oct 2022 through 24 Oct 2022. The image was processed in PixInsight.



https://lindasastronomyadventures.files ... -take5.jpg

The astrobin link (https://www.astrobin.com/6tfhej/B/) has all the technical details

CATEGORY: Stacked
SOCIAL IG: @victorlimaphoto
STORY:
Piedras Rojas is one of the most beautiful and visited places in the Atacama Desert. Above 4000 meters of altitude and far from any source of light pollution, in this place it is also possible to observe and photograph the night sky as in few places on the planet.
The first time I was in Piedras Rojas was in 2016, when I was starting my photography career. I spent the night camped in this place, with temperatures close to -20 degrees Celsius and suffering from a lack of oxygen due to the altitude. Despite that, I was able to make, perhaps, some of the first night images in this place, since I had never seen anything like it before my trip to this place.
After this first night adventure in Piedras Rojas, I was able to return a few times and now I take my landscape astrophotography students to photograph this wonder of the Atacama.
This image was captured last week during my photo tour in Atacama. The conditions were difficult, largely due to the strong wind that took the thermal sensation to levels difficult to bear. Even so, my students and I managed to withstand the altitude and the cold and make incredible images of this wonder of the Atacama Desert.
EXIF:
Piedras Rojas, Atacama Desert in Chile
19/10/2022 00:05h
Canon 6Da | Sigma 20mm f/1.4 Art
10x 15 sec | f/1.8 | ISO 4000

Piedras Rojas, Atacama Desert by Victor Lima, no Flickr

NGC 1097 - Barred spiral galaxy

BEST DETAILS:
https://www.astrobin.com/full/im818h/B/

EQUIPMENT:
Esprit 150mm triplet
ASI 6200mc
Mount CEM120
157x300"
50x30"
50x10"


LOCATION: Munhoz - MG - Brazil
DATES: 07/03/2022 and 09/20/2022

Author: Fernando Oliveira de Menezes
(Organizing author of the book Amateur Astrophotography in Brazil)
https://clubedeautores.com.br/livro/ast ... -no-brasil

ac4lt wrote: ↑Fri Oct 28, 2022 8:18 pm Deer Lick Group, Stephan's Quintet and some IFN

This is 40h 5m of LRGB data acquired on a Planewave CDK14 using an FLI ML16803 at Sierra Remote Observatories in California. Data was acquired rom 16 Oct 2022 through 24 Oct 2022. The image was processed in PixInsight.



The astrobin link (https://www.astrobin.com/6tfhej/B/) has all the technical details

That's a superb image, Linda! All the fine details in the disk of NGC 7331, the halo around NGC 7331, the extended halo around Stephan's Quintet and the very clear connection between Stephan's Quintet and PGC 69279 which may have collided with Stephan's Quintet and caused some of the upheaval there, plus the fine portrait of the IFN: All of it is great!

Ann

Victor Lima wrote: ↑Fri Oct 28, 2022 10:34 pm CATEGORY: Stacked
SOCIAL IG: @victorlimaphoto
STORY:
Piedras Rojas is one of the most beautiful and visited places in the Atacama Desert. Above 4000 meters of altitude and far from any source of light pollution, in this place it is also possible to observe and photograph the night sky as in few places on the planet.
The first time I was in Piedras Rojas was in 2016, when I was starting my photography career. I spent the night camped in this place, with temperatures close to -20 degrees Celsius and suffering from a lack of oxygen due to the altitude. Despite that, I was able to make, perhaps, some of the first night images in this place, since I had never seen anything like it before my trip to this place.
After this first night adventure in Piedras Rojas, I was able to return a few times and now I take my landscape astrophotography students to photograph this wonder of the Atacama.
This image was captured last week during my photo tour in Atacama. The conditions were difficult, largely due to the strong wind that took the thermal sensation to levels difficult to bear. Even so, my students and I managed to withstand the altitude and the cold and make incredible images of this wonder of the Atacama Desert.
EXIF:
Piedras Rojas, Atacama Desert in Chile
19/10/2022 00:05h
Canon 6Da | Sigma 20mm f/1.4 Art
10x 15 sec | f/1.8 | ISO 4000

Piedras Rojas, Atacama Desert by Victor Lima, no Flickr

The image is pure brilliance, Victor! Thank you for the hardships that you and your students endured to take this amazing photo!

