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Imaged with 200P OTA @ 1080mm/F/5, AVX & Peltier E-PL5 Processed with APP, Startools, GIMP & PS

The Rosette Nebula taken in narrowband colour in those few clear nights we had at the end of last month. 20 x five minute exposures in Sii, Oiii, Ha. Darks and flats applied Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker and processed in Photoshop. Luminosity layer applied from the Ha and 30% of the Oiii..

WO 132 Chamelion cam 25% of 3000 frames. A click or 2 maybe needed.

The first proper astro shot from the new gaff. This was a major exercise and I was lucky to even get this at 40 minutes long exposure. Finding where all my gear is in the boxes that are strewn around the house, plus recharging batteries, forgetting how to use things, its a wonder I got this much but I was pleased to be able to to grab some photons again, the first DSO with my gear for about 3 years I reckon. Kit the Venerable self modded 1000d with the Canon nifty fifty at F4 all atop the HEQ5, 20 off 2 minute exposures at 800asa, timed with a fleabay intervalometer. No darks or Flats or any of the proper stuff. Stacked etc in Images Plus 4, processed in CS3 with a few tweaks on Noels actions It was nice to be out under the stars again clicking away. If there is a decent night again I may add to this to pull out Barnards loop more One thing I did notice was there was a heck of alot of air traffic up there for saying we are supposed to be all cutting down on travel.

Comet C/2019 Y4 has been brightening rapidly since its discovery. Currently at around 9th magnitude in Ursa Major, it is predicted to become a naked eye object during April. Imaged on Sunday 15th March as it passed 3° south of M81/M82. 40 x 30 sec full frame exposures using my Canon EOS200D and Canon 200mm F2.8 lens at F2.8, ISO1600, stacked using DSS and processed using IRIS.

My new F15 had it's first real outing tonight. I tried it with various cameras and settled on using my Point Grey which gave the best results and seems to suit this scope brilliantly. Ended up doing a 6 panel mosaic. Captured in Fire stack. Each panel is 1000 frames stacked in Registak. Slightest addition of wavelets. Each panel had a slight crop in PS 6 to remove the edges. Compiled in Microsoft Ice. Back into PS 6 for a final touch up. The result is probably the best Luna image I have ever produced. It is a shame I cannot put the full TIFF image on here as it lost quite a bit converting it to JPEG. This image is huge so you will need to click on it a couple of times to get to full res.

Last Thursday night (27th Feb), I managed to capture just over 100 mins of wide field Orion using my ‘nifty fifty’ (Canon 50mm F1.8 STM) lens. Orion sits nicely within the 26 x 17 degree FOV. To my surprise, Barnard’s loop was just beginning to show so I took additional exposures on Monday night (3rd Mar) using an IDAS D2 filter in an attempt to pull it further out of the light pollution. Whilst the filter dramatically reduced the light pollution (I could have increased the exposures by at least 3x compared to without it) and Barnard’s loop was slightly more prominent, I don’t think it was designed to be used with an F1.8 lens as, unfortunately, the brighter stars towards the edge of the field showed significant distortion. So, pending much more processing, this is the original unfiltered 75 x 60s, 60 x 20s and 66 x 7s exposures using my Canon 200D with the 50mm lens at F2.8, ISO1600, unguided on an EQM35 mount, HDR stacked in DSS and post-processed using IRIS. I must admit, I’m now tempted to invest in a Hα filter to create RGB + Hα images in the future when appropriate.

Quiet night (for me) but good conitions. M44 6 x 180s +Flats NGC 2238 10 x 240s + Flats Found out my gradient problem, the clamp on the eyepiece hold wasn't sitting true! Now replaced!! M44 NGC2268 Might add some extra data to this!

Bit of an experiment this one. C8 at f6.3 and zwo asi 178mc cool - just over 2 hours integration in RGB. Processed in Pixinsight 🔭😉

What a wonderful change to be out imaging again. Taken with the GT 81 and the QSI. Tried to rotate the focuser to get it all in but it was having none of it. Something else I will have to sort. 36 subs at 300 seconds. Captured and stacked in Maxim. Quick polish in PS 6. Click on the image to get to full res.

try at LRGB with the Tak 130 native. searching for a target i could get easily LOL Tak 130 LRGB about 6 hours altogether 5 min subs guided sorry about the dust bunnies!

