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Hi everyone I can't help being curious as to what other NZ astronomers are up to. I just had a marathon with four nights of clear skies and I want mad. I kept record and saw that I racked up a total of 1,532 minutes of exposures (25 1/2 hours). I was so tired that I overslept the last night and had to get the telescope in when the sun was shining :-) I got into shooting galaxies before I had the marathon, so that is what I started with, but the moon completely ruined my first night, so I switched to nebulae and planetary nebulae after that, which worked better. My favourite part, the Large Magellanic Cloud, is getting lower and lower, so I'm exploring other areas of the sky now. What is your favourite objects at this time of year? Cheers, Dan |
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| I'll probably try to shoot the 12P comet at some point, seems like there's still quite an interesting tail at the moment, not sure how long that'll last for |
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| Doing an all-southern sky (well at least the bits that are accessible in May from -45 and above the mountains) with a Sigma Art 40mm lens. |
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I'll probably try to shoot the 12P comet at some point, seems like there's still quite an interesting tail at the moment, not sure how long that'll last for I'm glad I asked, as I just assumed that 12P was only visible from the Northern hemisphere! My default reaction to astronomy news is "Intersting. Great for 'them'" :-) I would LOVE to image a comet. I've never done that before. I've made sure to follow you and will keep an eye out! |
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Brian Boyle: Ah, interesting. I have my partners SDLR at the moment. I was looking at it thinking "It would be pretty cool to take a long wide angle exposure...". I'll definitely have to give that a try. |
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I've been capturing data on galaxy NGC 3521 (the Bubble galaxy) with my main rig (a 10 inch aperture CDK - Corrected Dall-Kirkham on a 10Micron Eq mount), while also getting some images of Comet Pons-Brooks just after dark with my little ZWO Seestar S50 smartscope, from our Bay of Plenty location. Image below of the comet off the little Seestar with minimal extra processing, just an increase in contrast, saturation, and some noise reduction. Seestar stack of 6 minutes of 20 sec exposures. Both the dust tail and plasma tail nicely visible. |
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I've been capturing data on galaxy NGC 3521 (the Bubble galaxy) with my main rig (a 10 inch aperture CDK - Corrected Dall-Kirkham on a 10Micron Eq mount), while also getting some images of Comet Pons-Brooks just after dark with my little ZWO Seestar S50 smartscope, from our Bay of Plenty location. Image below of the comet off the little Seestar with minimal extra processing, just an increase in contrast, saturation, and some noise reduction. Seestar stack of 6 minutes of 20 sec exposures. Both the dust tail and plasma tail nicely visible. That is very impressive! I've seen a few reviews and it's definitely the direction astrophotography will head in. I did enjoy the ballet tonight, but I arrived home, rushing to get my equipment set up, just as low clouds and fog rolled in. You have to be social occasionally... ;-) It looks like I'll get a few hours after dark tomorrow, so I'll clue myself up on Pons-Brooks and give it a try tomorrow. Bubble Galaxy? I had that on my target list, but I gave it a miss as it looked like a difficult target to get good images of. I checkout out your gallery. Wow. Hehe. Very impressive. I'll have a proper look later. |
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Daniel Petzen:I've been capturing data on galaxy NGC 3521 (the Bubble galaxy) with my main rig (a 10 inch aperture CDK - Corrected Dall-Kirkham on a 10Micron Eq mount), while also getting some images of Comet Pons-Brooks just after dark with my little ZWO Seestar S50 smartscope, from our Bay of Plenty location. Image below of the comet off the little Seestar with minimal extra processing, just an increase in contrast, saturation, and some noise reduction. Seestar stack of 6 minutes of 20 sec exposures. Both the dust tail and plasma tail nicely visible. Thanks. I'll let you know how the NGC 3521/bubble galaxy imaging goes. I might have enough data now to stack/process it today. I'll inspect/check out how good my subexposures look today first though, as I had an poorly working autofocus issue that might have wrecked some of one night of them, and one other night got quite hazy. If a chunk of my exposures don't look good enough I might get some more hours of data on it yet as we have 2 or 3 clear (and chilly) nights coming in a row. Haven't been to a ballet since I was a kid, when I used to go along with my mum, but will be going with my wife to an Opera in a few weeks. |
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I should add for the last 9months I have been busy putting together an application to have Kawarau Gibbston recognised as an international Dark Sky Park. Delighted to say that our success in gaining this certification was announced this morning... |
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Brian Boyle: Congratulations! Well done! |
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I've been capturing data here in our rural backyard in the Bay of Plenty over the past 3 weeks or so on the "Bubble" nebula, NGC 3521in Leo and have captured/stacked 25 or so hours of data, stacked with Astro Pixel Processor, and processed that into this final image with Pixinsight. Captured with my 250mm/1450 mm Beamtech (Aussie made) CDK250 Corrected Dall Kirkham cassegrain OTA on my 10Micron GM1000 HPS mount and a ZWO Asiair Plus device. Full details at this link. https://www.astrobin.com/k9t9dd/C/# I've also stacked lots of data on this same object at the same time with my little ZWO Seestar S50 smartscope and need to stack/process that now too |
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Nice one @morrienz ! Wow, 25h integration. Very impressive, and it definitely paid off. It looks really "alive" with the clouds of nebolosity and all. I'm still getting the hang of things, but I decided on a project early on and will gather up as much integration time as possible of N70 aka Henize 70 in the large Magellanic cloud. I'm just fascinated by this object. A combination of low altitide and generation of flat frames has prevented that from bearing fruit so far :-( |
