The End of Solar Minimum!

 

My first shot at the great sunspot 2786 along with "tiny" 2785 in the lower left with 2783 at the right.

Data: Daystar 480mm f/6.5 scope, Canon T2i (unmodded), Solar filter for white light, Celestron AVX mount, ISO 100, exposure 1/800th sec. Post processing using Luminar 2018 and GIMP.

Taken Thanksgiving Day at 11:53 am, November 26, 2020.

Imaging the Moon in Broad Daylight !

 Imaging the Moon in broad daylight is challenging... so much sky blue and heat waves that can distort or minimize sharpness. While there is little one can do about the heat distortion and lack of sharpness one can take reasonably good images of the Moon all the same!

Here is what the Moon looked like at nearly 10 am in the morning on September 9, 2020 taken with an Explore Scientific AR-127 achromatic refractor and a Canon XS camera at prime focus, full image (no cropping):

Now how to get rid of the blue. Desaturate the image...

and then increase the contrast, controlling it with Levels or Curves in GIMP, PS, etc...

Let's zoom in a little closer...

Not too bad at all when imaging the Moon in broad daylight !

 

CPWI, software for Celestron Mounts is AWESOME!

 

M 27 - The Dumbbell Nebula

Scope: Celestron 6se with .63 focal reducer

Mount: Celestron AVX

Camera: self-modded Canon XS body

ISO 1600 - Nine 8 minute subs (plus darks, flats & bias shots)

Stacked with Sequator   Post-processed with Luminar 2018

For years now I have used the standard ASCOM driver for Celestron telescope mounts like NexStar and AVX. Accuracy has always been less than stellar. I learned just a few days ago that Celestron has a new software for controlling one of their telescope mounts with a computer: CPWI, which stands for "Celestron PlaneWave Instruments".

Wanting to spend less time centering the night sky objects I decided to download it (it is free) and install it on my Win10 laptop (sorry, no Mac version yet.)

At first I wasn't too happy. After starting CPWI, my guiding software, PHD2, would not recognize the mount or the software. Solution: I needed to change the driver in PHD2 from "Celestron universal driver" to the CPWI driver. Now it connects without a problem.

Here's where to learn more about it and download it: https://www.celestron.com/pages/celestron-pwi-telescope-control-software

There is a need, at least for my setup, to open the various programs I use in a particular order or else suffer from COM interference issues.

1. Start CPWI and connect it to the mount.

2. Start up PHD2 (with the CPWI ASCOM driver)

3. Start up my camera image capturing software (in my case BackyardEOS).

Once I got the general idea of how the CPWI works I have found it to be AWESOME and ACCURATE!

Now I spend more time imaging than searching for the object!

Comet NEOWISE on South Twin Lake, La Pine, Oregon

A Comet in the morning sky

and reflected on the lake.

Comet NEOWISE c/2020 f3 on July 9, 2020

Time: 4:00 am

Location: South Twin Lake, near La Pine, Oregon

Data: Camera: Canon T3i (unmodded)

Lens: Canon Kit 55-250mm set at 55mm

Mount: Standard tripod , Unguided...

ISO 1600

Exposure time: 15 sec

f/4.5

The tail is much longer than it was yesterday!

Comet NEOWISE c/2020 f3 on July 9, 2020

Time: 4:00 am

Location: South Twin Lake, near La Pine, Oregon

Data: Camera: Canon T3i (unmodded)

Lens: Canon Kit 55-250mm set at 250mm

Mount: Standard tripod , Unguided...

ISO 1600

Exposure time: 15 sec

f/4.5

BONUS!  Venus in the Hyades star cluster

and reflected on the lake!

July 9, 2020

Time: 4:00 am

Location: South Twin Lake, near La Pine, Oregon

Data: Camera: Canon T3i (unmodded)

Lens: Canon Kit 55-250mm set at 55mm

Mount: Standard tripod , Unguided...

ISO 1600

Exposure time: 15 sec

f/4.5

What a Difference Stacking Makes!

This morning I captured Comet NEOWISE c/2020 f3 (see other post). I had to "hand-stack" my comet's images (with GIMP) because there were insufficient stars to register the 6 frames I had (otherwise I would have used DSS). Here is a comparison of one frame and my stack of 6, enlarged about 300%. It pays to stack, one way or another! (see photo below to see a larger view that shows the difference).

An Early Morning Capture of Comet NEWO

Comet NEOWISE c/2020 f3

July 8, 2020     4:10 am

La Pine, Oregon USA

Canon T3i with a Canon zoom lens set at 55mm

F/4.0     1 sec     iso 1600

cropped somewhat

Unguided, tripod mounted

Taken from La Pine, Oregon facing north-east.

It was about 10 degrees above the horizon (cell tower in pic, too).

The Moon was just past full but it did not hinder the imaging. Venus was just right of this image.

Temperature was right at 32*F.

Comet NEOWISE c/2020 f3

July 8, 2020    4:10 am

La Pine, Oregon USA

Canon T3i with a Canon zoom lens set at 250mm

F/5.6    2 sec    iso 800

cropped

Unguided, tripod mounted

"First Light" astro-imaging wise!

The Dumbbell Nebula M 27

Results from last night's "test drive" "first light" astro-imaging with the Meade LX50 10 inch ota. 

I was very pleased with how the Celestron AVX mount handled the autoguiding with the Meade .63 focal reducer & Canon T3i (unmodded) ! 

Image: The Dumbbell Nebula (M 27). 

Stacked with Sequator.

Total time: 56 minutes @ iso 3200 (14 subs at 4 minutes each). 

Post-processed with Luminar 2018.