M5 Globular Cluster

This is a combination of one night with an SVT152T (1200mm) and two nights with a C11 (2800mm). The C11 had grossly incorrect backfocus one of those nights, and the other night had a tilt-like problem from a dew shield (it was not a good two nights) so the edges have been cropped off to avoid the ugly star shapes. This is almost 17 hours, with 83 x 240s Red, 86 x 240s Green, 83 x 240s Blue, with a synthetic luminance formed from the mean of the individual channels.

M3 (NGC 5272) Globular

In my continuing quest to compare resolution of the SVX152T with the C11, I did another globular cluster, this time M3 as it was conveniently high at night. This is three nights of data, a total of 104 x 240s Red, 100 x 240s Green, and 97 x 240s Blue for a total of about 19.5 hours. The R, G, and B were used to form a synthetic luminance. BlurXTerminator was used for convolution but only outside of the cluster with a smooth mask; the cluster was not deconvolved so as to prevent the creation of between star artifacts from the blurred overlaps there. This is shot from my home in SW Florida in a roughly Bortle 7 zone.

Cigar Galaxy (M82)

Called the Cigar galaxy for the Hydrogen Alpha glow from massive star forming regions exiting the galaxy above and below, it is not quite explanable how the cigar (presumably the white body) was lit in the middle. Anyway, this is a re-do of old data. I culled heavily in favor of better FWHM and eccentricity, and reprocessed the data to produce what is hopefully an image with more detail. This has 180 x 300s Ha, 140 x 240s Blue, 119 x 240s Green and 124 x 240s Red. I also had Luminance data, but found a synthetic luminance gave better results (the real luminance ended up with slightly less detail and more bloated stars). This is all data from a 2800mm C11 Edge and ASI6200MM with Chroma RGB and Ha filters, all shot from my backyard (B7).

Leo Triplet (M66, M65, NGC 3628)

This is the Leo Triplet with my SVX152T with SV Flattener. It is slightly less than full frame, with a lot of time from my back yard (B7) and one night from Big Cypress dark site (B3). I was pleasantly surprised to find a bit of tidal tail on NGC 3628, but even more surprised to see the huge number of tiny galaxies in the background, so am leaing this (at least the original) a bit over sampled so you can see them in whatever detail the drizzle integration brought out. This was done on an AP1100AE mount, and ASI6200MM mono in RGB with a bit of Ha (Chroma filters). There is 12.5 hours of Red, 13.3 hours of Green, and 12.75 hours of Blue, plus 9.7 hours of Ha (added after RGB combine at 20% of red). This is a second version after some denoise.

Bode and the Cigar (M81 and M82) Multi-resolution

This is something different. I had M81 and M82 from a C11 Edge at 2800mm, separately. I also did both targets with an SVX152T. This is a combination of these stacked together, not done as a mosaic. The idea is by stacking on the targets I get the combined integration time and less noise. What I also got were two ugly rectangles from different sky backgrounds. As I was giving up, @eigenVector was kind enough to provide some multi-scale magic that got me going. The background has about 41 hours, M81 collectively then only 48 hours, and M82 about 90 hours. This was taken almost entirely from my B-7 back yard, with one night on the 152 at a B-3 site at Big Cypress.

Bode and Cigar (M81, M82, SVX152T)

This is w wide field of two targets I did with a C11 at 2800mm; this was the SVX152T at 1200mm (flattener), and includes about 41 hours roughly split between RGB and Ha. The Ha was added heavily during the initial channel combine while linear (4 parts Ha to 1 part Red). This used an AP1100AE for support, and mostly was done from my B-7 backyard, but with one night at B-3 from Big Cypress. A ASI6200 was used. BlurXTerminator reduced the star sizes, but most of the detail came from HDMRT and LHE in pixinsight. M81 was brightened a bit and M82 highlights tamed a bit selectively in Photoshop. The SVX152T is quite impressive, I think it has more detail than my C11 image, though I need to try that again with more data to really know. But quite impressive amount of detail, an excellent OTA.

