Saturday, April 6, 2019

Attempt at the Leo Triplet galaxies under poor skies

The Leo Triplet of galaxies

It "cleared up" for about an hour last night just before the next storm system came in, still mucky skies.
Here are three galaxies in the constellation Leo, NGC 3628, M 65, M 66, form what is known as the Leo Triplet.
Due to poor weather conditions and other issues I was unable to pull out the delicate colors of these galaxies... maybe next time!
Data: Daystar 480mm scope, Canon T3i camera, ISO 6400, 20 frames at about 35 sec each, stacked with DSS for a total of about 13 minutes integration, image slightly cropped. Unguided as PHD2 seemed to have difficulties last night, too.


Friday, April 5, 2019

The Rosette Nebula: Before and After

Before star removal...

So... what is "behind" all the stars that sometimes get in the way of seeing the full extent of nebulas or the Milky Way? I just found a program called StarNet (freeware) that is capable of removing stars from an astrophotography image so all you see in the nebulosity!

Here is the Rosette Nebula looks like after the program removes the stars!

If you click on the first image you will be able to toggle between the before and after.

It gives one a whole new perspective of it! Can't wait to try it out on a Milky Way image!