astro_s_b_

astro_s_b_ A journey of my steps through this astrophotography thing.

WR-134 and the associated nebula This image I snapped back in the summer as well. The blueish eye looking nebula is caus...
11/30/2024

WR-134 and the associated nebula

This image I snapped back in the summer as well. The blueish eye looking nebula is caused from the star WR-134, which is a Wolf-Rayet type star, pictured here in the center of the image. The star is so intense that it is blowing and pushing all that gas outwards. The star is just 5x the size of the sun but is over 400,000 times as luminous because it is so hot! Pretty cool!

This image I spent waaaaay too much time on, capturing as well as processing. This is about 80 hours of data half of which is RGB. The other half being Ha and OIII. The RGB data had a pretty bad artifact in it that thankfully I was able to get rid of in this edit. This nebula is extremely faint! Hope you like it! The starless version is pretty cool looking! Taken at

🚨 Nerd 🚨

RGB

Total Integrarion: 80ish hours

RGB 300s subs
Ha OIII 900s subs.

Telescope: AG Optical 14.5” iDK
Mount: Software Bisque MeII
Camera: FLI PL16803
Filters: Chroma RGB 3nmOIII
Focuser: Optec Gemini
Controlled with a Nuc computer
Capture Software: NINA
Processed in Pixinsight entirely, lightly

M17 aka The Swan Nebula This was the first image I took when I sent my scope remote back in July. This was my test shot ...
11/27/2024

M17 aka The Swan Nebula

This was the first image I took when I sent my scope remote back in July. This was my test shot to make sure everything was operational. Honestly, I am quite surprised at the quality now that I’m looking back at it. At the time I didn’t really like it. But now seeing how little integration time there was on this, less than an hour total, it’s not so bad! Ha. Im trying to get all these images I’ve taken the last few months off of the astrophotography graveyard that my phone has turned into! Hope you like it! Taken at

🚨 Nerd 🚨

RGB

Total Integrarion: 50 minutes

RGB 300s subs

Telescope: AG Optical 14.5” iDK
Mount: Software Bisque MeII
Camera: FLI PL16803
Filters: Chroma RGB 3nmOIII
Focuser: Optec Gemini
Controlled with a Nuc computer
Capture Software: NINA
Processed in Pixinsight entirely, lightly

The Snake Nebula and friends! This was one of the first targets I shot when I sent this scope remote. This has been on m...
11/26/2024

The Snake Nebula and friends!

This was one of the first targets I shot when I sent this scope remote. This has been on my list for a long time, but found it very difficult to shoot at home with the light pollution we have here. Its always fascinated me because of Barnard 68, the dark blob on the middle left. That dark region is often improperly labeled as the Bootes void, a region of space that is unexpectedly “empty”. Well, that’s actually not true, it’s just so dark, dense and cold it’s obscuring the stars behind it. It’s actually incredibly cold at around -431degreesF. Buuuuuur!!!! Anyhoo, It’s also fairly difficult to image here as it is low to the southern horizon so I had even more light pollution to shoot through and being a dark nebula in a dense star field, makes it even more difficult! So I was pretty excited when I got the chance to shoot from darker skies! The integration time here is low as I only had an hour or so each night that I was able to spend on target. Hope you like it! Taken at

🚨 Nerd 🚨

RGB

Total Integrarion: 3.5ish hours

RGB 300s subs

Telescope: AG Optical 14.5” iDK
Mount: Software Bisque MeII
Camera: FLI PL16803
Filters: Chroma RGB 3nmOIII
Focuser: Optec Gemini
Controlled with a Nuc computer
Capture Software: NINA
Processed in Pixinsight entirely, lightly

The Tulip Nebula. This image I shot back in the summer but am just now getting around to posting it. It was my first tim...
11/25/2024

The Tulip Nebula.

This image I shot back in the summer but am just now getting around to posting it. It was my first time applying OIII to an RGB image and I think it turned out pretty nice! Gotta love dark, stable, clear skies! Taken at

🚨 Nerd 🚨

OIIIRGB

Total Integrarion: 25ish hours

RGB 300s subs
OIII 900s subs

Telescope: AG Optical 14.5” iDK
Mount: Software Bisque MeII
Camera: FLI PL16803
Filters: Chroma RGB 3nmOIII
Focuser: Optec Gemini
Controlled with a Nuc computer
Capture Software: NINA
Processed in Pixinsight entirely, lightly

NGC 7000 The North American Nebula“The Setting of North America” The is around 30 hours of RGB, true color broadband. I ...
09/20/2024

NGC 7000
The North American Nebula
“The Setting of North America”

The is around 30 hours of RGB, true color broadband. I didn’t spend very long processing this one. I actually had to process it with the stars still in the image. This was shot at our house in a bortle 4/5. The halos are so incredibly bad, I had to keep the stars in to keep from blowing the background out. I mean….look at Deneb! Sucker is huge! Haha. The title of this image is simply because the framing here represents this target as it is when it on the west side of the meridian, setting. This was pretty fun, and I framed it this way to capture that dense star field mixed with bands of dark dust. It’s a fairly simple image, but I love the natural look here. A little bit of saturation applied, and that’s about it.
This camera recently decided to take a dump, which is pretty unfortunate, I love this FOV! Anyhoo! Enjoy!

