Ben's Astro Stuff 🇺🇦

Life Hack: Tracking the phases of the Moon or following planetary transits encourages discipline and focus on long-term goals. It also drives home how little time we have in this life so make the most of it!

Quattro 200P Imaging Newtonian 8" The Quattro imaging Newtonian is an affordable, large aperture astrograph, ideal for users searching for a fast imaging system that will work for both astrophotography and visual astronomy. Boasting a...

Skywatcher Quattro newtonian. 200mm F/4

www.skywatcherusa.com/products/sky...

That's 30 seconds within ASI294MM and a luminance filter. Basically, just a test shot.

Round stars, and a flat image.

And the image is nice and flat now. :)

I forgot to replace the descant tab in the camera. It probably won't be an issue until spring, but I should do it before I get another case of frost on the sensor.

Also, I'm getting some exaggerated, uneven, diffraction spikes. I think I have a reflection off the spider I'll need to fix.

This is the star Mirfak, and the surrounding star-field.

Wow! I was able to work on my 🔭 tonight, and get it all back together. My OnStep board is working great! On top of that, after a quick collimation, I now have ROUND STARS in the corners of my images. No more bats! 🤣

I have a couple more things to do before I can image again, but this is great! 1/3

Cloudy sky at night with my observatory in the foreground

Unfortunately I got skunked. There isn't a clear spot in the sky from horizon to horizon. Maybe next time.

An image from my astro camera. Mostly clouds but a couple of stars poking though.

All the equipment seems nominal. Just waiting for the clouds to clear. Just a couple stars poking though now and then. Hopefully it actually clears up around 11pm (1h 40m from now).

filter wheel with it. That's such a pain. I can also keep guiding without any issues while focusing, since the guide scope focus won't change.

We'll see how it goes. Hopefully the quality of the subs doesn't get worse. I'm only running 800mm of focal length.

The sky is supposed to clear at 11pm. 🤞

and I couldn't get rid of all the flex. There was also some kind of strange reflections I was getting on both the guide and main camera that I think were related. Getting rid of the OAG also means I have enough backfocus to install a manual rotator. Now I can rotate the camera without rotating the

I replaced the electronics in my observatory mount with a board running OnStep a few months ago, and haven't been able to test it beyond a bench test since. I also decided to attempt switching away from using an off axis guider and back to a guide scope. The OAG made for a complicated optical train

I'm trying to get some astro stuff 🔭 done tonight. I haven't been able to do anything for over a month now. As the days get shorter, I need this hobby to keep my sanity and keep the seasonal depression at bay. 🧵

Milky Way picture.

A long exposure of people and telescope equipment at night dimly illuminated by red light

Milky Way shot. The Andromeda galaxy is visible on the right side vertical center.

Milky Way shot. I took this picture pointed straight up.

I haven't been able to do very much astro stuff because of work. However I was able to attend a couple of days at the Black Forest Star Party at Cherry Springs State Park earlier this month. I did some #astrophotography but haven't had time to process. Here are some pictures from my phone. 🙂

Thanks Des! I had to delete and recreate the post because there was an error in it. That's what I get for staying up till 4am processing and posting. 😅

M16 - Eagle Nebula [In SHO] by BensAstroStuff Published: Aug 13, 2025 Total integration: 8h 18m Integration per filter: - Hα: 2h 32m (76 × 120") - SII: 2h 44m (82 × 120") - OIII: 3h 2m (91 × 120") Equipment: - Telescope: Sky-Watcher Quattro 200P - Camera: ZWO ASI294MM Pro - Mount: Orion Atlas EQ-G - Filters: Optolong H-Alpha 7nm 2", Optolong OIII 6.5nm 2", Optolong SII 6.5nm 2" - Accessories: Sky-Watcher Quattro Coma Corrector, ZWO EAF, ZWO EFW 7 x 2″, ZWO OAG (Off-Axis Guider) - Software: GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP), INDI Library Ekos, KDEdu KStars, Nikita Misiura StarNet, Open PHD Guiding Project PHD2, SetiAstro CosmicClarity, Siril Team Siril, Steffen Hirtle GraXpert For more information, visit AstroBin: https://app.astrobin.com/i/bf9nmg

I've finally processed & published my image of #M16 the #Eagle #Nebula! This was my summer project, plagued by rain, clouds, bugs, & malfunctions. I had to toss much of the data, but what was left made this. Not too shabby! 🔭

More info and high quality on my AstroBin Page:
app.astrobin.com/i/bf9nmg

Siril 1.4.0 Beta 3 Introduction Bugs fixed in beta 3 Stability and robustness Python scripts and programming interface Alignment User interface and display Other fixes ...

@siril.org released 1.4-beta3 a few days ago!
siril.org/download/202...

I helped by reporting on and testing the fix for bug \#1562, which caused a crash when trying to compose an image from RGB channels. :)
It's a great tool for #astrophotography 🔭

An Astrophoto of the Crescent Nebula, taken by Ben's Astro Stuff.

This past weekend I was at the Cherry Springs Start Party. There was a single night that was good for astrophotography, and I acquired enough data to create this image of the Crescent Nebula. 🔭

Full resolution and acquisition details on my Astrobin page:
app.astrobin.com/i/kejtxh

Absolutely fascinating. I've explained to people the size and scale of things in the images that I take, but Seven Machina does the math.

Space is mind-bogglingly huge.

An astrophoto of the eagle nebula. Monochrome.

This is the beginning of my next major project. I expect it's going to take a few months. 🔭

The Eagle Nebula. This is only 90 minutes of luminance.

My previous image of this target was three years ago, and can be found here: app.astrobin.com/i/ob5rlv

Some people are worried, but I think the kids are gonna be alright.

🤣

Yeah... I'm not going to live that down any time soon. I was so tired.

At least I got it right on AstroBin.

Oh jeez... I even got it wrong in the alt text. 🤦

Thanks! I wish I could edit the post.
What can I say... It was really late when I posted. 😪

At least I got it right on AstroBin!

An astrophoto of M31, the Whirlpool Galaxy

New image! I finally found enough free time over the past couple of weeks to process my images of M31, the Whirlpool Galaxy. 🔭

Full Resolution and capture information: app.astrobin.com/i/g7if5a

I've done a little bit of streaming in the past, but it's been a long time.

It wouldn't be anything very formal. Just a hang-out style stream.

I have a lot of data on M51 (Whirlpool Galaxy) but unfortunately work has blown up and I haven't had time to process anything.

I hope that next week I'll have some time to do so. 🔭

Also, would anybody be interested in watching me stream either acquisition or processing sessions? I'm curious.

A picture of an Orion brand Newtonian telescope on a small goto equatorial mount, with a guide scope mounted on top. Both the main and guide scopes have dedicated astro cameras attached to them. There is a computer attached to a wooden board hanging from the center of it, with a network cable coming out of it and leading off-frame. There is also a power cable and power supply on the ground. The entire thing is on the grass next to a small backyard concrete walk. A cinder-block garage is behind it.

Everybody starts somewhere! Here's my first imaging setup back in 2021.