Orion Nebula in HSO (M42)

This is the first light with my QuadTCC used with the SVX152T. It turns out to be a good match, if a bit difficult to get the tilt dialed in; nice round stars in the corner, and minimal vignetting even on a full frame image (this is a slight crop) just to emphasize the nebula). This is mostly narrowband, with about 4 hours each of Ha, Sii, and Oiii; there is also an hour each of Red, Green and Blue which was used solely as a synthetic luminance to blend with the narrow band (also as luminance) and bring out the running man more completely, since it shows better in broad band. The area around the nebula uses luminance almost entirely from Ha (masked) to highlight the surrounding dust/gas which is more visible in Ha. This dues use BlurXTerminator to bring out some detail, though mostly it reduced star bloat. Local Histogram Normalization is actually the source of most of the structure contrast, as is HDR Multiscale to tame the brighter areas and highly contrast in them. All my attempts to use RGB stars failed.

Witch Head Facing Rigel (IC2118)

This is one of the most frustrating targets I tried, the light pollution at my home was just too much for the dim, reflection face (it reflects Rigel's light, it does not glow with emissions as many nebula do). I got four nights at home (Bortle 7) and still barely had a face, then got one night at Big Cypress dark site (Bortle 3), shot only Luminance, and had enough for an image (I hope). This is 92 Red at 240s, 75 Green @ 240s, 55 Blue @ 240s, and 182 Luminance (also 240s, except a handful of 120s for testing). Half the Luminance was at a dark site, half bright. This is about 11.5h of Luminance and a bit less than 15h or RGB. This was shot with an NP101is and ASI6200MM, with Chroma filters, on an AP1100AE mount.

SHO Fly with HSO Spider

This is the Spider (IC417) and Fly (NGC1931) shot in narrow band with RGB stars. I could not decide which pallet I liked, and decided to highlight the two separately, but showing the Spider in HSO and the fly in SHO. This is from short sessions in a month of bad weather ending in mid December. The RGB stars have 28 x 60s of Red, 25 x 60s of Green, and 27 x 60s of Blue; the narrow band have 134 x 300s of Ha, 121 x 300s of S-ii, and 65 x 300s of Oiii. The Oiii added very little. This was also my first use of blurXTerminator, though it made little difference in the nebula detail, but did a pretty dramatic reduction in the size of the stars. Because it did such a nice job on the stars I did not de-emphasize them further.

Tadpole Nebula (IC410)

This is an SHO (hubble pallet) view of the Tadpole nebula, and is the second light with my SVX152T. It is about half a frame with the ASI6200, and has RGB stars. There are 130 subs of Ha, 100 of Sii, and 96 of Oiii each 300s long. The stars from from separate RGB images, 48 of each at 60s, reduced a bit and blended in for more accurate star color. This represents about 28 hours total data, all shot from my Bortle 7 back yard, using an AP1100AE, ending 11/27/2022.

M33 Triangulum (SVX152T First Light)

This is my first image with my new Stellarvue SVX152T. I left it in too high of resolution so you can explore the details to judge how well the optics worked, and it is an uncropped full frame to see the stars in the corners. I think it did pretty well. This was shot from my Bortle 7 back yard, and I kept adding data hoping to bring out some of the halo detail. It has about 39 hours, 4 of which is HA, and about 11 hours each of Red, Green and Blue. This was taken in five consecutive nights ending 10/27/2022, in a surprisingly clear stretch of days. M33 is part of our local group, a bit further away than Andomeda and likely gravitationally linked to it, and moving toward us. It is currently about 3.5 million light years away, and while smaller than the milky way has exceptionally active star forming regions, here highlighted in red from the Hydrogen Alpha exposures. This is the further object visible by the naked eye (but only with dark, excellent conditions).

M33 Triangulum (SVX152T First Light)

This is my first image with my new Stellarvue SVX152T. I left it in too high of resolution so you can explore the details to judge how well the optics worked, and it is an uncropped full frame to see the stars in the corners. I think it did pretty well. This was shot from my Bortle 7 back yard, and I kept adding data hoping to bring out some of the halo detail. It has about 39 hours, 4 of which is HA, and about 11 hours each of Red, Green and Blue. This was taken in five consecutive nights ending 10/27/2022, in a surprisingly clear stretch of days. M33 is part of our local group, a bit further away than Andomeda and likely gravitationally linked to it, and moving toward us. It is currently about 3.5 million light years away, and while smaller than the milky way has exceptionally active star forming regions, here highlighted in red from the Hydrogen Alpha exposures. This is the further object visible by the naked eye (but only with dark, excellent conditions).