🚨 Nerd 🚨

RGB

Total Integrarion: 30ish hours

RGB 300s subs

Telescope: Vixen VSD100
Mount: Software Bisque MX+
Camera: FLI ML50100
Filters: Chroma LRGB
Focuser: Optec Leo
Controlled with an Nuc13
Capture Software: NINA
Processed in Pixinsight entirely, lightly

This is my first light image since sending my scope to a remote hosting site in Texas. I have been completely blown awa...
07/20/2024

This is my first light image since sending my scope to a remote hosting site in Texas. I have been completely blown away with what this scope can do in truly dark skies. This is just 5 hours of integration and I think it looks pretty nice for such little time on target. To get this level of detail from my house would have taken months and countless hours processing and still, I would have all kinds of issues in the final edit. Cannot wait to keep cranking them out! It is so much fun working with clean data from a dark sky site! Hope you like it too! Ha!

🚨 Nerd 🚨

RGB

Total Integrarion: 5ish hours

RGB 300s subs

Telescope: AGO 14.5” iDK
Mount: Software Bisque MEII
Camera: FLI PL16803
Filters: Chroma LRGB
Focuser: Optec Gemini
Controlled with an Eagle4 Pro
Capture Software: The SkyX
Processed in Pixinsight entirely: tweaked in photoshop.

Got a few targets on this one. I’ve been really loving this wide field set up. And while the camera definitely has its l...
02/06/2024

Got a few targets on this one. I’ve been really loving this wide field set up. And while the camera definitely has its limitations, I’ve been really loving the beauty of such wide shots and that I still maintain some details even though it is so wide. I was hoping to add a fair amount of Ha to this one, but with the weather lately it has been challenging. So, I decided to pull my equipment down and give it all its annual checkup. I will definitely revisit this one next year.

We’ve got the Jellyfish nebula(IC 443) on the left side. That’s a supernova remnant that created a neutron star in the center. Pretty darn cool. The nebula on the bottom is an emission nebula called the monkey head nebula(NGC2174/75) that is mainly hydrogen gas being lit up by intense radiation and by stellar winds from the young stars in its center. And on the upper right are the star clusters M35(the small cluster) and NGC2168(the more open one). It’s pretty fun being able to get so many awesome and different parts of our galaxy in one shot. I’m excited for MW season already with this rig. Haha. Anyhoo. Hope you all enjoy. It was a fun one for me!

🚨 Nerd 🚨

RGB

Total Integrarion: 30ish hours

RGB 300s subs

Telescope: Vixen VSD100 f3.8
Mount: Software Bisque MyT
Camera: FLI ML50100
Filters: Chroma LRGB
Focuser: Optec Leo
Controlled with an Eagle3 Pro
Capture Software: The SkyX
Processed in Pixinsight entirely: tweaked in photoshop.

NGC 1333 This is a pretty wide field view of NGC 1333(the Embryo Nebula). Honestly there are too many things in this fra...
12/28/2023

NGC 1333

This is a pretty wide field view of NGC 1333(the Embryo Nebula). Honestly there are too many things in this frame to list. But I definitely love this FOV!! This was just a test shot to see if the little scope could handle a chip this big. It certainly can with the help of modern software, specifically BlurX with the new AI. Pretty impressive what it’s capable of.

I really wasn’t expecting much from this setup. Just more of let’s get it set up and see what happens. Well, I’m pretty stoked on the results. Especially given that this was all shot in 1 night with less than ideal conditions and completely unguided. Not too shabby for an outdated low QE(50%) CCD sensor on a fast smallish refractor. Hope you guys like it!

Copied from Wikipedia

NGC 1333 is a reflection nebula located in the northern constellation Perseus, positioned next to the southern constellation border with Ta**us and Aries.[3] It was first discovered by German astronomer Eduard Schönfeld in 1855.[4] The nebula is visible as a hazy patch in a small telescope, while a larger aperture will show a pair of dark nebulae designated Barnard 1 and Barnard 2.[5] It is associated with a dark cloud L1450 (Barnard 205). Estimates of the distance to this nebula range from 980–1,140 ly

🚨 Nerd 🚨

RGB

Total Integrarion: 6ish hours

RGB 300s subs

Telescope: Vixen VSD100 f3.8
Mount: Software Bisque MyT
Camera: FLI ML50100
Filters: Chroma LRGB
Focuser: Optec Leo
Controlled with an Eagle3 Pro
Capture Software: The SkyX
Processed in Pixinsight entirely: tweaked in photoshop.