Ann

Seclusion near a forest


Copyright: Pavel Váňa

This beautiful cottage is located near Šumava mountains in Czech Republic. This lovely place keeps its calm and its starry sky which makes this location perfect for astronomers and other friends of clear skies.
Picture was taken in October 2021. This pano was cropped out from full sky pano which was made from 44 single shots with exposure time 13 seconds. Canon EOS 6D camera was used with ISO 6400 and Sigma Art 24 mm lens with aperture 2.2.

M78, Barnard´s Loop and LDN1622 in Orion

LDN 1622 is a dark nebula in Orion.
It is known as the Boogeyman Nebula due to both its shape and its dark color.
the obscuring dust of LDN 1622 is thought to be much closer than Orion's more famous nebulae, perhaps only 500 light-years away.
At that distance, this 1 degree wide field of view would span less than 10 light-years

The M78 nebula is a reflection nebula in the constellation of Orion, one of the brightest diffuse reflection nebula in the sky.
This nebulae belongs to the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex and is about 1,600 light years distant from Earth.

In between both targets is part of the Barnard´s Loop, which surrounds Orion´s Belt and the Orion Nebula (M42).

The technique I used was to bled starless version of an OSC RGB image and an OSC Duo-narrowband image.
These Two images combined formed the final RGB image which was then combined with the Luminance acquired with another setup.
Both setups were running in parallel and for this reason I was able to acquire 13h worth of data in one single night.

🗓 October, 23rd. 2022
Giruá, RS, Brazil. Bortle 4.
ASKAR FRA400 refractor (with reducer, 280mm DF f3.9), ASKAR FMA230
asi294mm camera, asi2600mc camera
🕶 Optolong L-PRO for luminance, Idas LPS-P3 for osc rgb, Idas NBZ for duo-narrowband osc.
- 108 x 180s Luminance (L-pro) frames (5,4h)
- 60 x 180s RGB (Idas LPS-P3) (3h)
- 39 x 300s Duo-Narrowband frames (3,25h)
- total integration time: ~11,65h
pixinsight, photoshop

Einstein Cross, KG Observatory, Julian CA.

Here's my promised second attempt at trying to resolve Einstein's Cross. My first attempt was in 2018...

https://www.astrobin.com/367242/?nc=&nce=

Now I'm able to take advantage of my planetary setup with a 2X Televue barlow and the ASI6200 CMOS camera.

I estimated seeing at 4/5 while I captured 140 60s L subs. I then kept the best 90 with an average FWHM near 1.5".

The L subs were calibrated, aligned and average integrated in PI. I then applied HDR in PI to lower the core brightness followed by a mild MLT and a mild (100/8/5) USM in PS.

I'm happy to finally resolve the cross structure. My next attempt will use a similar setup and process, but with more subs during great seeing. "The Einstein Cross (Q2237+030 or QSO 2237+0305) is a gravitationally lensed quasar that sits directly behind the center of the galaxy ZW 2237+030, called Huchra's Lens. Four images of the same distant quasar (plus one in the centre, too dim to see) appear in the middle of the foreground galaxy due to strong gravitational lensing. This system was discovered by John Huchra and coworkers in 1985, although at the time they only detected that there was a quasar behind a galaxy based on differing redshifts and did not resolve the four separate images of the quasar.

While gravitationally lensed light sources are often shaped into an Einstein ring, due to the elongated shape of the lensing galaxy and the quasar being off-centre, the images form a peculiar cross-shape instead."


https://www.astrobin.com/j6ec9r/

Located in the constellation Cassiopeia and discovered by William Herschel in 1787, the Bubble Nebula contains a massive 8.7 magnitude star and the stellar winds created the "bubble".

