Two Galaxies: M 81 & M 82 - My Best Effort So Far

(click on the image for a larger view)

Last night's capture of M 81 & M 82

Scope: Daystar 480mm Doublet f/6

Camera: Canon T3i unmodded

Filter: Grosky Light Pollution Filter 2"

240 sec subs x 10 = 40 minutes stacked DSS

ISO 6400

Post processed with Luminar 2018

First Real Test of Guan Sheng Optical's RC 6" astrograph

M 1 - The Crab Nebula

First attempt but the collimation of the scope is off.

The image is not as sharp and detailed as it can be.

Got to work on that soon...

NGC 2239 The Rosette Nebula

Data: GS RC 6" telescope Canon T3i unmodded camera ISO 6400 360sec subs 8 to 10 subs Stacked in Sequator Post-processed in Luminar

Unexpected clear sky... at least for two hours!

Bode's Galaxy (M 81) near the Big Dipper (Ursa Major).

Got a surprise clear night!

DATA:
Celestron C6 with Meade .6 focal reducer
Celestron AVX mount
Canon T3i unmodded camera
28 minutes total exposure time
ISO 1600
10 subs, flats, darks, bias frames
Stacked with DSS
Post processed with GIMP and Luminar 2018
Cropped

RawTherapee app Conquers Chromatic Aberration!

While I have written before about this noisome issue of purple fringing on stars I have found that the RawTherapee (google it) app does a fantastic job of minimizing this chromatic aberration.

After few clear nights in a row here, I imaged the Rosette Nebula with a 200mm f/5.6 old Pentax telephoto on a Canon T3i unmodded.

The chromatic aberration as terrible... purple fringing on the edges of the brighter stars! Yuck! 

But RawTherapee photo program to the rescue! It has a function that can reduce/eliminate the objectionable color and rescue an otherwise useless image! You can see the difference is quite apparent! Then I was able to increase the color saturation without increasing the purple around most of the stars!

The Occultation of Mars by the Moon Captured

Got up early this morning and caught the 4:38 am exiting of Mars from behind the Moon! 

Thank you, my wonderful wife, for helping me! What a trooper at 10*F   ! 

The Moon was only about 6 degrees above the east-south east horizon and some pine tree photo bombed my shot!

Camera: Canon T3i unmodded

Telescope: Celestron NexStar 4SE

Finally, after 40 days and 40 nights of clouds, snow and rain...Two Images!

First up, The Rosette Nebula (north east of the constellation Orion).
Under a "first quarter" moon it finally cleared up last night and I attempted to image for the first time in 40 days and nights!  (We are back to rain and clouds again...)
The night sky was fairly bright because of the nearly first quarter Moon upon a thin haze of wood-stove smoke from all my neighbors.
The result was a strong bluish cast that I had to work hard to get out of my image. Enjoy!

Info:
Telescope: Daystar 480mm f/6.5 refractor
Camera: Canon T3i unmodded
Mount: Celestron AVX
Imaging software: BackyardEOS
Stacking software: DeepSky Stacker
Post-processing software: Luminar 2018
Data: ISO 1600 - 6 subs @ 360 sec each
Total exposure integrated time: 36 minutes

Finally, The Great Orion Nebula (M 42& M43) and the Running Man Nebula (Sharpless 279).

from Jan 31, 2020, again under a bright first quarter Moon and the neighborhood wood stoves pumping the air with smoke!

Scope: 480mm f/6 refractor, Canon T3i unmodded
Multiple exposures from 12 sec to 180 sec @ iso 1600
Stacked with DSS
Post-processed in GIMP, defringed in Luminar 2018, Aurora HDR 2019

2019 Year In Review Poster

2019 is in the books and here are the stats:
For 64 nights of 2019 I was in the obs imaging ( 17% ) an average of only 5 days per month.

97 nights were clouded out totally ( 27% )
58 nights had partly cloudy skies unworthy of imaging ( 21% )
45 nights were rainy ( 12% )
34 nights were "clear" but mucky conditions ( 9% )
29 nights were snowing ( 8% )
_6 nights were clear but strong winds made imaging impossible ( less than 2% )
_4 nights were foggy ( about 1% )
_2 nights were of no use due to heavy smoke from forest fires ( less than 1% )
all the rest I was either too busy, sick, on vacation or out of town on business. ( 3% )

Nights in the Observatory By the month:

      Jan   Feb   Mar   Apr   May   Jun   Jul   Aug   Sep   Oct   Nov   Dec

10
9                                                                                       9
8
7     7                                   7        7                                          7
6
5                      5        5                          5                5
4
3                                                                     3                                  3
2
1            1
0