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

Venus…then and now! I remember how ecstatic I was when I successfully captured Venusian clouds for the very first time e...
09/05/2026

Venus…then and now! I remember how ecstatic I was when I successfully captured Venusian clouds for the very first time earlier this year, because it was something that always seemed just out of reach for my rig. Previously, I thought just capturing Venus at various phases was a huge win in and of itself (and it still is…don’t get me wrong 😅), but knowing now what my gear actually is capable of, it’s given me a new standard to aim for going forward 🤣

As an aside, I was able to do a session last night despite the heat, but haven’t processed any of my acquired data yet. More on that to come! 👍

Alrighty guys, I have one last photo to share from the recent lunar eclipse! It’s always fun catching the moment when Ea...
09/03/2026

Alrighty guys, I have one last photo to share from the recent lunar eclipse! It’s always fun catching the moment when Earth’s shadow begins darkening the moon’s surface.

In other news, I’ll be in my hometown visiting my parents for an extended weekend, and though it’s supposed to be hot, at least the skies should be clear enough at night to squeeze in a session or two, so hopefully I’ll soon have more fresh new data to share on here 🤞

Apertura 60mm FPL-53 Doublet APO Refractor w/ adjustable field flattener
Celestron AVX
ZWO ASI533MC Pro w/ Optolong 2” UV-IR cut filter
Date captured: 2026-08-28 0300z
Exposure time: 280 μs
Gain: 300

Seeing conditions: average
Total frames: 31

Preprocessed w/ PIPP
Stacked w/ AutoStakkert (best 50% of frames)
Post-processed w/ GIMP

During a recent session, I decided to return to the Crescent Nebula. Not too long ago I had captured an ultra wide field...
09/01/2026

During a recent session, I decided to return to the Crescent Nebula. Not too long ago I had captured an ultra wide field of it along with much of the surrounding region, but this time I wanted to go after some of the finer details of the nebula’s structure using my longer focal length Apertura refractor. Had a much harder time with this one on the postprocessing side of things, so I’m sure there is plenty of room for improvement in future reprocessing attempts.

Apertura 60mm FPL-53 Doublet APO Refractor w/ adjustable field flattener
ZWO ASI533MC Pro w/ Optolong 2” L-eXtreme Dual Band 7nm HA/OIII Light Pollution Filter
Celestron AVX
30mm f/4 guide scope
Guide camera: ZWO ASI120MC-S

Bortle 5
Lights: 33x300s
Darks: 4x300s
Cooling temp: -10°C

Stacked, color calibrated, autostretched & background extracted w/ Siril
Post-processed w/ GIMP

08/30/2026

Here is my time lapse of the recent lunar eclipse (well, at least the first half of it anyway 😆)! Stabilization was somewhat difficult during processing, but after some trail and error I finally arrived at a “good enough” solution 👍 Sped up to 1000x

Apertura 60mm FPL-53 Doublet APO Refractor w/ adjustable field flattener
Celestron AVX
ZWO ASI533MC Pro w/ Optolong 2” UV-IR cut filter
Date captured: 2026-08-28 0227z-0412z
Exposure times: 280 μs - 900 ms
Gain: 300

% illumination: 100.0 (full moon)
Seeing conditions: average
Total frames: 6301

Processed w/ PIPP

Last night’s near-total lunar eclipse was beyond spectacular! I actually watched it while lying down outside on my lawn,...
08/28/2026

Last night’s near-total lunar eclipse was beyond spectacular! I actually watched it while lying down outside on my lawn, on a picnic blanket and covered in a sleeping bag while using another sleeping bag for back support 🤣

The one thing that did not come was the aurora; that ended up being a nothing-burger. But the eclipse show was absolutely stunning! 👏👏

Apertura 60mm FPL-53 Doublet APO Refractor w/ adjustable field flattener
Celestron AVX
ZWO ASI533MC Pro w/ Optolong 2” UV-IR cut filter
Date captured: 2026-08-28 0412z
Exposure time: 900 ms
Gain: 300

% illumination: 100.0 (full moon)
Seeing conditions: average
Total frames: 35

Stacked w/ AutoStakkert (best 50% of frames)
No post-processing

Getting both my main rig and DSLR set up in hopes of capturing tonight’s partial lunar eclipse AND maybe…just maybe….nor...
08/28/2026

Getting both my main rig and DSLR set up in hopes of capturing tonight’s partial lunar eclipse AND maybe…just maybe….northern lights! 🤞

Not my best full disc moon shot by any means, but I wanted to try it again with my Apertura 60mm refractor and 533 camer...
08/26/2026

Not my best full disc moon shot by any means, but I wanted to try it again with my Apertura 60mm refractor and 533 camera pairing. I did end up switching to my SCT later in the session to do lunar closeups (or at least see what I could get in spite of the poorer seeing).

