Category: Star-gazing

Andromeda Galaxy (M31) – The first time from La Palma

/ Carsten / 2 Comments
M31 - Andromeda Galaxy - 2018/12/31
Date2018/12/31
LocationLa Palma / Spain
ObjectAndromeda Galaxy (M31)
CameraAtik383L+
Guidingyes, QHY5-II Mono via OAG
Telescope8" GSO Newtonian
Barlow lensnone
MountEQ6Syntrek
Cooling-10°C
Luminance6x 600s, bin: 1x1
Red5x 150s, bin: 2x2
Green5x 150s, bin: 2x2
Blue5x 150s, bin: 2x2
Dark2x
Flat10x
Total exposure~1h38m

Tonight I again decided to image the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) – the first time from La Palma. The seeing tonight was very good – around 1.5~2″ which was extraordinary! Also the weather conditions as shown by La Palma HDMeteo were excellent. Back in 2013 I already imaged the Andromeda Galaxy with the same equipment but from Boeblingen.

It is interesting to see the difference here. For post-processing I used the free software DeepSkyStacker and GIMP. The full resolution images is available here.

Clear skies!

M31_guiding
weather_la_palma_hdmeteo
Last updated: June 16, 2022 at 11:57 am

Trifid nebula M20 & open cluster M21 from La Palma

/ Carsten / Leave a comment
Trified nebula (M20) & open cluster M21 - 2017/07/22
Date2017/07/20
LocationLa Palma / Spain
ObjectTrifid nebula (M20) & open cluster M21
CameraAtik383L+
Guidingyes, QHY5-II Mono via OAG
Telescope8
Barlow lensnone
MountEQ6Syntrek
Cooling-10°C
Luminance8x 600s, bin: 1x1
Red7x 150s, bin: 2x2
Green7x 150s, bin: 2x2
Blue7x 150s, bin: 2x2
Dark2x
Flat10x
Total exposure~2h12m

Tonight I decided to image the Trifid nebula (M20)
which is quite “close” to the Lagoon nebula M8 from my last session. The seeing tonight was around ~2.4″ which could have been better – but certainly it was still sufficient.

Back in 2013 I already imaged the Trifid nebula with the same equipment but from Boeblingen. It is interesting to see the difference here.

For post-processing I used the free software DeepSkyStacker and GIMP. The full resolution images is available here.

Clear skies!

Stargazing time on La Palma – Casa Las Flores

/ Carsten / Leave a comment
Star gazing Casa Las Flores La Palma

It’s stargazing time on La Palma again – this time from Casa Las Flores. The little house is located in Aguatavar – close to Tijarafe on a height of about 580m. You have a power supply outside the building, free view to Polaris from both terraces and in July the bright part of the Milky Way is perfectly visible between 22:00 and 4:00 local time. Furthermore you have a coffee maker, a table, chairs, a fast WLAN internet connection and a barbecue. What else do you need? 😀

The image is a single frame recorded with an Canon EOS6D in combination with a Samyang 2.8/14mm lens (15 sec. exposure time, ISO4000) . The post processing has been done with rawtherapee.

Tonight I only test my equipment – for tomorrow I plan to record the bright nebula M8 in the milkyway. So stay tuned for the result!

Last updated: June 16, 2022 at 12:10 pm

Observing the Coma Galaxy Cluster at the Tacande Observatory on La Palma

/ Carsten / Leave a comment
Coma galaxy cluster - 2017/04/13
Date2017/04/13
LocationLa Palma / Spain
ObjectComa galaxy cluster
CameraModified Canon EOS6D
Guidingyes
TelescopeR120S / 120mm
Barlow lensnone
MountEQ6Syntrek
Cooling-
Luminance6x RGB frame / 240s
Red-
Green-
Blue-
Dark5x
Flat-
Total exposure~24m

Tonight I again spent the night at the Tacande Observatory on La Palma. There we observed the Coma galaxy cluster. The result is this photo taken with a modified EOS6D camera.

For post-processing I used the free software DeepSkyStacker and GIMP. The full resolution images is available here.

Clear skies!

Last updated: June 16, 2022 at 12:14 pm

Astrophotography from Los Llanos de Aridane – Pinwheel Galaxy M101

/ Carsten / Leave a comment
Pinwheel galaxy M101 - 2017/03/31

End of February 2014 I already recorded M101 from Boeblingen near Stuttgart. The total exposure time was about 6 hours (!). This time I did a 2h40m exposure from Los Llanos de Aridane on La Plama with exactly the same equipment. This is the result. From my perspective the two pictures do not have a big difference despite the colour tone which of course depends on the post processing.

Date2017/03/31
LocationLa Palma / Spain
ObjectPinwheel Galaxy M101
CameraAtik383L+
Guidingyes, QHY5-II Mono via OAG
Telescope8" GSO Newtonian
Barlow lensnone
MountEQ6Syntrek
Cooling-10°C
Luminance10x 600s, bin: 1x1
Red8x 150s, bin: 2x2
Green8x 150s, bin: 2x2
Blue8x 150s, bin: 2x2
Dark2x
Flat10x
Total exposure~2h40m

However, it’s interesting to compare the results with respect to their total exposure time: The image recorded from Boeblingen was exposed more than two times longer.

M101-both_half_overlay
M101-both_full_overlay

As a result of the long exposure time the stars are not as perfectly round as the ones with a shorter exposure time. Despite that I am happy to see what is still possible from a city like Boeblingen 🙂 Finally I combined both images to one final image by rotating one image until it matched exactly. Maybe I am wrong but I think in the end this combined image has a little more detail than each of the pictures alone. A full resolution image is available here.

Last updated: June 16, 2022 at 12:17 pm