M106 - Spiral Galaxy

This image of M106 was a bit of an afterthought when the Sombrero Galaxy disappeared behind my house and there was a still some darkness left in the sky.  It's composed of three minute light frames which suffered from poor guiding, satellite trails and clouds and so were whittled down to only twelve usable subs. 

So after one night's imaging with my new camera and using the ASIair for the first time for colour imaging I'm quite pleased with the results.  The lack of amp glow and the ease of taking flats compared to the AA294c camera is giving some hope for some good images this year.

M104 - The Sombrero Galaxy

There have been a few images of the Sombrero Galaxy appearing in the astro social media recently and so I thought it must be in a good position for imaging, but little did I know about it being so low in the sky.  This, coupled withe the night's getting shorter meant that I wouldn't have much time to capture some data with my new astro camera, the ZWO ASI 2600mc.

I got an ASIair Pro with my secondhand EdgeHD 9.25, but unfortunately my Altair Astro 294c colour camera isn't compatible with it and so I've not been able to use the ASIair for one-shot colour imaging until now. (I have used it previously with my ZWO ASI294mm mono camera). 

I set up early so that I could make sure I had everything I needed before it got dark - with imaging so infrequently it's so easy to forget something. I did a manual polar alignment but I couldn't get guiding to work so I switched it off. I'll be looking at this again on my next session, but for this night I manually focused using a Bahtinov mask on Capella.

Once I framed and slewed to the target I realised that it was very low in the sky and shortly my house would be in the way.  The lack of guiding was a problem at my scope's native focal length of 2350mm and f/10.  Nevertheless I managed to get 30 decent 3 minute light frames after discarding as many bad ones.

The image was processed in PixInsight with BlurX, NoiseX and StarX as usual.

GeekTeacher Astro Scrapbook Reboot

It's been such along time since posted anything here that I can't remember the last time I did.  Well I can actually because the date of my last post was 17 October 2024 on a day I went out to try to photograph the full moon rising behind Stoodley Pike in West Yorkshire - and that shoot was scuppered by clouds!  It's really hard keeping a blog up to date as my inspiration for it comes in spits and spurts and it's mainly to do with the weather. Until last week we've had so many rainy days and cloudy mights here in the UK over the last year that many people have packed in astrophotography and sold their gear. It's very understandable and I've also considered it several times myself because I seem to spend a lot of my days just waiting for a decent night to image. 

However, when I first got started in 2019 I set myself a target of producing a book of my best astrophotography images and, with almost a week of clear night skies recently, I've felt reinvigorated into fulfilling this project. I've even bought myself a new camera, laptop and some other bits and pieces to help me do it.  That's even more money I've sent down the astrophotography rabbit hole! 

In spite of the poor weather I  have been posting fairly regularly on my GeekTeacherAstro Facebook group (www.facebook.com/GeekTeacherAstro) but usually only my fall back target of the moon.  You can often get a moon photo in between short breaks in the clouds when deep sky imaging isn't possible. 

So, without further ado I'm going to post a couple of images from this week which I took with my new camera and then I'll get on with posting some 'back issues' so to speak. I'll also be updating my GeekTeacher Astro Flickr page when I can remember the password!

M101 - The Fireworks Galaxy

 

M51 - The Whirlpool Galaxy

 

M63 - The Sunflower Galaxy

 

Hunter's Moon over Tyldesley (17/10/24)

 

Hunter's Moon Over Stoodley Pike in West Yorkshire

Stoodley Pike is a 1,300-foot hill in the south Pennines in West Yorkshire in northern England. It is noted for the 121-foot Stoodley Pike Monument at its summit, which dominates the moors of the upper Calder Valley and the market town of Todmorden. 

The monument was designed in 1854 by local architect John Green, and completed in 1856 at the end of the Crimean War

Unfortunately this shoot didn't turn out as planned because when the supermoon was behind the Pike it was covered in cloud. What ya gonna do?

A Return to Mooning

I went out comet-hunting last night but this was all I got due to heavy cloud in the west. 

The Waxing Gibbous Moon.

