NGC7822, Sharpless 2-171

NGC7822, Sharpless 2-171

September 11, 2024
My longest project to date at 38.5 hours of imaging, this is NGC7822. NGC7822 is in the constellation Cepheus. It contains a large emission nebula, Sharpless 171, a star cluster Berkeley 59 and a young star forming region. The nebula is about 2900 light years away and about 75 light years across. I …
G11 Gemini 1 Serial Port Repair

G11 Gemini 1 Serial Port Repair

August 20, 2024
Last week I was imaging for a new astrophotography project and my Losmandy G11 stopped responding correctly to NINA and PHD2. It was already midnight, but I spent a few more hours trying to solve the problem. Some commands worked intermittently, but it correctly executed commands so infrequently tha…
The Wizard Nebula – NGC7380

The Wizard Nebula – NGC7380

August 4, 2024
The Wizard Nebula is an open star cluster with a large emission nebula in the constellation Cepheus. The nebula is about 8500 light years away and about 20 light years across. I captured this data between July 16th and August 2nd, 2024 and combined a total of 26.5 hours of imaging for this photo.&nb…
The Helix Nebula – NGC7293

The Helix Nebula – NGC7293

July 25, 2024
I crunched some more data from the telescope in Chile. This is 100 sub-exposures at 120 seconds each taken with an Explore Scientific ED102 refractor on an iOptron GEM28 mount with an ASI183MC camera. Processed with Siril, GraXpert, StarNet, NXT and Photoshop.…
The Lion Nebula – Sharpless 2-132

The Lion Nebula – Sharpless 2-132

July 20, 2024
The Lion Nebula is another nebula in the northern sky’s constellation Cepheus. It's a large area with emission nebula along with several star clusters and dark dust areas. I captured this data between July 10th and July 15th, 2024 and combined a total of 24.5 hours of imaging for this photo. Here's …
Filling up the Lightbucket

Filling up the Lightbucket

July 16, 2024
A little over 2 weeks ago, I signed up for Lightbucket. Lightbucket is a website that helps you track your astrophotography and see what others are imaging. My first Lightbucket-logged image was the Iris Nebula on July 1st. I'm now finishing my imaging session the night of July 15th/16th. I'm should…
NGC104 and NGC121 Globular Clusters

NGC104 and NGC121 Globular Clusters

July 10, 2024
I had the oportunity to take some test images with a telescope in a dark sky site in Chile. Here are NGC104 and NGC121 taken with an Explore Scientific ED102 refractor on an iOptron GEM28 mount with an ASI183MC camera. This is 61 frames at 120 seconds each. Here's the full sized image.…
The Iris Nebula – Caldwell 4, NGC 7023

The Iris Nebula – Caldwell 4, NGC 7023

July 5, 2024
The Iris Nebula is a reflection nebula in the northern sky's constellation Cepheus. It's roughly 6 light years across and 1400 light years from Earth. The bright nebula core is surrounded by a huge area of dark dust that I previously haven't had much luck capturing because of how faint it is. To bri…
My Favorite NINA Plugins

My Favorite NINA Plugins

June 30, 2024
It's finally time for a "my favorite NINA plugins" post. There are an ever-growing collection of plugins that extend NINA's functionality. I haven't tried them all, but I'd love to share what I've found helpful. The screenshot below shows the ones I currently have installed. I just did my first imag…