Markarians Chain

With more Messier numbers and Ngc's than you scan shake a stick at Markarian’s Chain can be found on the outer edge of the Virgo constellation, Sandwiched between Denebola and Vindemiatrix, a small section of the Virgo Super cluster is aptly named Markarians Chain. You can see highlighted from the graphic that each galaxy looks like it is linked to the next to form this spectacular galactic chain. I wanted to frame this image slightly different but found myself reluctant to rotate the camera angle and the need for new calibration frames. I can't decide whether I like the horizontal or vertical view, let me know what you think.

Moon

 A while ago I imaged the moon with the DSLR and here are a few results. Not the highest of resolution or greatest of contrast and sharpness, but none the less images with my own fair hand and processed in a way I enjoy.

California Nebula

 A rework of a previous capture. Using the new to me Arcsinh Photoshop curves processing. A piece of software designed for PIXinsight. Can be found here. Photoshop Colour Preserving Stretch (markshelley.co.uk) Along with a fantastic explanation and several You tube videos showing it's use. A great one from Astro Ed (1) Astrophotography: The ABSOLUTE BEST way to STRETCH your Astro Image data in Photoshop [PS]! - YouTube demonstrates some new techniques for the teasing of data from images, especially keeping those stars small too. I used two itterations and combined it with a Starnet++ frame. Not the cleanest of data but great fun to play with. 

Multiple M45 views

The Pleiades is always a favourite from Autumn to spring, 2020 saw a few different compositions. from a conjunction with Venus to an unfinished multi panel mosaic.

 

Leo Triplet

 I swear it is only ever clear the night of and after a full moon. Just my luck really, We have not had any decent nights for a while it seems, I wanted to get out and do something. I bought from                 U.K. Astronomy Buy & Sell (astrobuysell.com) a new Optolong  L Pro filter a light pollution filter that is more and more needed even in my rural location. Optolong LPS filter L-Pro for deep sky nebula consteallation photography-Optolong Optics Co.,Ltd

My only real unobstructed view is to the East and is the town of Watton is just 3 miles as the crow flies so the glow of the town radiates into view and the filter is needed. So my first test was the beautiful Leo triplet of galaxies. This image was taken over two nights using the filter and worked well I think. Only a very small gradient was noticed after some aggressive processing which was easily removed. I am quite happy with this image after some really poor seeing and the guiding on the first night never achieving better than 1.2 arc sec (usual average is 0.75.

59 x 5 minute sub exposures controlled with the ASIair pro2, stacked in Deep sky stacker and processed in Photoshop.

This trio is now accepted as part of the M96 group of galaxies and then part of an even larger group still.  I think to the accepted idea is also that M66 is a disturbed Barred Spiral. The front arm certainly looks like it has seen tidal interaction by a passer by whilst the rear arm looks somewhat undisturbed.

Moon 26th March

 Gutted. I missed an ISS pass, I didn't think to check for one but saw it a second before I clicked record.

Pleased with the final image. I think best 500 frames from about 1500.

M42 The Orion Nebula

A last look at the Great Orion Nebula for a few months. Unfortunately for me it disappears behind the front of the house about an hour past the meridian so a very limited window of capture now in March.

Anyway a short capture of 20 x 180 and 20 x 30 seconds images taken with the ASI294mc pro on the ED100 via the ASI AIR Pro.  Calibrated and stacked in Deep sky stacker and processed in Photoshop. I am always amazed how smooth the result is and even with a huge crop on the Trapezium the resulting image is incredibly clean. One confession to make though for the pixel peepers, the 4 stars of the Trapezium have been made round removing slight halos from processing.

M96 & M105

 The universe never fails to amaze me of it's vast size and complexity. The 4 large galaxies seen here in the constellation of Virgo contain over a hundred trillion stars between them at an average distance of 30 million light years ish. When you look a little closer though you will see 360 small boxes. Hidden behind each one is another galaxy so distant it has taken the light of some over over 12 billion years to reach us. Every other point of light you see here are stars within our own galaxy.

The Moon 28th December

 

The best 3000 from 5000 frames captured a few nights after Christmas. Using the new updated live video mode in the ASIair pro. A 4 minute AVI was pre processed using PIPP PIPP Planetary Imaging PreProcessor (google.com) allowing the ever trusted Registax 6 to process into a usable image. Processed in Photoshop and sharpened in Topaz Labz. 

SH2-171 Teddy Bear Nebula

 An unfinished project, no doubt something bigger & brighter caught my attention and this project was left on the shelf. The teddy Bear Nebula or SH2-171 is an HII emission nebula and star forming region approx 3000 light years away in the constellation of Cepheus. A very young cluster of stars designated Berkeley 59 located just off centre in the 2 o'clock position is only a few million years old and is the primary source for the nebula. Stellar winds have shaped and eroded columns & pillars of gas to create this wonderful region. The brightest almost central star in the image is not associated with the nebula at 317 light years away. 

As always this image was captured with the ED100 and the ASI 294 Mc Pro with 10 x 5 minute sub exposures controlled by the ASI Air pro micro computer

A night of a blue moon.

Typically three clear nights lead up to a full moon. Less of a concern now for us deep sky enthusiasts especially with the Optolong L-Enhance dual band filter. 

Not a perfect solution by any standards but certainly allows us colour CMOS camera users greater object choice when in light polluted or moonlit skies. I am certainly happy with it anyway. Another chance also to test the Autofocus routine on the ASIAIR pro and the EAF. 

I started the evening with a few technical difficulties. I needed to reload the software from a corrupt disk back onto the AIR, possibly due to moisture build up in the observatory. A new thermostatically controlled heater will hopefully cure the problem. It certainly did for the last obsy. The aim of the evening was to test everything worked again rather than any serious imaging run. So I rotated the dome away from the moon and targeted IC1396  The Elephants trunk nebula one of my first targets with the ZWO ASI294MC pro and initiated the auto focus routine. I have to say it worked flawlessly so much better focus than just with a bhatinov mask. I set it to adjust every 30 minutes for the 2 hours of data . Processed also in a slightly different way but just look at the focus difference. I thought I was happy with the older image (2nd one)