Bold North Astrophotography

Bold North Astrophotography Just a dude with a telescope and a camera who likes to take space pictures! Find me on YouTube! https://youtube.com/channel/UCERCurqHS9JMFM3dRk0DJ9A

Back at what has been my favorite setup site for the better part of the last 5 years! It’s been a great Bortle 5 spot fo...
05/08/2026

Back at what has been my favorite setup site for the better part of the last 5 years! It’s been a great Bortle 5 spot for me that was only a short 15 minute drive from home. But since I’ll be living under Bortle 5 beginning 3 weeks from now, I likely won’t be coming back here again for quite a while, if ever. So in a way, it’s the end of an era! The sun setting in the background, is indeed fitting for this occasion.

M29! While not exactly a popular target, the surrounding area offers quite a bit of nebulosity that would undoubtedly be...
05/07/2026

M29! While not exactly a popular target, the surrounding area offers quite a bit of nebulosity that would undoubtedly be easier to acquire with a NB filter (a project idea for later this summer, perhaps?). This was my capture from last summer, newly reprocessed with the GraXpert denoising tool.

Oh and Happy Star Wars Day if you’re one of those diehard fans 😄

Ahh yes…the Trifid Nebula…never gets old! Summertime gems such as this one give me something to look forward to once Gal...
05/06/2026

Ahh yes…the Trifid Nebula…never gets old! Summertime gems such as this one give me something to look forward to once Galaxy Season is behind us 😅 My AVX mount can soon finally breathe a sigh of relief once the Milky Way core makes its grand return and I can shift back to shorter focal length targets (iykyk!).

And just in time for…well…these little pests 🦟 🙄

Originally captured in June 2024 under Bortle 5. Newly reprocessed with the GraXpert denoising tool.

Swipe right to see the uncropped version, which also includes the nearby star cluster M21.

No full moon for me this month either, sadly, so instead here’s a throwback pic of last year’s Flower Moon! It was aroun...
05/02/2026

No full moon for me this month either, sadly, so instead here’s a throwback pic of last year’s Flower Moon! It was around this time when I started really playing around with the “mineral moon” aesthetic in my postprocessing. Contrary to the popular perception, the moon indeed has color, but it’s quite faint and requires a camera and some careful saturation boosting to see it. Fascinating stuff! 😄

I took several additional shots from last week’s lunar session, but this might be the only other one that I can get a me...
05/01/2026

I took several additional shots from last week’s lunar session, but this might be the only other one that I can get a meaningful result out of 😬 There were simply so few good frames to work with given how turbulent the atmosphere was.

Celestron 8” SCT
Celestron AVX
ZWO ASI533MC Pro w/ ZWO 1.25” IR cut filter
Exposure time: 5.866 ms
Gain: 350

% illumination: 60.7 (waxing gibbous)
Date captured: 2026-04-25 0130z
Seeing conditions: very poor
Total frames: 17968

Stacked w/ AutoStakkert (best 10% of frames)
Postprocessed w/ RegiStax

Got a new lunar closeup to share! The seeing conditions were some of the worst I’ve ever experienced, so I was pretty li...
04/29/2026

Got a new lunar closeup to share! The seeing conditions were some of the worst I’ve ever experienced, so I was pretty limited on how much I could get out of my lunar/planetary session from last Friday night. In fact, I attempted Jupiter and wasn’t even able to come up with a result worth sharing, despite best efforts. An ADC would have come in handy in a situation like this one, but alas…that’s an upgrade for another time!

Celestron 8” SCT
Celestron AVX
ZWO ASI533MC Pro w/ ZWO 1.25” IR cut filter
Exposure time: 7.141 ms
Gain: 350

% illumination: 60.8 (waxing gibbous)
Date captured: 2026-04-25 0155z
Seeing conditions: very poor
Total frames: 17979

Stacked w/ AutoStakkert (best 10% of frames)
Sharpened w/ RegiStax

Daytime moon images are a rarity for me these days, but my opportunity finally came last Friday when I took the day off ...
04/27/2026

Daytime moon images are a rarity for me these days, but my opportunity finally came last Friday when I took the day off from work and was out of town.

Celestron 8” SCT w/ 0.63 reducer
Celestron AVX
Canon Rebel SL3
Exposure time: 1/500 sec
ISO: 100

% illumination: 59.2 (waxing gibbous)
Date captured: 2026-04-24 2050z
Seeing conditions: poor
Total frames: 1376

Stacked with AutoStakkert (best 50% of frames)
Sharpened with RegiStax

Had the somewhat rare opportunity yesterday afternoon to do a solar session, so I took advantage of it. And I’m glad I d...
04/25/2026

Had the somewhat rare opportunity yesterday afternoon to do a solar session, so I took advantage of it. And I’m glad I did, check out all the sunspot activity!

Celestron 8” SCT w/ 0.63 reducer
Celestron EclipSmart solar filter
Celestron AVX
Canon Rebel SL3
Exposure time: 1/30 sec
ISO: 100

Date captured: 2026-04-24 2035z
Seeing conditions: poor
Total frames: 1310

Preprocessed & cropped with PIPP
Stacked with AutoStakkert (best 25% of frames)
Sharpened with RegiStax

17 years apart. Different equipment, same geek…Every time I look at this calculator that sits on my desk at work, I am r...
04/23/2026

17 years apart. Different equipment, same geek…

Every time I look at this calculator that sits on my desk at work, I am reminded of my roots. When I was in high school, I was the awkward graphic tee wearing dude who wrote code in his TI-83 calculator for the fun of it. Fast forward nearly two decades and I essentially traded one hobby for…well…a much more expensive hobby 🤣 But like programming, astrophotography is both an art and a science, something that my nerdy brain really craves! Both are opportunities for expressing creativity as well as ultra-precise technical skills. Just like back then, I still enjoy seeing how far I can push myself 😄

Brand new capture of M108! It’s not my first time going after this galaxy, but my previous data was lost in a hard drive...
04/23/2026

Brand new capture of M108! It’s not my first time going after this galaxy, but my previous data was lost in a hard drive crash a couple years ago. Unfortunately the focus was slightly off (undoubtedly because of the rapidly cooling ambient temp, an issue that simply comes with the territory with SCT’s), so not the greatest quality data, but I got just enough of it to be able to work with.

Celestron 8” SCT w/ 0.63 reducer
ZWO ASI533MC Pro w/ Optolong 2” UV-IR cut filter
Celestron AVX, unguided

Bortle 7
Lights: 46x60s
No calibration frames

Stacked, color calibrated & autostretched w/ Siril
Background extracted & denoised w/ GraXpert
Post-processed w/ GIMP

Finally got around to capturing one of the last few remaining Messier objects that was missing in my personal collection...
04/21/2026

Finally got around to capturing one of the last few remaining Messier objects that was missing in my personal collection, M99! Nicknamed the Coma Pinwheel Galaxy, the opportunity to image it came at just the right time, though I was only able to get about an hour of usable data. Spring has been hard for me this year as far as astro goes, with opportunities for setting up being scarce for both personal and meteorological reasons. Feels good to finally present something new for a change!

Celestron 8” SCT w/ 0.63 reducer
ZWO ASI533MC Pro w/ Optolong 2” UV-IR cut filter
Celestron AVX
30mm f/4 guide scope
Guide camera: ZWO ASI120MC-S

Bortle 7
Lights: 31x120s
Darks: 15x120s
Cooling temp: -20°C

Stacked, color calibrated & autostretched w/ Siril
Background extracted & denoised w/ GraXpert
Post-processed w/ GIMP

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