More Solar Imaging... night imaging to come!

 

Taken with a monochrome 5 megapixel camera on an 8" SCT Meade LX200GPS with a Baader solar filter and a 2X Barlow len.s

Of these two groups, AR3697 is the returning sunspot group that caused the major aurora event earlier this month. Here's where they were loacted on the solar disk (from spaceweather.com):

 

New Sunspot Group 3685 & 3686 with potential for major activity!

New and active sunspot group 3685 & 3686 captured at 9:30am today, May 18, 2024, with the help of my grandson, Anthony!

Taken with Meade LX200GPS 8", Baader whilte light filter, 5 mp grayscale camera. Captured with Sharpcap, post-processed with AS!3, Luminar, Gimp.

This sunspot group has the potential to create more auroras!

Round Two on Huge Sunspot Group 3664 and 3668

 Plugging the monochrome camera into a faster USB port and doing some manual "dithering" while creating the video seemed to really improve the quality of my capture of 3664 and 3668:

Data of Capture:
Meade 8" SCT (LX200GPS) at prime focus
Baader white light filter
Point Grey Grasshopper monochrome 5mp camera
Captured with Sharpcap
Best 5% of 2000 frames at about 80/fps
Post-process in AutoStakkert!3, Luminar 2018 and Mac Preview

Huge Sunspot Group - 3664 and 3668

 This is one of the largest sunspot groups this year! Awesome

The Omega Centauri Globular Star Cluster

I headed out last night about 10 pm last night and looked due south above the horizon.

I was able to see this beauty of the spring sky with ordinary binoculars: 

                    Omega Centauri globular star cluster!  

It appeared to be just a fuzzy patch of light but this is what it looks like

with one of my smaller telescopes (80mm f/6 480mm scope and Canon T3i camera body)

It is a stack of 30 - 5 second images at iso 3200.

Stacked in Affinity Photo and post processed with Luminar 2018.

FYI:  it's apparent size through a binocular is LARGER than the apparent size of the Moon through the same binocular... just much dimmer!

Flaming Star Nebula

 

The Flaming Star Nebula (also known as IC 405, SH 2-229, or Caldwell 31)

is a beautiful emission and reflection nebula in the constellation Auriga.

It surrounds the bluish, irregular variable star AE Aurigae and shines at magnitude +6.0. 

Its celestial coordinates are RA 05h 16.2m dec +34° 28′.[2] 

The nebula measures approximately 37.0' x 19.0', and lies about 1,500 light-years away from Earth.

It is believed that the proper motion of the central star can be traced back to the Orion's Belt area!

The nebula is about 5 light-years across.

Right-click on the photo and choose "Open image in a new tab" to view it larger.

Equipment used:

Telescope: DayStar 80mm f/6 480mm focal lenght doublet refractor

Camera:    Canon T3i body (modded for greater Ha light gathering)

Filter:        Dual band Ha & OII

Exposure info:  

    Date: Januray 12, 2024

    Subs: 24 @ 120 sec. each using iso 3200

Stacked with Affinity Photo for a total exposure time of 48 minutes.

Initial post-processing with SIRIL software

    "Background Extration"  to remove 

    "StarNet" for star extraction

Post-processed with Luminar 2018

The Rosette Nebula on a chilly night

 

(Note: by right-clicking on the image and selecting "Open image in new tab" 

you will see it much larger) 

It was cold but the skies were crisp and the Rosette Nebula was calling me.

More detail in it than I have captured before!

About the Rosette Nebula 

It is also known as Caldwell 49) is an H II region

located near one end of a giant molecular cloud

in the Monoceros region of the Milky Way Galaxy

to the west of the constellation Orion.

An open cluster of stars known as NGC 2244 (Caldwell 50) 

is closely associated with the nebulosity,

the stars of the cluster having been formed from the nebula's matter.

Data about my image taken January 9, 2024:

45 - 2 minute shots combined for a total of 1.5 hours of integration time.

80mm Daystar Refractor - 480mm f/6

A modified Canon T3i camera (captures more reds aka Hydrogen Alpha light)

I did not use any special filters for this image.

Post-processed with Affinity Photo, Siril, Starnet and Luminar 2018