The Omega Centauri Globular Cluster. NGC5139

 


Which image do you prefer? This gigantic cluster of stars sits some 17000 light years away just above the galactic rim but a little closer to galactic centre, above the next spiral arm over.  It's puported to harbour its own black hole and might have been a small elliptical galaxy in its own right but in the past, drifting too close to the Milky Way, its has been captured. I caught this last night, Saturday/Sunday 27th/28th March with 120 seperate 30 second frames with a Celestron HD Edge C8 and ZWO533 Camera, then combined today in a program, Pixinsight. The bottom image is purely the resolved stars with the background removed and provides a little bit more of a colour hit.   The top image is perhaps more authentic combining both stars and the background with noise reduction and curve adjustment applied.  I think it preserves the inate central bright glow, that you see visually through a telescope. The OCD amongst us might also note that the cluster is not centred in the frame.  This is due to the 'Platesolving' process, that automtically detects and then centres an object refusing to work, probably due to the incredible amount of stars in this fairly narrow field of view and I was also too impatient at the time to try and figure it out manually.  In the end I quite liked the 'offcentred' composition of the shot so I didn't crop it.

Sombrero Galaxy, Messier 104, 34 Million Light Years Away. 33x5 Minute Exposures with ZWO ASI533 Camera and Celestron C8 Edge HD with 0.7 Focal Reducer. Pixinsight to Align, Combine and Enhance.

 

Time-lapse Rostrevor Avoca/Fingal Sunday Evening to Monday 8th and 9 th March 2026

Rostrevor Time-lapse

Part of Vela Supernova Remnant (in Constellation Vela of course!) 60x 300 second frames taken with Canon 550D and vixen ED80SF. Processed in Pixinsight.

This image is approximately 2.6x1.5 degree FOV.  The remnant itself extends some three times or more as far. The cloud is the left over remants of an exploded star 900 light years away about 11000 years ago.  Thress versions, Starless, Just a hint of stars andvthe third a more realistic starfield representaion.

In Pixinsight, once the stars are removed and processed seperately, there is a lot of control of the amount of linear to nonlinear stretching where the intesity of the starfield in the original image can be easily ramped down depending on personal preference and choice for the final overall appearance of the processed image.

The first just shows the structure of the nebulous expanding dust cloud.T he second mainly portrays this too but with only just a small suggestion of the starfield.  The third shaw a more robust repesentation of the overall nebula and stars in the field of view.  The fourth is a rawer looking version showing a stacked but slightly enhanced representaion of the original scene,

You can add a comment to this post below to let me know which version you like best.

Stars removed for more focused processing of nebula

Small amount of stars added back

More definitive add back of stars

More like the original scene with some enhancement

Random Nebulosity in the Constellation Vela. Taken with ASI183 Astro Cooled Camera and Sharpstar 100Qii Refractor. 32x5 Minute Frames Combined and enhanced in Pixinsight.

 I was aiming to capture some of the Vela Supernova Remnant but it's scale across the sky far outstripped the field of view of my ASI183 Astro Cooled Camera and Sharpstar 100Qii Refractor.   I decided to uncover and setup my VixenED80 amd Canon550D, but before this I picked out this random unnamed area of nebulosity in the ASIair Sky Atlas.

The Random Nebulous Area of Vela

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.