I went back to this and added a couple more nights of data and reprocessed from scratch. 200mm Toscano RC reduced withQSI cam 40 x L x 600secs 18x B x 600secs 17 x G x 600secs 17 x R x 600 secs

Having captured 120 images of M101 on Sunday night, I pulled them into DSS and left it to do a 100% kappa sigma stack whilst I got some sleep. On Monday morning I pulled the resulting image into IRIS and was somewhat horrified at the noise level, not much better that a single image! So I spend all day Monday trying to trace the problem. I have always found that a kappa sigma stack is noisier than a straight average stack of the same images and performing an average stack on the 120 subs resulted in a final image with negligible noise as expected (but with all the accompanying satellite / plane trails and hot pixels). To cut a long story short, I found that the noise in the final image of a kappa sigma stack fell as the number of subs increased (as expected) but only up to about 60 subs – adding more caused the final image noise to start increasing again. In the end I kappa sigma stacked the images 30 at a time and then averaged the resulting 4 images in IRIS. That gave me a resulting image with a noise level just slightly higher than that achievable using average stacking but without the trails. These are the resulting images; the first is just slightly smaller than full frame, the other obviously a cropped enlargement of M101. Usual setup of my Canon 200D with 400mm at F5.6 and ISO1600. These are from the stack of all 120 x 180s subs (6 hours total) but just 30 subs gives a result not so dissimilar.

Had a peek at the moon the other night 9 images stacked in siril ,processed in Startools ,Nikon D5300, Tecnoky Quadruplet .

32x 600 L 12 x 600 RGB 200mm RC qsi cam

17 x 1sec Canon 7D @274mm click for full res

Hi everyone - Here's my take on the Needle Galaxy. Just over 12 hrs of RGB data with the C8 and Hyperstar. Hope you like it

Walked through the wood at the back of our house on my exercise walk today. Nice to see that the northern wood ants are back... Anyone like to hazard a guess as to how many there are in this (very short!) video?

got a quick 2 1/2 hrs of Ha between clouds. Not brilliantly clear but enough to get something Tak 106 native Ha 10 and 15 minute subs unguided and a quick process

Single 240 sec sub Ruined with a meteor

Had my first decent test on the Samyang the past couple of nights, unfortunately where the California nebula is positioned i dont get much time but totaled just under 3 hours on it, i also would of liked some other filter data too but this was just seeing if everything is working ok...i need a bit of feedback from the widefielders if i can, its all new territory for me 😕

10 each LRGB x 600 secs binned 2x2 Toscano RC reduced

A stack of 3x60sec subs did the trick. C8+Hyperstar and ZWO 178 MC Cool

Practicing landscape astrophotograpy and #socialdistancing at 1:00am this morning (apart from the local swans who were up partying and looking for food!😳). Pristine clear skies, low air pollution and not a soul about on Cranfleet Cut, Long Eaton. 11x15sec exposures at ISO 1600 with my Canon 6D and Samyang 14mm f2.8 lens. Images stacked in Starry Landscape Stacker for Mac OS and finished in PSCC

a welcome sight - at least someone is getting out!. We have a pair of common buzzards that regularly hunt over the farmland across the other side of Lock Lane at Sawley and sometimes they fly low over us to get thermals and gain height. Lovely! Shot with a Canon 6D and 70-200mm zoom

Just a few snaps from this morning of the birds in the field next to our garden. Not only are the Curlews handsome birds but their call is so nice to here. The little wren just popped out of the hedge when I was watching the Curlews. The Mistle Thrush is one of a pair thats been around here for awhlie, they are big birds, I think the out of focus bird at the back is a Redwing as there have been quite a few in the field lately. All slightly soft due to being taken through double glazing

Perusing my photos from last year, came across a set from Bempton Cliffs. Thought I'd have a go at combining four shots from a sequence of a gannet landing as a single shot. It just shows the sheer wonder of fllight. Hope you like it..

4 x 600 each LRGB binned 2 x 2 with the Toscano RC. Not great by any stretch of the imagination but i reckon I have sussed out why I was getting odd shaped stars. I adjusted the wires to the secondary mirror the other day. One to revisit under better conditons and less devils lightbulb.

A grey Heron, by the River Derwent just South of the Tyne. He was flitting along the bank, managed to get a few shots off with the 300mm lens and 1.4 converter.... Ten minutes later..

