M8,M20, The Lagoon and Trifid Nebula mosaic.

On the 19th of May 2025, I drove my camper van to the Gower peninsula in South Wales. The weather was hot and sunny during the daytime, however a cold wind at night. The sky conditions were very clear with light pollution clearly visible looking towards  Swansea in the east. Looking towards the south the sky conditions were beautiful and very dark with stars visible down to about magnitude 6.5. I was too windy to use PHD auto guiding so I set the camera on X2 bin mode to increase the camera's sensitivity. I captured one and two minute sub frames with matching dark frames and combined them with flat field frames to reduce the effect of noise and vignetting in the final image.

The telescope was a 4 inch F/6.3 refractor mounted on a Vexen DX mount , the camera was an Atik 383L mono CCD with a set of Astronomik RGB and narrowgand filters.

The total exposure time of each image was 30 minutes using a H Alpha filter, 15 minutes using an O111 filter, ten minutes using a S11 filter and 5 minutes using a blue filter.

M20 Hubble Palette

M20 RGB

M8 the Lagoon nebula RGB

M8 Hubble Palette

M8 M20 mosaic Hubble Palette

M8 M20 mosaic RGB

M8 M20 mosaic Hubble Palette plus RGB

The Milkyway from the Gower peninsula.

Looking to the south the sky was nice and dark and very clear, however light pollution was visible looking east towards Swansea. I tested out a 50mm f/2.4 lens piggybacked on my Vixen DX mount. I was also using an Atik 383L mono CCD camera with a set of Astronomik RGB filters attached to the front of the camera lens.

I captured 60 second sub frames with matching dark frames and combined them to reduce the effect of noise in the final image. The total exposure time was only 60 seconds for each RGB filter and 4 60 seconds for the luminance data without using a filter.

Antares and nebulosity

Antares from a dark sky site.

This bright supergiant  star lies in the constellation of Scorpius , my challenge was to try and capture the surrounding nebulosity around it.   

I drove about 60 miles to the Gower peninsula and stayed near Oxwich bay and set up my equipment.  The sky conditions were very clear and very  windy with stars visible down to about magnitude 6.3. Looking towards the east you could clearly see the light pollution from Swansea however look to the south the sky was beautiful.

I was using a Vixen DX mount, An Atik 383L mono CCD camera , a set of Astronomik RGB  filters with a H Alpha filter and a 135mm f/2.4 lens.

I attached the filters to the front of the camera lens and captured one and two minute subframes .   I then combined the data with matching dark frames and flat field frames to reduce the effect of noise and vignetting in the final image.

The total exposure times were 25 minutes using a H Alpha filter, 20 minutes using a red filter, 30 minute using a green filter and 30 minutes using a blue filter.

Antares and surrounding nebulosity

The equipment used

M13

M13 from the Forest of Dean.

This Image of M13 was taken under partly clear sky conditions through  high thin Cirrus clouds with stars only visible down to about magnitude 4. I captured 60 second sub frames with matching dark frames and combined them with flat field frames to reduce the effect of vignetting in the final image.

The total exposure time was 30 minutes using a H Alpha filter, 30 minutes using an O111 filter and 15 minutes using a blue filter.

M8 and M20

Images from the forest of Dean.

M8 and M20.

The sky conditions were good on this particular evening with stars visible down to magnitude 5.5. I was using a Vixen DX mount, with a 4 inch f/6.3 refractor, an Atik 383L mono CCD camera and a set of Asttronomik narrowband filters.

I captured 60 second sub frames with matching dark frames and combined them with flat field frames to reduce the effect of noise and vignetting in the final image with the camera set on X2 bin mode.

The total exposure time was 20 minutes using a H Alpha filter, 5 minutes using an O111 filter and 4 minutes using a blue filter. 

Click on an image to get a closer view

Lagoon nebula

Unsharp masked

M8 M20 mosaic

M8 M20 narrowband mosaic

M20