Space City Astro

Sunrise sky art.

NGC1795 - The Fish Head Nebula. Captured from my rooftop observatory in downtown Houston.

🔭Askar FRA500
📸ZWO 2600MM Pro
🏔️ZWO AM5
🔴Antlia 3nm HSORGB
🕐100 hours
💡Bortle 9
💻PixInsight

Full acquisition details:
www.astrobin.com/8i7cav/

Yep, even after all these years it never gets old.

5 minutes of exposure vs 17 hours of exposure.

Here's a perfect example of the power of stacking.

On top is a single 5 minute exposure, bottom is a stack of 208 x 5 minute exposures adding up to 17 hours total.

This is where the magic stuff is in astrophotography, especially when you live somewhere as light polluted as I do.

SH2-155 - Cave Nebula An astrophotograph by Space City Astro on AstroBin

🔭Askar FRA500
📸ZWO 2600MM Pro
🏔️ZWO AM5
🔴Antlia 3nm HSORGB
🕐140 hours
💡Bortle 9
💻PixInsight

Full acquisition details can be found over on AstroBin:

www.astrobin.com/i2hrsv/

This beautiful giant cloud of dust and gas is an active star forming region that is about 2,500 light years away from earth

Here’s a deep 140 hour exposure on the Cave Nebula, a huge area of dust and gas located 2,500 light years away from Earth near the constellation Cepheus.

The light for this image was gathered over 12 nights from my rooftop SkyGlow observatory in downtown Houston.

Looks great Paul.

A mate told me that drizzle wouldn't help if I have undithered data, and I wanted to see for myself. I compare undithered data with normal and drizzled stack... Drizzle data without dithering? It works, a bit.

I did a bit of a drizzle test on undithered data. Check it out!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQpS...

Yeah not sure about lens scratches just yet. My dew shield was half full of water which was covering the objective. I poured it out and wiped it off with the first towel I could find, in a panic. Hopefully it’s good - will check tomorrow.

They are currently sitting naked atop the mounts in the parked position, stuffed to the brim with desiccant packs (thank you Amazon same day delivery), in a warm and dry and sunlit room.

I’ll let things bake for a couple more days, but I think the twins managed to survive the thunderstorm.

fin

All cameras, AAP’s and mounts have since dried out and appear to be working properly.

Both scopes have some moisture behind the objective lens that seems to be abating.

pt 2

Every astrophotographer’s worst nightmare (aside from the neighbors installing LED ‘security’ lights):

A surprise thunderstorm overnight woke me up in a state of sheer panic as both rigs were up on the obsy dutifully firing off subs in the pouring rain.

pt 1

If you want to really dive into this image, head over to AstroBin where the full resolution version lives. You can zoom and scroll to your heart's content!

www.astrobin.com/gtlj8b/

Hot, young stars and cosmic pillars of gas and dust seem to crowd into NGC 7822. At the edge of a giant molecular cloud toward the northern constellation Cepheus, the glowing star forming region lies about 3,000 light-years away. The atomic emission is powered by energetic radiation from the central hot stars. Their powerful winds and radiation sculpt and erode the denser pillar shapes and clear out a characteristic cavity light-years across the center of the natal cloud. Stars could still be forming inside the pillars by gravitational collapse but as the pillars are eroded away, any forming stars will ultimately be cutoff from their reservoir of star stuff. Source: NASA

I've been wanting to break the 100 hour mark on a project for a while now, and I've finally done it!

Here's 109 hours of exposure shot with my twin rigs on the Cosmic Question Mark Nebula.

🔭Askar FRA500 f/3.9
📸ZWO 2600MM Pro
⛰️ZWO AM5
🔴Antlia 3nm SHO+RGB
🕥109 hours
💻PixInsight
💡Bortle 7 & 9

Epic guiding tonight!

The Cosmic Question Mark Nebula in the constellation Cassiopeia, shot from the ultra light polluted Skyglow Observatory in downtown Houston and my brother's slightly less light polluted house in the suburbs.

🔭Askar FRA500 f/3.9
📸ZWO 2600MM
⛰️ZWO AM5
🔴Antlia 3nm OH
🕥70 hours
💻PixInsight
💡Bortle 7, 9

Since I'm new to Bsky, I'll try to post one of my astrophotos per day until I've posted everything I've ever shot, newest to oldest.

