Mars 6-23-16 Cathedral City CA - Nexstar 6se asi120MC-S

Here is a shot of Mars taken last night 6-23-16. Mars is shining brightly at the moment, due to its recent opposition last month. The desert heat has limited my deep sky imaging lately due to tons of image noise, but the planets are still shining brightly, as is the moon. This was taken with my new ZWO asi120mc-s planetary camera attached to a Nexstar 6se. This camera blows my old Phillips spc900 webcam out of the water! The surface details really stick out in this one, and you can see cloud formations. This is my best image of Mars...so far!

Here is another one from 6-25-16, way better seeing this night!

Lagoon Nebula M8 taken in Cathedral City, CA

The Lagoon Nebula, or M8, is an emission nebula in the constellation Sagittarius. This nebula is a giant interstellar cloud some 4,000-6,000 light-years from us here on Earth. Currently, the best time to view the Lagoon Nebula in the Coachella Valley is around 2am looking south. It lies near the Milky Way core, and has plenty of beautiful neighboring eye candy such as the Trifid and Eagle Nebula. As with most nebula, this one is best viewed with a high powered telescope and nebula filter.

Equipment used: Celestron Nexstar 6se with wedge + 6.3 focal reducer, Canon 450d

22x180s lights
22 darks
22 bias
22 flats

Processed in DSS

My second attempt at photographing the Orion Nebula M42 2-4-16

This is my second attempt at photographing the Orion Nebula. My first attempt went well, with my limited equipment and abilities. This time around, I was pleasantly surprised with what I was able to capture, and with a phone camera no less! The LG G4 is truly an amazing piece of machinery, and has a fantastic camera for astrophotography.

There is a bit of star trailing and other imperfections, but overall a huge improvement over my first try here. I used a Celestron Nexstar 6SE with a phone adapter and the G4 attached. Camera settings were 4 x 30s exposures ISO 250. The 4 images were stacked in Deep Sky Stacker, and some light editing in Photoshop to help bring out more of the gaseous details. Unfortunately, there are some star trails and doubling of stars, but this will be worked out as I get better with the editing process.

Isn't the Coachella Valley a beautiful place for Astronomy and Astrophotography? Enjoy the night skies!

Final edited image

RAW image from camera

Jupiter Ganymede Shadow Transit and Great Red Spot 1-11-16

The seeing here in the Coachella Valley was excellent last night, so I had the opportunity to spend the night outside with clear skies, and my trusty telescope. It was quite cold outside, for the valley anyways, so hot cocoa was flowing like water. These are definitely my personal best images of Jupiter, so far! I was actually speechless while processing the videos, but that was more than likely the cold temps outside. I am quite satisfied with the results and I hope you enjoy viewing them. Clear Skies!

Image details - Each image is a 1600 frame video stacked in avistack with minor wavelets adjustments at the end. The first image is actually a composite of two, one for Jupiter and another with high gain to show the moons Ganymede, Europa and Callisto.

Ganymede, Ganymede Shadow Transit, Great Red Spot, Europa, and Callisto

Nexstar 6SE + Phillips spc900nc + tube extender

Ganymede Shadow Transit, Great Red Spot

Nexstar 6SE + Phillips spc900nc + tube extender

Ganymede Shadow Transit, Great Red Spot

Nexstar 6SE + Phillips spc900nc + tube extender

Ganymede Shadow Transit, Great Red Spot

Nexstar 6SE + Phillips spc900nc + 2x barlow

Ganymede Shadow Transit, Great Red Spot

Nexstar 6SE + Phillips spc900nc + tube extender

Io, Ganymede Shadow Transit

Nexstar 6SE + Phillips spc900nc + tube extender

This last image actually shows Io popping out from behind Jupiter

An amateurs view of Uranus 12-17-15

All jokes aside, Uranus is a beautiful planet. It was once considered a gas giant like Jupiter and Saturn, but is now more commonly referred to as an ice giant, much like its nearest neighbor Neptune. Uranus has the coldest atmosphere of all the planets in our solar system, and has an estimated 27 satellites orbiting around it. Uranus also has its own set of rings, but unfortunately they are not nearly as noticeable as Saturn's famous rings.

This picture was taken on 12-17-15 with a Nexstar 6se and a Phillips spc900nc in Cathedral City, California.