Pacman Nebula NGC 281

Pacman Nebula NGC281
Taken in Cathedral City, CA

90/500 Refractor
2" Astro-Tech Field Flattener
Canon 450d modded
Baader 495nm Longpass filter
Astronomik CLS CCD Clip Filter
Celestron AVX Mount

10 Hours total exposure time
66 Lights varying 7-19 minute exposures at iso 200-400
60 Darks
40 Flats
80 Bias
Stacked in DSS, edited in CS6

The Eastern Veil Nebula NGC 6992

The Veil nebula has been my deep sky subject for the past month, and I'm finally done with the eastern portion. The desert heat and humidity we've had recently did not help at all, but us desert rats find ways to overcome this every summer. 

Next up is the western portion of the Veil nebula, which contains NGC 6960 the Witches Broom Nebula. I'm hoping to get the western side done before the end of the month.

NGC6992 Eastern Veil Nebula

taken in Cathedral City, CA

5h40m total exposure time

61 lights 4,5, and 6 minute exposures

48 darks

64 flats

80 bias

Stacked in DSS

Comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresak 4-1-17

This was my first attempt at imaging a comet, and after tons of research online I was actually able to pull off some interesting images, and even a video of its movement. Comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresak was not showing any signs of a tail, at least for now. The comets closest approach to the Sun is on April 12 2017, and it might start showing signs of a tail around then. Unfortunately, this comet is not really a naked eye object, and was even hard to spot in binoculars under our light polluted valley. This is why it's important to always turn off unnecessary lights at night, and if at all possible use lighting that does not pollute our night skies.

There are various ways to post process a set of comet images, one way stacks the comet and leaves the stars to trail. The other way is to stack the stars and the comet, which leaves you with a nice comet and a fairly clean star field in the background.

This was taken on 4-1-17 in Cathedral City, CA
Orion ST80
Canon 450d
Celestron AVX Mount
ASI120MC-s Guide Camera
Astromania 60mm Guidescope

 Comet with trailing stars

 Comet and corrected star field

Inverted view

Inverted timelapse video, about 2 hours

Jupiter rotation video 3-8-17

The other night I was out in the backyard imaging Jupiter and decided to make a rotation video of the planet. I ended up with 2 separate videos because the seeing changed and I had to reduce my magnification a bit. The end results turned out pretty good though!

These were made up of individual images taken every so often between 11pm and about 3am, so around a 4 hour period of rotation.

Celestron Nexstar 6se
Celestron AVX Mount
ASI120MC-S Camera
Taken in Cathedral City, CA

Here is a couple still images from the videos:

Spot the Space Station over the Coachella Valley tonight

Spot the International Space Station over the Coachella Valley twice tonight! The first one is almost 7 minutes long and starts at 6:39pm. At 7 minutes long, this will appear to be a slow moving, but increasingly brightening star crossing the sky. It will appear in the Northwest at a 10 degree elevation and pass through the Little Dipper near the north star Polaris. Maximum elevation is 51 degrees, then it will start to fade away into the Southeastern sky. At a magnitude -3.6 it should be pretty bright, the Sun sets at 6:06pm so it will not be the darkest sky but I've personally seen the station pass by in daylight before, so no worries. 

The second chance tonight to spot the Space Station will be at 8:18pm, this one only last for 1 minute and will be low on the horizon at a max elevation of 11 degrees and reach a magnitude 1.0. If you have a unobstructed view of the Southwest, it will pass very near the planet Saturn. 

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

Space station flyby over the Coachella Valley, CA 5-27-16

I always have such a fun time tracking the International Space Station, and this time I was at least halfway ready for it. I was in my backyard and spotted the station rising in the southwest and made a mad dash inside to grab the tripod and camera. I had only a moment or two, and was only able to capture its trail in a 5 second exposure, but boy was it bright! By the time I had taken the picture and previewed it, the space station was already heading out of sight in the northeastern sky.

Taken in Cathedral City, CA

Equipment used: Canon 450d

M27 The Dumbbell Nebula 5-18-16

The Dumbbell Nebula, or Messier 27 is a planetary nebula in the constellation Vulpecula. In 1764, Charles Messier discovered the Dumbbell Nebula, and was the first of its kind to be discovered, a planetary nebula. A planetary nebula is named more for its round appearance to early astronomers, and has nothing to do with actual planets. A planetary nebula is actually the remains of an old exploded star, and is made up of  ejected ionized gas.

This is a stacked image of 17 1 minute exposures at ISO 1600, 17 light frames, 17 dark frames, and 17 bias frames. Stacked in DeepSkyStacker with minor tweaks to contrast and brightness in CS6. These were all taken in my backyard in Cathedral City, CA with average seeing and visibility.

On a side note, I am personally blown away by this image. There has to be over a million stars in the picture! How cool is that right?

*UPDATE
After going through the data, and some help from internet astronomy friends, I Have re-edited using PixInsight LE and was able to pull out much more data this time around. The first 2 images are the new edits, and the last 2 images are the old data.