Acquisition Details 

• Nikon D500 crop sensor camera with Nikon 500mm f/4 lens and 2x teleconverter 
• Tripod with a gimbal head 
• Single shot: 1/60s @ f/11 and ISO 100 
• Processed in Adobe Photoshop Elements 2024 with Topaz AI DeNoise and Sharpen

Aurora Borealis Over Rivington (10/10/24)

Here are some shots of the second major aurora event over the UK this year.  I went up to the West Lancashire moors to a spot on the road between Rivington and Belmont for these.

Well, well.  It's been over a year since I last posted anything here.  I've maintained my Facebook groups fairly well during this time but my Blogger and Flickr accounts have been sorely neglected, not that anyone is really bothered except me. 

Much of this has been to do with the prolonged poor nighttime weather and losing my mojo because of this.  But I'm also dealing with some difficult personal circumstances that are affecting me more than anybody realises. It's not that I haven't done anything at all in the last year], I just haven't got round to posting about about the few things I have done. 

Anyway, I'm hoping to restart this blog with astro photos soon and so for now I will be posting a small backlog of images that I have managed to take since when I last posted in July 2023.  I can't believe I didn't even upload any photos of the aurora borealis in May this year - it was quite something and I'll be posting them soon.

Moonlight on the Water

Here is my first image as it appeared on ITV Granada Weather tonight

Sunspots (3/7/23)

 

!!! UPDATE NEEDED - UPDATE NEEDED - UPDATE NEEDED !!!

Tut, tut! Was it really April when I last posted anything this blog? I've not done than much since but I'd better get on with updating it now then.  As usual I'll start by posting the images and adding text later.

Here's a list of what I still need to do:

• ZWO ASI 294mm mono cooled camera, filter wheel and LRGB/SHO filters purchase
• Various Venus shots
• My M51 reprocessed by various people (30/5/23)
• Heart and Soul Mosaic in Mono (1/6/23)
• Labelled Moon Segments (1/6/23)
• Mosaic Moon (29-31/5/23)
• Bodes's Galaxy (31/5/23)
• First Quarter Moon and segments (27/5/23)
• Waxing Cresecnt andf Waxing Gibbous
• Moon and Venus over house (24/5/23)
• Sunspots (26/4/23)
• M51 reprocessed (30/4/23)
• ISS (22/5/23)
• Waxing Crescent Moon (24-25/5/23)
• Supernova in M101 (23/5/23)
• Thin Crescent Moon (22/5/23)
• Crater Love (8/6/23)
• Waxing Gibbous (1/5/23)
• Soul Nebula (30/4/23)
• Waxing Crescent (26/4//23)
• Using the C6se for DSO's (M51, M101) 20/4/23
• Heart and Soul (9/4/23)
• Lots of Ha rich DSO's
• Andromeda reprocessing
• Early evening moon (2/3/23)

!!! From a previous update memo !!!

Well, we're well in to 2023 now and I've still not updated this blog for many months.  It's mainly because the weather has been so depressing here in the UK and I really haven't done that much astrophotography for ages.  That said, I have bought some new equipment and taken a few images and so I'm going to list the backlog here and then try to make my way though this list and post images to start with. I'll do write ups where possible at at later date.

February 2023

• 24/2/23 - Uranus
• 22/2/23 - Moon, Venus and Jupiter Alignment in Dumfries and Galloway
• 22/2/23 - Orion in Dumfries and Galloway
• 13/2/23 - Comet
• 12/2/23 - Comet and Venus
• 09/2/23 - Venus

January 2023

• Comet
• Reprocessing

For missing 2023 images and posts, please see the previous 'Update' post below!

Waxing Crescent Moon

Waxing Crescent Moon (26/6/23)

The Sun's Active Regions (22/6/23)

The Solstice Moon and Venus

 

M27 - The Dumbbell or Apple Core Nebula

Here's another go at imaging a DSO (Deep Sky Object) with my Celestron C6SE SCT on an EQ6-R Pro equatorial mount rather than the scope's own NexStar alt/az mount.  This time it's M27 planetary nebula also known as the Dumbbell or Apple Core Nebula (I prefer the latter). Once again I've not used a focal reducer in order to make the image as large as possible and I don't think that the image suffers too much because of it.

I've seen this large planetary nebula portrayed in several different colours so here's a version which has been processed slightly differently:

Waning Gibbous Moon

Waning Gibbous Moon (9/6/23)

M51 - The Whirlpool Galaxy - C6se with No Reducer.