Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people

— Carl Sagan

Astrophotography

The dark side of photography. Deep space and planetary imaging. Occasionally some day light pictures of the Sun.

Pelican Nebula-Red

With the weather keeping us from the much desired clear skies, need to fill in the open time space by playing with our images. This is the Pelican in Ha (Red) with some green and blue adjustments. Nothing else to do but experiment in Photoshop.

Pelican Nebula-Red

M27 in Hydrogen Alpha light

M27 as seem in Hydrogen Alpha Light Sept 2nd 2011.

M27 in   Hydrogen Alpha light

Dumbbell

Dumbell on Sept 1 & 2 2011.

Blue central star the source of this planetary??

Dumbbell

NGC6992 part of

This is a combined 70 min image of NGC6992 and is only part of the entire nebula. It is located in the constellation Cygnus. I was playing around with CMY and Ha filters (photoshop color not always what one wants). The image is combined Lum 30min, Ha 10min, Cyan 10 min, Magenta 10min and Yellow 10min. Using these filters can produce odd looking color images. In most cases the nebula is shown in mostly red, usually using RGB filters.

NGC6992 part of

Saturn thru 8"

Took this image last night (6-3-11) thru 8" Celestron Cass. 345 x 0.20 exposures combined in MaxIm DL/CCD and processed in Photoshop CS4. It can be compared with the previous image using my 10" LX200 and AT111EDT. I also used a TeleVue 5x lens to magnify the planet which also makes it harder to focus. It was a very clear night, no clouds, no wind. The image was cropped.

Saturn thru 8"

NGC4565

This image was taken thru my 8" Meade cass 6-2-11, 51 minutes combined images 20 sec exposures unguided on a CGEM mount, Starlight Xpress CCD. The small blur to the right and above center is IC2571 an irregular galaxy.

NGC4565

Saturn Sized

Saturn Sized

Andromeda's core

Andromeda and companion from last October 2010. The images were sitting in my jump drive. Just got arount to process them today.

Andromeda's core

Spiral Galaxy M81

Another two hour image of M81 as seem from Verona NJ. This is from Midnight to two AM on Good Friday.

Happy Easter.

Spiral Galaxy M81