Soul Nebula (IC1848)

The Soul Nebula is an emission nebula in Cassiopeia, half of the Heart and Soul. This is a 4 night SHO version of the Soul nebula with RGB stars. It has 106 Ha, 103 Sii, and 95 Oiii all at 300s, and the stars are from 24 each of Red, Green and Blue at 30 seconds. That is about 25 hours of narrowband. The color is the hubble pallet, with some of the green left in, and RGB stars added back with 1.5 exponent to tone them down a bit. The nebula is also known as Westerhout 5. This was captured with a NP101is at 540mm, an ASI6200 full frame (it is cropped a bit) and an AP1100AE from my backyard.

This is the Elephant in a pseudo Hubble pallet. Its detail is from narrow band data of about 36 hours, but the colors are a combination with relatively brief (5.9 hours) of RGB data. This is taken at 2800mm from my backyard over about 75 days trying to find windows between rain. This uses a ASI6200 as the imaging camera, and AP1100AE as the mount carrying a C11. Taken 7/31 - 9/20/2022 240s: Red x29 Green x29 Blue x30 5.86 hours 300s: Ha x191 Sii x142 Oiii x98 35.92 hours 41.78 hours total

Gulf of Mexico Nebula and Vicinity in SHO

This is the general vicinity of the Gulf of Mexico nebula, mis-named since it is really the absence of nebula that makes up that area. The Pelican is up on the right (though I cannot see a Pelican there). This is mostly SHO, with green shifted to the other colors, and then some adjustment added, trying to get some of the blues I would associate with waters in the gulf (even though the "gulf" here is actually brown, I think). Deneb has left a glare coming in from the top right. It represents about 19 hours (combined) of Ha, Sii and Oiii, with 5 hours of RGB that contributed the star colors, though they have been restrained in brightness to emphasize the nebula. This was taken in July 2022 with a Televue NP101is, ASI6200MM full frame camera, on a AP1100AE mount from my back yard in Fort Myers.

Cygnus Loop (East and West Veil)

East (left) and West Veil nebulae in the cygnus loop. This is a combination of RGB 240 second exposures (28 red, 36 green, 30 blue) and narrowband 300 second exposures (85 Ha, 66 Sii, 76 Oiii). The RGB and Narrowband were separately used to form synthetic luminance, then the final stretched images were combined with only the stars from Rgb (which were combined with the square of the normalized value to de-emphasize them). This represents about 25.2 hours of data with a NP101is at F5.4, on a AP1100AE mount and ASI6200MM Pro.

Dumbell Nebula (M27) in RedGB + ForaxX(Ha, Sii, Oiii)

I imaged the Dumbell Nebula on several nights in June 2022 with almost every filter I had, then tried to combine them to present a color pallet that would show the structure of it without being too unusual (though this is not a 'true" color as your eyes might see it). This represents about 18.5 hours of data, with 9 x 300s of red, 31 x 240s of red, 39 x 240s of green, 37 x 240s of blue, 36 x 300s of Ha, 47 x 300s of Sii, and 44 x 300s of Oiii. I mixed these based on trying to highlight shape more than a typical pallet, first blending RGB to get a normal color plus normal stars, then a SHO variation using ForaxX, and blending the result (dropping the stars by using the square of the stretched version). The Dumbell Nebula is about 1360 lightyears away in the constellation Vulpecula, and is a fairly bright planetary nebula at magnitude 7.5. it is thought to be somewhere between 9500 and 15000 years old.

The Ring Nebula in RGB (M57)

After doing this in narrowband, I switched to broadband near a new moon, and got several nights. These are all 120s exposures, with 213 in red, 195 in Green, and 191 in blue for a total of about 19.9 hours over 4 nights. No luminance was taken, but a synthetic luminance made from the minimum of the R, G and B stacks. HDR Multi-scale was used on the synthetic luminance (not the RGB). I am happy to see some secondary halo, this was very strong in narrowband, but very dim here. I was pleased that you can see the bared galaxy IC1296 fairly clearly, plus some smudges all over the background which are clearly other galaxies. Because of those I did not try to de-emphasize the stars for fear of also losing some of those smudges. This was taken with a C11 Edge HD on an AP1100 mount with an ASI6200MM Pro.

