M97, M108 and a gaggle of other galaxies. I’ve recently been concentrating on framing multiple principal objects in the same image…
I’ve also been working on cataloging my work in a more organized fashion on my website…check it out!
sweetmanastrophoto.com/m97-m108/
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NGC 2805, the most prominent spiral galaxy in the image, is likely deformed by interactions with the nearby galaxies. This is image is full of galaxies, many of which are visible with careful inspection.
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Lunar & Planetary Photography
Since the weather has been generally poor, with only small windows of clear sky, I've been experimenting with Lunar and Planetary photography. The skill set and capture techniques are quite different, however the equipment I already own, particularly the 8 inch SCT is…
Comet 3I/ATLAS and Asteroid 109 Felicitas
On November 28th I got an opportunity to shoot Comet 3I/ATLAS. This comet is pretty faint, so many of the typical techniques for generating a single comet image didn't work very well. The above image shows the comet trail against a static background of…
Had some spare time waiting for other targets to rise, so I returned to Andromeda, about 7 hours total captured over 3 nights in late November.
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Capture details: Celestron AVX mount, Apertura 60mm FPL-53 doublet with flattener, ZWO ASI2600mc pro, and ZWO ASI120mm mini guide camera
The Triangulum Galaxy, M33 is the 3rd largest galaxy in our local group. It is a spiral galaxy and is approximately 3 million light years from earth, and approximately 60,000 light years across.
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First Try at Lunar Photography
I'm still way behind in processing and writing up so many of the deep space photos I've taken, but since it's a full moon, I decided this month to give that a try. I took two minutes of video with SharpCap, stacked it in AutoStakkert! using this workflow. I'm pretty…
Supernova SN2025rbs
It's been a while since I imaged this in early August. I'm really happy with how this turned out given all the struggles I had. I managed to get lucky with the weather, and get a smoke free night. Then I had a few self-induced struggles. I forgot to put the IR/Cut filter back…
I haven’t finished processing yet, but after 3 nights of collecting data on the Cygnus Loop I think I’ve got enough.
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Also, in the picture is Stephan’s quintet(zoomed in 3rd pic). It is an apparent cluster of galaxies. Four of these are interacting galaxies approximately 300 million light years away, and one is visually superimposed, and about 40 million light years away.
Wide-field view of the night sky showing numerous stars and galaxies. On the right side is the spiral galaxy NGC 7331, which hosts a newly discovered supernova. On the left side is Stephan’s Quintet, a group of five galaxies.
NCG 7331. This is a spiral galaxy about 40 million light years away from earth. On July 14th a supernova was observed in this galaxy. It is the blueish star just to the lower right of the galaxy core. The second photo is a zoom in on NCG 7331
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Something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, capture a supernova. There is a recently discovered supernova in nearby galaxy NGC 7331, and I finally got an enough of a break in the weather an wildfire smoke. Below is single 3 minute subframe, stacking in process.
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A vivid image of the Crescent Nebula (NGC 6888) in deep space, surrounded by swirling clouds of red, pink, and purple interstellar gas against a dark starry background. The nebula appears as a bright, glowing, shell-like structure near the center-right, with filamentary textures and intricate patterns of light.
The Crescent Nebula and some of the surrounding nebulosity.
Capture details: Celestron AVX mount, Apertura 60mm FPL-53 doublet with flattener, Optolong L-enhance filter, ZWO ASI2600mc pro, and ZWO ASI120mm mini guide camera.
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Starless and star-filled version of the North American Nebula. This is a first quick cut a processing in the Foraxx Palette. Weather looks promising for later in the week, I plan to collect more data, and include the nearby Pelican Nebula
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False-color image of the Elephant Trunk Nebula in the Foraxx palette. The scene shows a dense, pillar-like formation of gas and dust stretching from the lower right toward the center, surrounded by wisps of interstellar clouds. Deep browns and vivid blues dominate the palette, with glowing yellow-orange highlights tracing the edges of the structure. The colors enhance contrast and detail, emphasizing the nebula’s complex texture and star-forming regions within the larger IC 1396 emission nebula.
Reworked some data from over a month ago, fought through a thick smoke cover. About 3 hours on the Elephant Trunk Nebula. I’ve been experimenting with the Foraxx Palette, I feel I really struggle to get stuff not looking like washed out goo…reasonably happy with this.
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Oh totally. I have a 360mm refractor that is just a dream to shoot with. The long focal length is worth the pain for some of longer targets though. I had it working well with asi294, but just can’t seem to dial it in on asi2600. The 2600 gives much cleaner images, but I’ll revert if it can’t fix it
I’m pretty sure it’s the off axis guider pickoff prism. It’s part of the struggle with a such a small light circle I have no way to avoid having it enter the image space.
Yes. Edge HD is a totally different animal, designed much more with photography in mind.
The 8”SCT is difficult to work with. It has a narrow image circle, I’ve got an off access guider taking up a lot of space. Also there’s no adjustment with the field flattener I’m using, so I’m having to work with different combinations of spacers to move it, I moved it 2 mm’s, and it got worse.
Thank you!
Capture details: 30 Lights @ 360 seconds, 20 Darks, 10 Flats, and 100 bias frames. Celestron AVX mount, Celestron 8in SCT with flattener/reducer, ZWO ASI2600mc pro, Optolong L-eNhance filter, and ZWO ASI220mm mini guide camera.
The weather has been very uncooperative, and I'm also struggling with backfocus, but I finally managed to collect for about 3 hours on the Tulip Nebula.
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Interestingly, we have trouble accurately gauging the distances to closer galaxies. The Bad Astronomer explains that in this blog post. badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/jwsts-view...
Here is my (likely) final shot for galaxy season, NGC 4565, the Needle Galaxy. This is about 3 hours with the ZWO ASI 2600mc and Apertura 60mm FPL-53. The Needle Galaxy is an edge-on spiral galaxy, between 30 and 50 million light years away.
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This one was imaged over two nights Apr 17&18, I rolled with the 80% moon because the weather here has been so rainy I didn’t want to let even a marginal night go. Also a tough one to process with the high dynamic range, lots of masked stretching, but I’m reasonably happy with the result.
A deep space photograph of the spiral galaxy Messier 94 (M94), showing a bright core surrounded by faint circular rings and numerous stars scattered across the dark night sky.
Another one for galaxy season. M94 is a spiral galaxy about 16 million light years away in the constellation Canes Venatici.
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It’s been really tough getting clear skies lately. Managed about 4 hours on M101. Will have to return to this target but I like how it’s looking so far.
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Capture detail: 70 Lights @ 180seconds, 20 Darks, 20 Flats, and 100 bias frames. Celestron AVX mount, Apertura 60mm FPL-53 doublet with flattener, ZWO ASI2600mc pro, and ZWO ASI120mm mini guide camera.
