Tag: atik383l+

Astrophotography on La Palma – Taking a look at spiral galaxy “Messier 100”

/ Carsten / Leave a comment
Spiral galaxy M100 - 2017/03/27
Date2017/03/27
LocationLa Palma / Spain
ObjectMessier 100 (spiral galaxy)
CameraAtik383L+
Guidingyes, QHY5-II Mono via OAG
Telescope8" GSO Newtonian
Barlow lensnone
MountEQ6Syntrek
Cooling-10°C
Luminance11x 600s, bin: 1x1
Red9x 150s, bin: 2x2
Green9x 150s, bin: 2x2
Blue9x 150s, bin: 2x2
Dark2x
Flat10x
Total exposure~2h57m

In a clear night I recorded this image of “Messier 100” – a spiral galaxy located within the southern part of constellation Coma Berenices – from Los Llanos de Aridane on La Palma. It is an LRGB composite consisting of 11 luminance frames a 600 seconds and 9 red, green and blue frames a 150 seconds respectively. The image is also available in full resolution.

The seeing conditions tonight were perfect (seeing ~1.95″) and there was no local wind. The annotated image shows a lot of other interesting objects like NGC4323, IC783, NGC4312 and NGC4328 beside M100. Some objects I was not able to assign, yet – those are marked with question marks and could be additional galaxies.

Clear skies!

Last updated: June 16, 2022 at 12:52 pm

The Great Orion Nebula from La Palma

/ Carsten / Leave a comment
The Great Orion Nebula (M42) - 2017/02/02

Recently I took this image of the Great Orion Nebula from La Palma / Spain. Actually it was just a test of my equipment. I did not align the mount and hence the guiding was miserable. I only took some frames with the IR filter with different exposure times. Still, in the end the result was much better than I expected. I love the La Palma sky! 🙂 The image is also available in full resolution here.

Date2017/02/02
LocationLa Palma / Spain
ObjectThe Great Orion Nebula
CameraAtik383L+
Guidingyes, QHY5-II Mono via OAG
Telescope8" GSO Newtonian
Barlow lensnone
MountEQ6Syntrek
Cooling0°C
Luminance4x 5s, 7x 15s, 9x 75s, 7x 150s, 5x 300s, 2x 600s, all bin: 1x1
Red-
Green-
Blue-
Dark-
Flat10x
Total exposure~1h15m

Clear skies!

Last updated: June 16, 2022 at 13:20 pm

Astrophotography on La Palma – Messier 78

/ Carsten / Leave a comment
Messier 78 - 2016/12/05

Last night I took my first astro picture with my own equipment from La Palma. My object of desire was reflection nebula Messier 78 in the constellation Orion.

After quite some unsuccessful attempts in the past days and nights (because of some technical problems, strong wind and clouds) this was a very big moment for me, and I am proud to show my first result here 🙂

Date2016/12/05
LocationLa Palma / Spain
ObjectMessier 78 (reflection nebula)
CameraAtik383L+
Guidingyes, QHY5-II Mono via OAG
Telescope8" GSO Newtonian
Barlow lensnone
MountEQ6Syntrek
Cooling-15°C
Luminance9x, 600s, bin: 1x1
Red10x, 150s, bin: 2x2
Green10x, 150s, bin: 2x2
Blue10x, 150s, bin: 2x2
Dark2x
Flat10x
Total exposure~1h55m

The image is also available in full resolution here. I decided to put this image into my “Top Astro-Pics Gallery”.

Clear skies!

Last updated: June 16, 2022 at 13:25 pm

Looking at the Sunflower Galaxy ~8.7 billion Round-the-World trips away

/ Carsten / Leave a comment

36 million light years away – or 8.700.000.000 trips around the world! That’s the approximate distance to the Sunflower Galaxy which also has the boring acronym M63.

Tonight I decided to point my 8″ Newton telescope to this object to have a closer look. Even if I only had 2 hours of time I am still satisfied with the result. Personally, I think a sunflower looks a little different – anyway I like the shape and the structure of this object. M63 is located in constellation Canes Venatici and is not “so far” away from M51. Its apparent magnitude is about 9.3mag. Besides, I already targeted M63 a few years ago, but this new result I think is much better.

Date2016/05/02
LocationBöblingen / Germany
ObjectSunflower Galaxy (M63)
CameraAtik383L+
Guidingyes, QHY5-II Mono via OAG
Telescope8" GSO Newtonian
Barlow lensnone
MountEQ6Syntrek
Cooling-15°C
Luminance4x, 600s, bin: 1x1
Red4x, 150s, bin: 2x2
Green4x, 150s, bin: 2x2
Blue4x, 150s, bin: 2x2
Dark2x
Flat10x
Total exposure~1h10min.
m63_final_cut_border

Clear skies!

Last updated: June 16, 2022 at 14:09 pm

Star cluster Messier 44

/ Carsten / 2 Comments
photo_present_m44_small_web_qual

Tonight was the first time since mid of November with acceptable conditions for astropohotography… I don’t like this weather… However, this night it was good – at least until about 3am. For stacking I again used DeepSkyStacker 3.3.2 with Kappa-Sigma Clipping. Happy Easter! 🙂

Date2016/03/09
LocationBöblingen / Germany
ObjectMessier 44 (Star cluster)
CameraAtik383L+
Guidingyes, QHY5-II Mono via OAG
Telescope8" GSO Newtonian
Barlow lensnone
MountEQ6Syntrek
Cooling-15°C
Luminance11x, 600s, bin: 1x1
Red10x, 150s, bin: 2x2
Green10x, 150s, bin: 2x2
Blue10x, 150s, bin: 2x2
Dark2x
Flat10x
Total exposure~2h15min.
Beehive Cluster (M44) - 2016/03/09

Clear skies!

Last updated: June 16, 2022 at 14:20 pm