The Moon Looking Nice

The Andromeda Galaxy

This is my first attempt at the Andromeda Galaxy, also known as Messier 31 or NGC 224. This is a spiral galaxy approximately 2.5 million light years from Earth, and the nearest major galaxy to the Milky Way (Earth's home).

I took this image on a night where the light pollution in the neighborhood from the high school football field lights was not very good, thus the image clarity is lacking.

Using a telescope such at the Celestron Nexstar 8se (which is not really designed for deep space object viewing), Andromeda will initially appear as a glowing smudge. Photo stacking is required to bring out more detail on a much darker night with better conditions.

Orion Nebula

Orion Nebula captured in October 2019

Craters Galore

Jupiter in Early October

You can see one of Jupiter's Galilean moon on the left 

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.

Altair: the 12th brightest star in the sky

Altair in the evening sky. At 1 billion years old, this is the 12th
Brightest star in the evening sky.

A star lights up the southern sky. Photo taken mid-August 2019.

Satellite Photobombs the Stars

A long exposure photo of the stars is interrupted by a passing satellite
as seen by the horizontal line at the top of the photo. There are thousands
of satellites in orbiting Earth and you can see one just about any night
that you sit back and stare at the dark sky. The key is to let your eyes
adjust to the darkness which can take upwards of 20 minutes.

The August Full Moon

Saturn and Moon Conjunction

Saturn came extremely close to nearly lining up with the moon. This
is referred to as a "conjunction" and happens periodically with the Moon as
well as other planets in the solar system. This image showed
the camera attempting to focus on both objects at once, creating a bizarre
 and unique image.