cosmoscon

I got another 90 minutes of data gathering time this past weekend on the Fish Head Nebula (NGC896, on the left) and the Heart Nebula (IC1895, on the right). They are both located between 6,000 and 7,000 light years away. They look right next to each other but the Fish Head Nebula is 1,000 light years closer to us than the Heart Nebula. This puts the total exposure time of this area of the Cosmos at close to 3 hours using my 85mm refractor telescope and Canon DSLR camera in a severely light polluted Bortle 7 sky.

Here was the moon from last night! This image is a result of stacking and processing 23 pictures I took with my 85mm refractor telescope, 2X Barlow and Canon DSLR at 100 ISO, 1/100s exposure. Stacked and processed in PixInsight.

I use an 85mm refractor now for my astrophotography (posted that rig many times on here!), but this was my first real telescope and I still haul it out every now and then for when I want the photons to reach my eyes only! 10” Newtonian on a manual DOB mount.

If you’re not an astrophotographer, you may not be familiar with the less “glamorous” part of generating images of our cosmos. Shooting calibration frames after the observations are done! I’m sure people think I’m crazy when they see me outside doing this!😂

Collecting more data of the Heart Nebula tonight!

I plan to get more data on the Heart and Fish head nebulae tonight! I’ll be dealing with a bright moon but it should be far enough away from my targets to get some good data to add to the hour and 45 minutes that allowed me to produce this image.

The Moon tonight through my 85mm Telescope.

Frog chilling by the pool and he’s changed his color to blend in with the white edging.

Night shots…….. Drop them if you got em’ 📸