Moon, Waxing Crescent (34%)

Taken 6/5/2022, single shot at 2800mm while waiting for M57 to rise.

Hercules Cluster (M13)

While to some extent I find globular clusters less interesting subjects, the Great Cluster in Hercules is pretty impressive. Barely visible to the naked eye, with stacked exposures not only do individual stars resolve, but the colors come through quite well. Many of the blue stars originate from collisions of older, more red stars. This is also the target of a 1974 Arecibo message to potential ET's in the area, so expect the invasion from that direction. This represents a pure RGB image, with 98 exposures at 240s Red, 91 at 240s in green, and 90 at 240s in Blue, for a total of about 18.6 hours of integration. These were shot over 4 nights from my Bortle 6-7 backyard in May 2022, with a C11 EdgeHD at 2800mm and ASI6200 camera. This is slightly less than the full frame.

Plagued by bad weather in dark skies, but great weather on a full moon, this is M57 (the Ring Nebula) in narrowband, with a HSO (modified) pallet. It has 99 subs in Ha, 77 in Oiii, and 79 in Sii all 300s for a total of 21.25 hours, at 2800mm with a C11 Edge and a ASI6200MM heavily cropped. It was taken on 5 consecutive days 5/14/2022 thru 5/18/2022. This also had enough data you can just see the barred galaxy IC1296 in the nearby field.

M63 The Sunflower Galaxy

M63, otherwise known as NGC 5055 and sometimes called the Sunflower Galaxy is in Canes Venatici at about 29 million light years from earth (though other measurements put it closer). it is about 12' wide and quite dim. It is a spiral galaxy but without clear arms visible. This image is in visible light but with Hydrogen Alpha added into the red channel. It is a result of images shot from my backyard in February and March 2022. I also decided during this set to change broadband from gain 0 to gain 100, so there is a mixture here as follows (total 42.5 hours) Luminance: 86 images Gain 0, 120s Luminance: 32 images Gain 100, 60s Red: 120 images Gain 0, 240s Red; 43 images Gain 100, 120s Green: 94 images Gain 0, 240s Green: 53 images Gain 100, 120s Blue: 101 images Gain 0, 240s Blue: 15 images Gain 100, 120s Ha: 173 images Gain 100, 300s

M82 - Cigar Galaxy

M81 is also known as the Cigar Galaxy, and is a fast breeder of new stars, thought to be exacerbated by gravitational interaction with M81 (also known as Bode's galaxy). The galaxy is just above (or below depending on your orientation) the back of Ursa Major (Big Bear, of which the Big Dipper is part). It is not visible to the naked eye, and can be challenging even with a small telescope by eye. At its widest it is about 1/3rd the width of the full moon. It is about 12 million light years from Earth. This M82 image is a combination of Luminance of 258 x 120s, Red of 190 x 240s, Green of 154 x 240s, Blue 151 x 240s, and Ha of 193 x 300s, for a total of 56.7 hours exposure. The Ha was blended in both Red and Green channels and provided a lot of the plume's structure, though after the fact I shifted it back a bit into red (I do not personally like the overly saturated red that is often used for Ha, I like to reserve it for really red things, like carbon stars). The image was produced with a C11 Edge HD at 2800mm on an AP1100 mount from my back yard in Florida.

Dolphin Nebula S2-308

The Dolphin Nebula has the name of "Sharpeless" 2-308. With a little imagination "Dolphin" is much more descriptive. It is about 5200 light years away in Canis Major, and almost twice the width of the full moon. Here it is shown in Ha and Oiii (most of the head is Oiii). The nebula is created by the star near the center of the head (not the brightest one at the edge). This image has 170 subs of Ha at 300s and 260 of Oiii at 300s for a total of about 35 hours. I also took a few Sii but there was no visible structures at that wavelength. The image was created with R=Ha, G=(Ha*2 + Oiii)/3, B=Oiii. I worked quite a bit to de-emphasize the surrounding stars, reducing their size in the synthetic luminance (from Ha + Oiii) before the Luminance combine, but even afterwards I applied a slight gaussian blur to make the tiny stars less prominent.