The Sky

Lagoon & Triffid 400

My dad was in town with his telescope, which we put my camera on with my 400 mm to do some tracking shots. Conditions were barely tolerable to be honest, but I'm amazed at how well the image stack was able to average out and almost completely get rid of the wispy clouds & haze that were rolling through this shot. Came out very well, considering. This is only about 15 exposures (out of 87 recorded...) at 13 seconds each (f/2.8, ISO 5000), but still came out much better than even the clearest single frame.

Saggitarius Region

A stack of about 350 frames centered on the Saggitarius Star Cloud, with the Omega and Triffid nebulae on either side. Each frame was shot at 95mm, f/2.8, 2 seconds, and 6400 ISO.

Andromeda 400 mm

Another attempt at Andromeda, this time with my 400 mm and a tracking mount! (Using a dovetail adapter on a 4SE computerized mount, nothing fancy.) I stacked about 55 exposures, using 13 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 3200 per exposure. Total integration time is around 11.5 minutes. Wasn't the best viewing conditions, and combined with [alt/az] tracking errors, wind, and possibly slightly inaccurate focus, has resulted in slightly blobby stars. Still pleased with this image, and looking forward to next attempt!

Got a Solar Filter

Maybe I'll use it to look at airplanes sometime...

Lost In The Sea Of Night

My Own Eclipse

I missed the total lunar eclipse yesterday, so I went and found my own partial one today. (One of these days this shot will get onto Explore!)

Departing Luna

Flight to Tycho

Technically a partial eclipse

M31&33

Latest astro adventure. An image I've been wanting to get for quite a while, M31 and M33 together in one frame. Finally my schedule aligned with the weather and moon phase so I could go out and try it. The time of year put them a little closer to the horizon than I would prefer, but it came out ok. Looks like the focus was slightly off, but that might just be wind or sensor noise...I would like to get more detail resolved in both objects in a future shot, but I'm not sure how much better I can really do with a fixed mount. This is 159 frames at 50 mm, 5 s, f/2.0, 6400 ISO, stacked with DeesSkyStacker, for a total of 13 min 15 sec exposure.