February 4th Mineral and Mono Full Moon Image. On a Clear Night I Captured 400 Indivdual frames with a Modified for Astro Canon 450D DSLR Camera, Skywatcher ED80 Refractor Telescope and Orion 0.80 Focal Reducer Flattner. The 400 Frames were alligned and cropped in PIPP, Stacked and Wavelet sharpened in Registax and then the "Business End' of Colour Enhancement in Photoshop.

Even though the image of the moon is technically bigger without the Field Flattner/Reducer past experience demonstrated to me that the colour correction without it is inferior.      In the first instance(capture) and second instance(stacking and sharpening) a colour moon image will always appear mostly monotone.   It's the gentle layering of small incremental saturation enhancements( for this image 18) that tease out the colour in the light captured by the camera.

 

    

Eta Carina Nebulae NGC3372 and the Gabriella Mistral Nebula NGC3324(In the 'Very' Bottom Right Corner) Acquired in Dual Band Ha/O3/S2 and Rendered in False Colour OHS Pallet( O3 to red, Ha to green, and S2 to blue in Post Processing in Pixinsight). Captured with a Vixen E80SF Doublet, Skywatcher Focal Reducer and Modified(for Astro)Canon 550D DSLR. Over 120 Frames, over 60 each of Ha/O3 and O3/S2 filtered, combined over around 3 to 4 nights of imaging. Again The Colours are 'False' and just arbitrality assigned to each of the three Wavelengths

 

Running Chicken Nebula, IC 2948 (6500 Lightyears Distant) in the Constellation of Centaurus just adjacent to Crux (The Southern Cross) also known as the Lambda Centauri Nebula/Cluster after the bright star (the one that my optics has produced with a big red halo surrounding it) that is only 420 Lightyears distant. This image was created by 137 Dual Band Narrowband images (73 O3/S2 and 44 Ha/O3) filterd images taken with a Modified for Astro Canon 550D and Skywatcher ED80 Refracter Telelscope. Each filter reveals slight different structure in the nubula and when combined provides a more complete picture structurally although the colours are assigned arbitrarily in image post processing in Pixinsight and are not the natural colours emitted by the object.

Images taked 16th and 21st February 2026

 

Leo Triplet Galaxies, 22 x 300 Second/5 Minute Frames, taken with Sharpstar 100qii Refractor and ZWO ASI183 Astro Cooled Camera overnight 22nd February 2026. These three with distances ranging between 30 to 40 Million Lightyears Away.

Leo Triplet Galaxies NGC3628(Top Right), M66 (Charles Messier saw this one) Top Left, M65 (and this one too) at the bottom.

 

NGC2070, Tarantula Nebula and Surrounds 'Tryout Shot' , 6x 5 Minute Frames (30 Minutes inTotal) with SWED80 Refractor, SVBony 405cc Astro Cooled Camera.

 

NGC 2070 The Tarantula Nebula and surrouds.

Another 'trying' and perplexing session with the NINA (Nighttime Imaging 'N Astronomy) program on a remotely controlled PC. Frames combined and enhanced in PixInsight. Interestingly I think the lack of data precipitated a change to my usual imaging process.   Then use of RCAstro's Blur Exterminator on the linear data, even at less than 10% of its full strength was way to harsh on the surrounding nebulosity.

I took to stretching to Non-Linear (a usual step) and then applying  Blur Exterminator at 40% for a much better result.

Gabriel Mistral Nebula and The Pearl Open Star Cluster, Constellation Carina, 35x3 Minute frames(Combined and Enhanced in Pixinsight and Affinity) taken with Sharpstar 100qii Refractor Telescope and ZWO ASI183MC Camera.February 2026.

Moon Shot from April 2025

The Mineral Moon.   Although not apparent to the naked eye moonlight, enhanced digitally, can reveal the difference in mineral density and makeup especially in the basins of the lunar mare. Posted on Facebook April 2025 but omitted a blog post here.

Rosette Nebula NGC 2237 et.al. in Narrow Band Ha, O3 and S2. Taken with Vixen ED80 Doublet Refractor, Dual Band Ha/O3 and O3/S2 Filters and a Modified Canon 550D. 20 x Ha/O3 and 42 x O3/S2 individual frames/exposures taken over 2 nights 25th and 26th January 2026.

The Rosette Nebula, Caldwell 39 or NGC 2237 and the central star cluster NGC 2244, the light from which causes the Nebula to emit and glow in it's own light.   Approximately 5000 light years away and 100 light years across.  Our sun and it's neighbouring star, Rigil Kentaurus, would sit very closely, relatively speaking, inside the centre of the this nebula,
 

No more clear nights now for a few days and just just as well as I need to catch up on some sleep. Although once I set the telescope up over these 2 nights it was pretty much 'set and forget and sleep tight' with the ASIair telescope computer controlling the imaging, tracking, guiding and meridian flip. But it doesn't serve you breakfast in the morning. ZWO could add that functionality in perhaps in the next firmware update.

Anyhow this was another step forward for me getting data with 2 sets of filters and combining them in the Pixinsight Image Processing program

Raw Frame from , slightly enhanced, 5 Minutes Exposure.

Mount Pleasant Observatory Early Evening Sky and Moon and Nightscape shots with Google Pixel Phone in 4 Minute Long Exposure Mode on Tripod.

Aurora Night 20th January 2026

Messier 78, Caspar the Friendly Ghost Nebula, Bright Reflection Nebula in Orion, 1350 Light Years in Distance, Sharpstar 100qii Refractor and ZWO ASI183 Camera, 31 x 5 Minute Frames, Stacked and Processed in PixInsight

 

Messier 78