Apertura 60mm FPL-53 Doublet APO Refractor w/ adjustable field flattener
Celestron AVX
ZWO ASI533MC Pro w/ Optolong 2” UV-IR cut filter
Date captured: 2026-08-24 0250z
Exposure time: 992 µs
Gain: 266

% illumination: 84.6 (waxing gibbous)
Seeing conditions: poor
Total frames: 6193

Stacked w/ AutoStakkert (best 50% of frames)
Post-processed w/ RegiStax

I was dealing with a rather difficult session the night before last, and as a result I lost the first couple of hours fr...
08/24/2026

I was dealing with a rather difficult session the night before last, and as a result I lost the first couple of hours from trying to troubleshoot an issue that technically didn’t exist. PHD2 was also being a bit of a pain as it kept failing to give me a reliable autoguiding calibration, despite doing the same thing I always do whenever a new calibration becomes necessary. At first I wanted to go after something completely new to me, but persistently low SNR’s convinced me to go after something a little bit brighter, so I went after the Wizard Nebula (NGC 7380) instead and added another hour’s worth of data to what I had already acquired last summer.

Apertura 60mm FPL-53 Doublet APO Refractor w/ adjustable field flattener
ZWO ASI533MC Pro w/ Optolong 2” L-eXtreme Dual Band 7nm HA/OIII Light Pollution Filter
Celestron AVX
30mm f/4 guide scope
Guide camera: ZWO ASI120MC-S

Bortle 5 & 7 (two sites)
Lights: 56x300s
Darks: 6x300s
Cooling temps: -10°C & 0°C

Stacked, color calibrated, autostretched & background extracted w/ Siril
Post-processed w/ GIMP

I was able to add some narrowband data to my M29 image a couple of nights ago, and this is what I was able to come up wi...
08/21/2026

I was able to add some narrowband data to my M29 image a couple of nights ago, and this is what I was able to come up with! What began as a spur-of-the-moment target idea in May 2025 due to the presence of thick wildfire smoke has ended with this culminating result after 9+ hours of total integration time (which I believe might actually be the most I have spent on a single target to date!) 😄👍

Apertura 60mm FPL-53 Doublet APO Refractor w/ adjustable field flattener
ZWO ASI533MC Pro w/ Optolong 2” UV-IR cut filter & Optolong 2” L-eXtreme Dual Band 7nm HA/OIII Light Pollution Filter
Celestron AVX
30mm f/4 guide scope
Guide camera: ZWO ASI120MC-S

Bortle 5
Lights:
45x300s (broadband)
66x300s (narrowband)
Darks: 12x300s

Stacked, color calibrated & autostretched w/ Siril
Background extracted & denoised w/ GraXpert
Postprocessed w/ GIMP

Recently I had the opportunity to return back to M29 to gather additional data! Sadly, seeing conditions were quite poor...
08/19/2026

Recently I had the opportunity to return back to M29 to gather additional data! Sadly, seeing conditions were quite poor and autoguiding (unsurprisingly) took a nosedive, so I had to toss out quite a few of my frames as a result. But even with this setback, I still have a grand total of 3 hours 45 minutes of integration time between this most recent session and usable data from 2025. My mission now (should I choose to accept it…😂) is to add some narrowband data for the background nebula and combine it with this. Looking forward to trying it out!

Apertura 60mm FPL-53 Doublet APO Refractor w/ adjustable field flattener
ZWO ASI533MC Pro w/ Optolong 2” UV-IR cut filter
Celestron AVX
30mm f/4 guide scope
Guide camera: ZWO ASI120MC-S

Bortle 5
Lights: 45x300s
Darks: 8x300s

Stacked, color calibrated & autostretched w/ Siril
Background extracted & denoised w/ GraXpert

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