Under a Moon lite night sky: M 33 The Triangulum Galaxy

Taking images under an increasingly bright Moon last night (nearing Full Moon status) I took my chances and imaged M 33 aka the Triangulum Galaxy with my Celestron 6 ota, this time using an autoguider (worked really well!) with a Canon T3i at prime focus. 26 - one minute images, stacked with DeepSkyStacker, ISO 6400 = about 26 minutes total. I should have taken some flats but it was already late and getting below 23*F ! Did some post-processing on it with Luminar 2018 and some cropping in (to minimize vignetting).

Post First Quarter Moon in HDR

As promised in the prior post, here is the Moon, just past what they call "First Quarter".
Now, perhaps you are wondering why they don't call it "Half Moon" because it appears that way to an observer here on Earth. Well, it is a matter of perspective. When the Moon is in this lighting it has completed 1/4th (one quarter) of its orbit around the Earth.

Anyway, I took about seven images of the Moon with my Celestron C6 telescope (without a focal reducer) and a Canon T3i camera body attached to it. Each image I changed the exposure time to capture details that a single exposure would either make too dark or too light to show finer details.

As you can see, an individual image just doesn't capture the wide range of detail and contrast.
That is why we will use a program (and there are many out there) to produce a HDR or high dynamic range photo.
I used HDRtist (a Mac app) to combine the images into one HDR, which I then rotated to the right to give it its proper viewing angle. (Note: this is in color due to atmospheric issues that night)

But because we know the the Moon is not made out of cheese (and the Earth is round, not flat!) I desaturated the image to make it gray scale instead of color:

Finally with some post-processing with Luminar 2018, working with contrast and sharpening, etc. here is the result:

One more:   Earth's Moon is normally seen in subtle shades of grey or yellow. But small color differences can be greatly exaggerated to make the small differences more apparent. The familiar Sea of Tranquility (Mare Tranquillitatis) is the blue area right of center.

Though exaggerated, the different colors are recognized to correspond to real differences in the chemical makeup of the lunar surface - blue hues reveal titanium rich areas while orange and purple colors show regions relatively poor in titanium and iron. Calibrated by rock samples from the Apollo missions, similar multicolor images from spacecraft have been used to explore the Moon's global surface composition.

M 27 under a First Quarter Moon

Well, it has been a while since I last posted, mostly due to cloudy skies and rain. But last night I used my Celestron NexStar 6i scope to image the Moon which is now past "First Quarter" (I will post it later).

But typically I don't image dim deep sky objects (galaxies, nebula, etc) because of the bright moonlit sky. But just for the fun of it I slewed the scope to M 27, aka the Dumbbell Nebula. In my enthusiasm I did not connect the autoguide scope so I was only able to get 10 second exposures without star smearing. Using 6400 iso on my Canon T3i camera I took a single image...dark, almost nothing there (as I expected).

The second shot below is the same shot but merely lightened... UUGGH!  Lots of grain and you can barely see the nebula...

However, in the desire to have some fun I started taking 118 of these 10 second shot (yes, that is a lot of pics!) and gave it a go using DeepSkyStacker to integrate them. The result... ok, the graininess is gone but nothing to write home about yet...

But now for the "magic" of post-processing to bring out detail and color that you can't see easily!
After post-processing with Luminar 2018... WOW! Who would have thought! Here is a "before and after" post-processing screen capture:

Now for the BIG REVEAL:

M 27  aka The Dumbbell Nebula

WOW! Total integration time: just under 20 minutes of overall exposure time, some time with post-processing and, well, there it is!

By the way, this was taken with an unmodified stock Canon T3i. There is a lot more red available but I would need to use a modified camera without the standard infrared filter. Maybe later...

Lesson:
So, even if you can only get short exposures with astrophotography due to the limitations of the light of the Moon, poor guiding, etc... go ahead, get A LOT OF THEM and you just might be surprised by what you get after post-processing the final image!

First Light (imaging-wise) on M 32 with a Celestron C6 scope!

M 32 Andromeda Galaxy.

"First Light" with a Celestron C6 scope. Since this scope is naturally f/10, I added a focal reducer to the scope to drop it down to f/6.3, which both abbreviated the exposure times and widened the field of view to include more of the galaxy. I was concerned that my ZWO guide camera and scope might not be powerful enough to guide properly but it guided very well (and even did without the focal reducer.) Here's the data on the image above:

Date - August 27 Time - 11 pm
Weather - Clear Temp - 58*F Humidity 42%
Camera - T3i unmodded
Scope - Celestron 6 inch SCT with focal reducer
ISO - 800
Frames - 5
Exposure time each - about 7 minutes
Total integration time - 35 minutes
Stacked - DeepSkyStacker
Post-processed - Luminar 3

To The MOON !

The Moon doesn't get the respect it ought at times... it's brightness overwhelms the fainter "prettier" objects in the night sky. But it is there, beckoning to be paid some attention to. So last night, with high clouds pushing in I gave it some love.
First of all, an HDR image of it. HDR stands for "high dynamic range" photography. One takes a few under-exposed shots, some normal exposure shots and some over-exposed shots. Then a HDR program aligns and puts them all together. Of course, I pushed it beyond what one normally sees but this is HDR, you know.
DATA: Meade LX200GPS 8" telescope, Canon T3i camera. Prime focus. Post processed with Aurora HDR 2019 software.

Then I used the movie mode of the Canon camera, with its ability to zoom in on specific areas of the Moon to create some short movie clips. As you know, movies are nothing more than individual photos presented in rapid succession to create the illusion of movement.

Software can take those individual shots, find the sharpest ones and stack them for the best possible capture. Then another bit of software can sharpen it up even more!

There are times as the Sun's light moves across the Moon, that certain features stand out better than at other times. Last night the illusion was of an "X" on the terminator (edge) of the light/dark of the Moon.

Here it is up close!

Messier 13 Hercules globular star cluster

M 13

Three clear nights in a row! Messier 13, the Hercules globular star cluster.
Data: Meade LX200GPS 8", focal reducer, Canon T3i camera.
Imaging: Four 120sec subs stacked (total 8 minutes) with DSS, iso800

The Whirlpool Galaxy after hours of frustration

M 51 The Whirlpool Galaxy

After 21 days of rain and clouds I was able to reopen the obs and get back to astro-imaging. However, I had to waste nearly 3 hours trying to figure out why my Meade LX200GPS 8" telescope would not accept commands from both Cartes du Ciel (Star Chart) and PHD2 (guiding program). Frustrating. By the time I got it figured out it was well past midnight. Part of this is the consequence of lack of use for 3 weeks, part due to GPS issues with the government resetting their GPS satellites. So what images I did get were not worthy of posting. Last night I went out again, expecting to begin imaging early... but again issues kept me from imaging for well over an hour. Finally I was able to capture M 51, the Whirlpool Galaxy shown here. I used a Meade focal reducer/field flattener but I was not pleased with the soft focus result (even though I did focus it precisely). Data: Single shot of 16 minutes, Canon T3i, 1600 iso, no cropping. Taken 6/3/2019 at 11:30 pm PDT.