LDN 1622 aka the boogeyman nebula located near the constellation of Orion just on the outside of his right hand torso ar...
12/22/2023

LDN 1622 aka the boogeyman nebula located near the constellation of Orion just on the outside of his right hand torso area. We’ve had so much going on lately, I don’t even know how much time I spent on this target. And I haven’t been able to do my typical workflow with my images lately. But this is an HaRGB image with a very heavy push of the Ha data. I’ll probably go back and rework it and try to make the dust there a more grey tone so it seems a little more natural, but I do kinda like this version. Hope you like it too!

🚨 Nerd 🚨

HaRGB

Total Integrarion: 🤷🏼‍♂️

RGB 300s subs
Ha 1800s subs

Telescope: AG Optical 14.5” iDK f/6 .7
Mount: Software Bisque Mx+
Camera: FLI PL16803
Filters: Chroma LRGB
Focuser: Optec Gemini
Controlled with an Eagle4 Pro
Capture Software: The SkyX
Processed in Pixinsight entirely: tweaked in photoshop.

Here is my “true color” version of NGC 7635 aka The Bubble Nebula. This dusty region is about 7100 light years away fro...
12/05/2023

Here is my “true color” version of NGC 7635 aka The Bubble Nebula. This dusty region is about 7100 light years away from earth in the constellation Cassiopeia.

At first I didn’t really love my processing on it, but as I’ve sat with it longer, it’s grown on me a little. Not too many great examples of this target, at this FOV, in LRGB out there so I’m not even sure if I pulled out the dust all that well. I spent a lot of time on this target and was a little underwhelmed by how much there was, so it’s either very faint, just not there, or I’m not that great at pulling it all out.

Blows my mind there is just a structured bubble like this in space. Freaking crazy. Hope you like it! Included a couple crops of the bubble itself.

🚨 Nerd 🚨

LRGB

Total Integrarion: 41 hours

RGB 300s around 5 hrs ea
L 300s 26 hours

Telescope: AG Optical 14.5” iDK f/6 .7
Mount: Software Bisque Mx+
Camera: FLI PL16803
Filters: Chroma LRGB
Focuser: Optec Gemini
Controlled with an Eagle4 Pro
Capture Software: The SkyX
Processed in Pixinsight entirely: tweaked in photoshop.

Here we got Barnard 150 aka The Seahorse nebula. This is considered a dark nebula since it’s just some dark dust up in t...
11/29/2023

Here we got Barnard 150 aka The Seahorse nebula. This is considered a dark nebula since it’s just some dark dust up in the sky not being lit up by ionizing stars and hydrogen gas. Don’t kid yourself though, still got some star makin goin on in those dark clouds. She’s about 1200 light years away from earth near the constellation Cepheus. I see this picture and I see everything wrong with it. But at the end of the day, it’s still pretty cool to point a telescope at the sky and take pictures like this, with all her flaws, she still purdy and cool. Hope you like it!

Pixinsight process: linear fit, noiseX, blurX, channel combination, starX, histogram transformation, curves transformation, add stars, saturation.

🚨 Nerd 🚨

RGB

Total Integrarion: 6 hours

RGB 300s around 2 hrs ea

Telescope: Pentax 125SDP f/6.4
Mount: Software Bisque MyT
Camera: QHY268m
Filters: Chroma LRGB
Focuser: Optec Leo
Controlled with an Eagle3pro
Capture Software: The SkyX
Processed in Pixinsight entirely: tweaked in photoshop.

Happy Sunday y’all! This here is the Cave nebula. Located in the constellation Cepheus. This was one of those “waiting f...
11/26/2023

Happy Sunday y’all! This here is the Cave nebula. Located in the constellation Cepheus. This was one of those “waiting for the target I want to rise so I’ll just shoot this” targets. Actually kinda glad with how it turned out. Pretty interesting region of the sky. Hope you guys like it! Swipe for the raw, only screen stretched image.

Pixinsight process: linear fit, noiseX, blurX, channel combination, starX, histogram transformation, curves transformation, add stars, saturation.

🚨 Nerd 🚨

LRGB

Total Integrarion: 21 hours

RGB 300s around 2 hrs ea
Luminance 300s: 15 hrs

Telescope: AG Optical 14.5” iDK f/6.7
Mount: Software Bisque Mx+
Camera: FLI PL 16803
Filters: Chroma LRGB
Focuser: Optec Gemini
Controlled with an Eagle4pro
Capture Software: The SkyX
Processed in Pixinsight entirely: tweaked in photoshop.

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