Holiday Stars

After having my 8" telescope stolen about 4 years ago and finally replacing it several months back over the Holidays I had first light with the new telescope and all went okay. We took a road trip to the Grand Canyon stopping in Joshua Tree on the way there and back for some Holiday dark skies. Well at least dark compared to SF -:]

Horsehead Nebula and Flame Nebula(NGC 2024)

My first real target (M42 is always my goto test) was the Horse Head Nebula which I have been trying to get a better shot of for years. This is actually combine images from two nights but half of the time was from first light night.

Horse Head, Flame and M42

I also setup my very portable Red Cat rig for a wide field shot of M42 and the Horse Head together. I am super excited about the results I get with my Red Cat on a Move Shoot Move star tracker. The whole setup easily fits in a small backpack with a little room to spare. For sure my travel setup going forward.

Sombrero Galaxy (M104)

On the first night before breaking down the scope I thought I would try getting some images of the Sombrero Nebula. Probably the best image of the Sombrero I have taken yet even though I only spent a little time imaging it.

Whirlpool Galaxy (M51)

And on the 2nd night in Joshua Tree again before breaking down I turn the scope to M51 for a little bit. Again I think this is probably my best image of M101 yet mostly due to the dark skies in Joshua Tree.

Now I just need to make more time to get back out under some clear skies!

And Andromeda Again

Giving Andromeda yet another try. This time I used a dew heater to keep my lens from fogging up.

I stacked 117 images for a total of about 22min of exposure. I think this one has a tad more detail than the last version. Not bad for a roof top in San Francisco. I need to get somewhere dark and try this again.

Andromeda from the roof

It's been raining for the better part of the week but the skies cleared up a little so I took my portable astrophotography rig out for another test. Took a picture of Andromeda.

This might be the best image I have taken of Andromeda so far. I did have a fair number of problems tonight. I think the biggest being my lens fogged up. I think this is causing a big bright spot in my images which I managed to clean up a little in photoshop. This is about 8min of exposure. It was cold and wet on our roof tonight so I didn't last to long. Still I'm pretty happy with the results I'm getting with my new portable rig so far.

Milky Way from OBX

It's been raining and cloudy for days on our vacation to the Outer Banks. Finally ha a little bit of clear weather to play with my Vixen Polari and Canon s100 with CHDK. Unfortunately there was a bit of haze and some light pollution which caused some bright washed out areas.

Here is the first results of the Milky Way. 9x 50sec exposures stacked with Deep Sky Stacker and tweaked in Photoshop.


And here is my second image which includes Andromeda.

Spaced Out Friday

Finally had some clear skies and a little time so I took some old and new gear out to play with. Had fun but also technical issues with some new gear. Seeing wasn't to good either so none of my images came out as well as I would have liked.

Probably my best Satrun image yet but I am a little disappointed. I guess the seeing wasn't so great so there was probably not much I could have done to get a better image.


I think this might be my first image of Mars.


I think this is a slightly better image of the Sombrero Galaxy (M104).


And a noisy but okay(ish) image of the Whirlpool Galaxy (M51).

Same Stars Diffrent Night

Went out the other night to catch super nova 2011fe close to it's peak intensity and to work on my imaging techniques. I got the super nova again just fine. Not sure if my images are any better though. I think maybe the are a little less noisy but I'm not really sure.

Here is M101 and Super Nova 2011fe. I think you can tell the super nova is a tad brighter than the image from a few weeks ago but again I'm not totally sure.


I think this may be my most detailed image of Jupiter yet.


Here is m8 a.k.a. the Lagoon Nebula. It was the first deep space object I tried to image about a year ago. I think this image is much better than that attempt which you can see here.


And Comet Garradd is still up. I think this image is a bit better than the one from a few weeks ago as well.

Exploding Star, Comet, Whirlpools and Jupiter's Pimple!

Went out to look at and take pictures of the new super nova 2011fe. Had lots of fun and met a few other guys, Warren, Corey and Dave, out doing the same. My images didn't turn out as well as I hoped but I got something. Lucky for me Warren had some pointers and I if all goes well my next outing should get me some better images. And Dave gave the rest of us coordinates for Comet Garradd so I managed to get some pictures of it too. Again not so great but better than my first attempt at a comet picture!

M101 aka the Pinwheel Galaxy and Super Nova 2011fe.


In case you couldn't spot it here is where SN/2011fe is. By the end of the week it is supposed to be bright enough to see through binocular!


And here is Comet Garradd.


M51 aka the Whirlpool Galaxy. Cool even if it is a pretty bad image with butterfly stars because of tracking issues. At least you can make it out right?


Check it out, Jupiter has a pimple! Actually That's Jupiter's moon Io just starting to peak out from behind it. Dumb luck. Not sure if it's cool or not to have Io stuck on Jupiter's side like that. Mostly I think it's kind of cool. Oh, and this is probably the best image of the night even though I wasn't set up for taking images of planets. I would have taken more shots but my camera battery died right after this. Stayed for a bit longer just looking through eye pieces and chatting with the other guy. All in all a fun night!