Day 3 of 28: The Orion Nebula

🔭Askar FRA500 f/3.9
📸ZWO 2600MM
⛰️ZWO AM5
🔴Antlia 3nm Ha, Oiii
🕥15 hours
💻PixInsight
💡Bortle 9

The Veil Nebula lies around 2,100 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Cygnus (the Swan), making it a relatively close neighbor in astronomical terms. Only a small portion of the nebula was captured in this image. The Veil Nebula is the visible portion of the nearby Cygnus Loop, a supernova remnant formed roughly 10,000 years ago by the death of a massive star. That star – which was 20 times the mass of the Sun – lived fast and died young, ending its life in a cataclysmic release of energy. Despite this stellar violence, the shockwaves and debris from the supernova sculpted the Veil Nebula’s delicate tracery of ionized gas – creating a scene of surprising astronomical beauty.

Since I'm new to Bsky, I'll try to post one of my astrophotos per day until I've posted everything I've ever shot, newest to oldest.

Day 2 of 26: Veil Nebula Complex.

🔭Askar FRA500 f/3.9
📸ZWO 2600MM
⛰️ZWO AM5
🔴Antlia 3nm Ha, Oiii
🕥53 hours
💻PixInsight
💡Bortle 9

Bubble Nebula With a Side of M52 An astrophotograph by Space City Astro on AstroBin

Full aquisition details can be found over on AstroBin

www.astrobin.com/kz3ovc/

The Bubble Nebula is 7 light-years across – about one-and-a-half times the distance from our sun to its nearest stellar neighbor, Alpha Centauri – and resides 7,100 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cassiopeia. The Bubble Nebula was discovered in 1787 by William Herschel, a prominent British astronomer. It is being formed by an O star, BD +60°2522, an extremely bright, massive, and short-lived star that has lost most of its outer hydrogen and is now fusing helium into heavier elements. The star is about 4 million years old, and in 10 million to 20 million years, it will likely detonate as a supernova. Source: NASA

Since I'm new to Bsky, I'll try to post one of my astrophotos per day until I've posted everything I've ever shot, newest to oldest.

Day 1 of 26: The Bubble Nebula with a side of M52.

🔭Askar FRA500 f/3.9
📸ZWO 2600MM
⛰️ZWO AM5
🔴Antlia 3nm Ha, Oiii
🕥59 hours
💻PixInsight
💡Bortle 9

Yeah! Awesome to see Ollie here!

Iris Nebula and molecular clouds (mostly molecular hydrogen and dust) in the Constellation Cepheus. 16 hours of imaging by Paul Macklin (August 2023)

OK, I think I'm *finally* done processing the Iris Nebula, a gorgeous reflection nebula and a complex of cold molecular hydrogen clouds.

This combines the best 16 hours of 5 minute exposures from my Indiana backyard, using my favorite scope (115mm APO triplet, with a 1.2"/pixel resolution). 🔭🧪

Paul, what semi-permanent mount would you recommend for a RASA8 and Edge HD 9.25? Something beefy and heavy is fine. A few years down the road I’ll be close to getting both rigs. I’ll be putting them on a wheeled tripod base and rolling them out onto a concrete pad to shoot, not on a permeant pier.

Gorgeous work Paul!

Awesome pics! I’m so envious - I’ve always wanted to see the northern lights. One day!

A little bit about me: my day job is at a childrens hospital, and astrophotography is a great balance to that stressful work.

My wife is an actual rocket scientist. Her job is literally to land things on Mars! How cool is that?!

But, mostly I’m all about astrophotography and will post plenty here!

Nice! I hope to have clear skies to keep making more but I’ll for sure start posting some of my precious work too, to help pass the time until my next project is done.

Thanks for the tip. Are hashtags a thing here?

My twin rigs. I run two of these to get double the data to help with image quality. ZWO AM5 mount, Askar FRA500 f/3.9 telescope, ZWO ASI2600MM camera, ZWO ASIAIR Plus computer, William Optics 50mm guide scope, ZWO ASI120MM mini guide camera.

I have, but I actually don't own any of this kit anymore! 🤣

I'm running two rigs. Here's Red, and her twin is in the foreground out of focus.

My name is Chris and I take pictures of the night sky with my telescope and astrophotography camera, mostly from my rooftop observatory in ultra light-polluted downtown Houston.

Here's some of my best images from the past couple of years.