Processing this one was interesting. I tried many different variants of SHO workflows but nothing seemed to really fit the bill. I stumbled across the below Pixel Math combination and well, that was it.

Red - 60% SII + 40% Ha
Green - 60% Ha + 40% OIII
Blue - 70% OIII + 30% Ha

It gave me a very subtle picture that I really liked. Nothing seems to be blown out. I'll have to keep that for some future projects.

Target: NGC-7635 (SH2-162) The Bubble Nebula
Imaging Telescope: Explore Scientific ED127 CF
Imaging Camera: ZWO ASI2600MM-Pro
Guide Scope: Explore Scientific ED127 CF
Guide Camera: ZWO 290mm-Mini
Mount: Sky Watcher EQ8-R Pro
Polar Alignment: ASIAir Plus
Bortle Class: 6
Filter: Chroma 3nm
75 x 300s (Ha)
75 x 300s (OIII)
75 x 300s (SII)
Integration: PixInsight
27-29 Oct 2022

Full Resolution @Astrobin: https://astrob.in/gbbn13/0/

IC 342 - Hidden Galaxy

https://cdn.astrobin.com/images/85438/2 ... 67f524.jpg



This is a wide-field shot to capture the IC 342 through the delicate curtain of dust and star field of our own Milky Way. The galaxy's color are subdued a little because of what we look through to see it and I kept the dense stars and a hint of the dust to show why it is named the hidden Galaxy.

Imaging scope: Takahashi Epsilon 130D
Camera: ASI2600MC Pro, at -10C, Gain 0
203 x 120 s sub-exposures (~6.5 h integration).
Guiding: ASI290MM mini on an OAG on iOptron GEM45
Software: Processed in Astropixel Processor.
Imaged from a Bortle 7 zone.

Andromeda Galaxy - Messier 31

Andromeda Galaxy - Messier 31 by Prashant Naik, on Flickr

For the first time, I captured an image of a galaxy outside of our own Milky Way galaxy. This was shot from a Balsam Knob in Blue Ridge Parkway, North Carolina.

Photograph Date and Location: 21st Oct 2022. Balsam Knob, North Carolina
Exposure time: 30mins. ISO 6400 at f/5.6
Processing details: Images were pre-processed and stacked using calibration frames (25 Bias and 25 Darks) in PixInsight. Final adjustments such as color grading and color corrections were done in Photoshop CC.

Colliding Spiral Galaxies (NGC 520)

I was looking for a relatively small galaxy to capture with my planetary (2X Barlow) setup. Here we have 2 in 1. Skies became unsteady during this dark period, so that limited me to only 4 hours of L. But fortunately I was able to capture 6 hours of RGB.

"NGC 520 is a pair of colliding spiral galaxies about 105 million light-years away in the constellation Pisces. They were discovered by astronomer William Herschel on 13 December 1784.

Halton Arp called this the second-brightest very disturbed galaxy in the sky, and it is as bright in the infrared and radio bands as the Antennae Galaxies. Simulations indicate this object consists of two galactic disks that began interacting about 300 million years ago. The system is still in an early stage of its merger, showing two separate velocity systems in the spectra, and two small tails. Two galactic nuclei have been detected,and one is an H II nucleus.

The main galactic component is being viewed edge-on, making it fainter in the optical band. The secondary component is brighter but less massive than the main, and is located to the northwest. They are separated by a dark lane of dust. The region of the galaxies outside their nuclei experienced a period of increased star formation roughly around the time they began to interact."

https://www.astrobin.com/b9sx4l/

The Heart and Soul Nebula

Northampton, UK (backyard)
Over two nights (17-18/10/2022)
49 x 600 sec
50 x Darks, Flats and Bias

William Optics RedCat51
ZWO AM5 mount
ASI2600MC Pro
Optolong L-Extreme 2" filter
32mm William Optics guidescope
ASI290mm mini guide camera

Integrated and processed with Pixinsight snd Topaz