Sun Awakens

 October 17, 2020

October 18, 2020

The Sun's ever changing surface is endlessly fascinating.  These photo sets were taken about 24 hours apart and the changes are stunning.  The increased activity on Oct 17th, after weeks of quiet, was eclipsed by multiple eruptions on the 18th.  The prominences are made of plasma which is electrically charged hydrogen and helium that have become unstable and burst from the Sun's photosphere into the outer atmosphere.

Photo Details

October 17-18, 2020

Lunt 60 mm Pressure Tuned Telescope

ZWO ASI178MM 

SharpCap - 8 Bit Mono

Image Stacking in AutoStakkert
Wavelet Filtering in Registax
Final Adjustments in Photoshop

Mars Opposition 2020

 

Mars reached opposition on October 13th and won't be this close again until 2035.  It's amazing what clear skies and moving the subject closer to the lens can do for capturing details.

Photo Details

October 13, 2020

Orion 8" Astrograph on VX Mount

NexImage10 Camera (Color Images)

Image Acquisition iCap2.4 (Color Images)

Y800 Codec (Color Images)

ZWO ASI178mm (monochrome)

Sharpcap (monochrome)

Image Stacking in AutoStakkert
Wavelet Filtering in Registax
Final Adjustments in Photoshop

Solar Imaging

 

We've had nothing but rain all weekend, but with fantastic conditions a week ago I had plenty to work on with lots of solar images and one good night to capture a long-departed star in the form of Messier 57 (Ring Nebula).

Photo Details

Messier 57

October 2, 2020

Orion 8" Astrograph on VX Mount

SBIG STF-8300C Camera

Baader MPC Mark III Multi-Purpose Coma Corrector

Skyglow filter

29 subframes at 3 minutes/frame

Total Exposure Time = 1 hour 27 minutes
Image Acquisition in CCDOps
Image Stacking in Deep Sky Tracker
Image Processing in PhotoShop

Solar Images

October 3, 2020

Lunt 60 mm Pressure Tuned Telescope

ZWO ASI178MM 

SharpCap - 8 Bit Mono

Image Stacking in AutoStakkert
Wavelet Filtering in Registax
Final Adjustments in Photoshop