How to Build an Equatorial Wedge for Celestron NexStar 8se or 6se

Purchasing a Celestron brand wedge so that you can enable long exposure astrophotography and auto-guiding will cost you a pretty penny... about $350.



However, a wedge like this is an absolute necessity to take full advantage of what astrophotography can offer. The wedge helps compensate for the tilt/rotation of the earth and keep your camera focused on one object or area of the sky as the telescope auto-guides.



$350 after spending ~$1500 on the scope (8se) and additional dollars on the power tank, lenses, vibration pads, etc... screw that! When in doubt, YouTube help solve the problem for a lot less.



Too bad I suck at being a handyman but worth a home depot trip indeed.





Video credit to YouTube user hovlandbound. Thanks dude!

The North Star Up Close

Polaris captured on 9/19/19 from Pleasant Hill, CA. Polaris
can be found at then end of the handle of the little dipper. Polaris
is over 300 light years from Earth. 

Detailed Views of Saturn and Jupiter After Stacking

Jupiter 9/18/19 from Pleasant Hill, CA

Saturn 9/18/19 from Pleasant Hill, CA

These images of Jupiter and Saturn were taken mid September (9/18/19) from my new Celestron 8SE telescope. The image was captured with an ZWO ASI camera directly connected to the telescope. I used the program PIPP to turn the AVI video file into individual BMP frames. I then stacked a few hundred frames to create the detail as seen above using RegiStax 6.

Although I'm just learning how to pre-process and post-process the captured images to reveal detailed pictures, the difference between a stack of images vs. a 1-off is astounding. The detail that can be revealed by stacking the frames is pretty crazy.

I actually learned about this specific sequence of processing the images from a member of the Astrophotography Beginners group on Facebook.