The Coathanger, Brocchi's Cluster

On this evening the clouds were closing in fast, so I only managed to capture a total of 30 minutes of data. The total exposure time was 10 minutes using a H-alpha filter for the red channel, 10 minutes with a OIII filter for the green channel and a blue filter. I also took matching dark frames and flat fields to reduce the effect of vignetting in the final image.

The telescope was an 80mm refractor with a Vixen Atlux mount, PHD autoguiding, an Atk 383L mono CCD camera and a set of Astronomik filters.

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The Coathanger 

IC 5146 The Cocoon nebula

IC 5146 lies in the constellation of Cygnus the Swan. I took this image using my 80mm, f/6.3 refractor, a Vixen Atlux mount, PHD auto-guiding, an Atik 383L mono CCD camera and a set of Astronomik narrowband filters SII, OIII and H-alpha.

I captured five minute sub frames with matching dark frames and combined them with flat fields to reduce the effect of vignetting in the final image.

The total exxposure times were 60 minutes using SII and OIII filters and 90 minutes using a H-alpha filter.

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RGB colour with narrowband luminance

Hubble palette

Narrowband colour with RGB colour

M27 The Dumbbell nebula

This bright planetary nebula lies in the constellation of Vulpecula the fox.

I took this image using my 80mm, f/6.3 refractor, a Vixen Atlux mount, PHD auto-guiding, an Atik 383L mono CCD camera and a set of Astronomic narrowband filters, H-alpha, SII and OIII.

I captured five minute sub frames with matching dark frames and combined them with flat fields to reduce the effects of vignetting in the final image. The total exposure times were 40 minutes using H-alpha and SII, and 60 minutes using an OIII filter.

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Bi Colour image

Hubble palette

Fish on the Platter (Cygnus X1 Region)

This patch of nebulosity lies deep within the constellation of Cygnus the swan.

I captured this image using my 80mm, f.6.3 refractor, a Vixen Atlux mount, PHD auto-guiding, an Atik 383L mono CCD camera with a set of Astronomik narrowband filters, Sll, Olll na H-alphs.

I captured five minute sug 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 times were 60 minutes for each filter.

Click on an image to get a closer view.

RGB colour with narrowband luminance

 Hubble palette

Hubble palette plus RGB

NGC 6960 and NGC 6992 The Cygnus Loop

I took these two images using my 80mm f/6.3 refractor, a Vixen Atlux mount, an Atik 383L mono CCD camera, a set of Astronomik narrowband filters and PHD autoguiding.

The images were taken on separate nights with the camera set on x2 bin mode. I captured 2.5 minute sub-frames and combined them with Flat fields to reduce the effect of vignetting in the final image. These data were then combined with old data taken with the camera set on x1 bin mode.

The total exposure times were 30 minutes for each narrowband filter on x2 bin mode and 60 minutes for each filter on x1 bin mode. All data were captured with matching dark frames.

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NGC6960

NGC6992

Cygnus loop mosaic, Hubble Palette

Components of the Cygnus Loop

NGC 7635 The Bubble Nebula

Lying in the constellation of Cassiopeia the Queen are NGC 7538, a diffuse nebula, NGC 7635, the Bubble nebula and M52 a bright open cluster.

I took this image using an 80mm refractor at f/6.3, a Vixen Atlux mount, PHD autoguiding and an Atik 383L monochrome CCD camera. I was also using  a set of Astronomik narrowband filters, SII, OIII and H-alpha.

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Bi-colour image

On the first evening I set the camera on x2 bin mode, capturing 2.5 minute sub-frames. The total exposure time for each filter was 30 minutes. On the second evening, I set the camera to x1 bin mode for the luminance data using a H-alpha filter; capturing 5 minute sub-frames, and matching dar-frames. Flat fields were used to reduce the effects of vignetting in the final image. The total exposure time in H-alpha was 120 minutes.

Hubble Palette

This image of the Bubble nebula contains data from two telescopes, an 80 mm refractor and a 10 inch reflector.

This image is a reprocessed old image captured in 2016, revealing a large amount of core detail

The Cave Nebula (Sh2-155)

This emission nebula lies deep in the constellation of Cepheus the King. Its structure resembles the shape of a cave in space.

RGB image

I took this image using my 80mm f/6.3 refractor, a vixen Atlux mount, PHD autu-guiding and an Atik 383L mono CCD camera with a set of Astronomik narrowband filters.

On the first evening I set the camera on x2 bin mode, capturing 2.5 minute sub-frames with total exposure times of 30 minutes for each of the filters, SII, OIII and H-alpha.

Bi-colour image

On the second evening I set the camera on x1 bin mode, capturing 5 minute sub-frames using a H-alpha filter. The total exposure time using the H-alpha filter was 120 minutes.

Hubble palette

Nebulae in the Andromeda galaxy.

This image was taken under a moonless clear sky with just light-pollution to contend with.

I used an 80mm f/6.3 refractor, and Atik 383L mono CCD camera, and a Vixen Atlux mount with PHD autoguiding.

I captured 5 minute 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 were 60 minutes using a H-aalpha filter, 60 minutes using an OIII filter and 60 minutes using a blue filter.

Click on an image to get a closer view

This image is a composition of data captured using three telescopes, an 80mm refractor, a 4 inch refractor and a 10 inch reflector.

In St Davids, west Wales on September 17th. The sky was very dark and clear.

I captured these images with a Canon D50 DSLR and an AstroTrack mount using an 18mm to 270mm zoom lens.

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A single, 5 minute exposure of the Milky Way

A composition of 4 x 5 minute exposures

Single, 5 minute exposure of M31 revealing the darkness of the night sky

Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE reprocessed

 These reprocessed images of Comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE reveal the comet's faint ion tail.