Got the gear sorted out last night and added another hour (+Flats) to the original Triplet. Also imaged M97 the Owl Nebula while I was waiting the triplet to rise enough to image. Triplet 20 x 300s +Flats M97 10 x 300 + Flats. 150PDS Canon 1000dm NEQ6 APT DSS & PS6

70mm focal length, ISO 6400 and 6 seconds exposure.

i think i had over do the colour in the old version so i thought i`d give the data a re processing in Startools, first time i`ve ever do an LRGB image in Startools and i think it looks a lot more realistic.

Finally got around to processing some of the images from last week. First up, M44, 30x180s, 400mm, F5.6, ISO1600: Another Messier triple in Leo, M95, M96 and M105, 30x180s, 400mm, F5.6 ISO1600: And finally part of the Virgo cluster centred on IC3344. A full frame 6.4 x 4.2 degree FOV with M58, M84, M86, M87, M88, M89, M90, M91, M98, M99 and M100. 60x60s, 200mm, F2.8, ISO1600:

This my best image of comet C/2019 Y4 Atlas taken on 26/03/20. 12 x 150 sec @ ISO 800 stacked in DSS processed in Startools and CS6. This gave me a bit of a headache due to amount of green in the image so the colour balance isn't quite correct.

I've joined Graham in fitting a weather station near the obsy.

Had a walk round Melbourne Pool in Derbyshire today and spent some time with this wonderful Wood Duck.

Thought I'd have a go at this one again. just 2 hrs with the C8+Hyperstar. Hope you like it

Not seen this mod on here for a long time so thought I would add it. Purchased a 182 mm tube ring off SGL for tube rotating as after adding the 80 mm mount extent ion I often found I couldn't see through the EP!!. First I countersunk the bolt in the new tube. Then I removed the bottom ring from the 150PDS and countersunk that bolthead. Then mounted the new ring above the bottom ring to stop the OTA sliding down, making sure it's all square and rotates easily. Job done, just release the 2 white.. rings rotate and lock up

37 x 30 secs rgb Toscano QSI cam

Look what I required the other day. It's a Fullerscope IV Mount, it came complete with lots of counterweights and two worm drives with reduction gearboxes and motors. Unfortunately these didn't work and the wiring was very old and dangerous. It needed a really good clean, a lot of elbow grease, the bronze gears were very tarnished, almost black in places. I didn't take photos off the original state, I forgot I was too keen to clean it up. The axis are very smooth, the shafts have no rust on them as they were originally made of steel, maybe these are stainless I will have to check later. I will have to make up a plate to connect the mount to my barlebach planet tripod. Below are lots of photos of the beast.

4 ea 600secs LRGB 2x2 binned with RC. Background a bit dark due to lack of data/noise.

Knuckled down and set myself to do ten minute exposures last night. Normally only do five minute exposures. Eventually went to bed when I had 25 ten minute exposures of the Jellyfish Nebula using the Ha filter. Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker and processed in Photoshop.. Hope you like it Dave

Last nights efforts were M3 and M101. M3 was OK 20 x 240s at ISO800 + Flats BUT M101 was a PITA because I found out some light was reflecting on a nearby tree and has spoiled the image I think and maybe 300 s is too long for my Canon? 16 x 300s ISI 800 + Flats Both guided and Dithered in APT. M3 and the problem M101

With the frac and expected no cloud details WO 132 25% of 20000 frames

A night without Mr B gave better data, though clouds did spoil some subs. Fresh data with the RC L 8x600 R 6x600 G 4x600 B 7x600

Going through last nights images I found this meteor, the first I've captured on camera for a long time. Nothing special, wouldn't even be seen with the naked eye, but may leave in the final image if I can still get rid of all the satellites on the other images. A small crop of a single 60 sec exposure.

Hi, This is Gibsons Cave waterfall in Teesdale, taken on Monday.. It was taken on my new Huawei P30 Pro phone which has a triple Leica camera. This was taken in night mode, (in daytime!) which does an effective long exposure by taking multiple images and live stacking them together. Really impressed with the result, hand held in a dark gorge on a rainy day. Can't wait to try it for astro photos. Only worry is hat the phone is Huawei - so I keep it in a sock so it's not spying on me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Really windy day at Bakewell yesterday. A male tufted duck with severe hair issues.. Anyone got a comb???????????

Hi everyone - NGC2175 aka the monkeyhead nebula in Gemini. 2.5hrs integration with the C8+Hyperstar - cheers

It is a month since I last soled 😦