Tag: GPU coma corrector

M59 and M60 Galaxies

April 21, 2018
Galaxy
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Galactic season continues. This night I managed to capture many galaxies in one shot. Specifically, it’s Messier 59 Galaxy, located in the center, Messier 60 Galaxy at the top, two visually smaller galaxies – NGC 4606 and NGC 4607, located at the bottom right and NGC 4637, NGC 4638, located in the center left of the picture. All these galaxies are located in constellation Virgo and they are member of Virgo galactic cluster.

The picture is a stack of 54 pictures, each 5 minutes exposure time, i.e. 4.5 hours of total integration time.

Technical details:

TelescopeNewton 254/1000 mm
Aperture254 mm
Focal length1000 mm
MountGemini G53f
AutoguidingZWO 174MM, TS 60/240 mm
CameraZWO 071 Pro @-15°C
CorrectorGPU
FiltersIR UV cut
Exposure54x300s, Gain 94, bin 1x1,
Date2018-04-21

M85 Galaxy

April 18, 2018
Galaxy
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Messier 85 is an elliptical galaxy located in constellation Coma Berenices. It is approximately 60 million light-years away from Earth and it has diameter 125 light-years, which makes it similar to our home galaxy Milky Way.

Technical details:

TelescopeNewton 254/1000 mm
Aperture254 mm
Focal length1000 mm
MountGemini G53f
AutoguidingZWO 174MM, TS 60/240 mm
CameraZWO 071 Pro @-15°C
CorrectorGPU
FiltersIR UV cut
Exposure60x300s, Gain 94, bin 1x1,
Date2018-04-18

M49 Galaxy

April 11, 2018
Galaxy
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Messier 49 is an elliptical galaxy belonging to the Virgo Cluster of galaxies. Magnitude 8.4 makes this galaxy the brightest in whole Virgo Cluster. Due to its brightness, it’s possible to observe it just by using binoculars. Distance of M49 from Solar system is 52 million light-years.

The picture is a stack of 40 photos with exposure time 5 minutes each. This means more than 3 hours of exposure time.

Technical details

Telescope:Newton 254/1000 mm
Aperture:254 mm
Focal length:1000 mm
MountGemini G53f
AutoguidingZWO 174MM, TS 60/240 mm
Camera:ZWO ASI071MC Pro
Corrector:GPU
Filters:UV IR cut
Exposure:40xRGB 300s
Date:2018-04-11

M95 Galaxy

March 29, 2018
Galaxy
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Messier 95 is a spiral galaxy, which is located in constellation Leo. It is 38 million light-years away from Solar system and it belongs to a group of galaxies with M96 and M105. M95 belongs between the galaxies intensively studied by Hubble Space Telescope, in order to determine Hubble’s constant. Collected results were adjusted with help of satellite Hipparcos and the distance of this galaxy was estimated. The galaxy is drifting away from us by speed 766 km/s.

Technical details

Telescope:Newton 254/1000 mm
Aperture:254 mm
Focal length:1000 mm
MountGemini G53f
AutoguidingZWO 174MM, TS 60/240 mm
Camera:ZWO ASI071MC Pro
Corrector:GPU
Filters:UV IR cut
Exposure:18xRGB 180s
Date:2018-03-29

M67 Open cluster

March 21, 2018
Open cluster
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Messier 67 is an open cluster located in constellation Cancer and it’s one of the oldest open cluster from Messier catalogue. Therefore it was examined by many scientific studies. The diameter of the cluster is approximately 20 light-years and it’s roughly 2700 light-years away from Earth.

Technical details:

TelescopeNewton 254/1000 mm
Aperture254 mm
Focal length1000 mm
MountGemini G53f
AutoguidingZWO 174MM, TS 60/240 mm
CameraZWO 071 Pro @-15°C
CorrectorGPU
FiltersIR UV cut
Exposure25x180s, Gain 94, bin 1x1,
Date2018-03-21

 

Moon – Waxing Crescent

March 21, 2018
Solar system
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After long period of bad weather, I had the opportunity to take the telescope out and enjoy the clear skies. In the early evening, waxing crescent was setting down, so I took the opportunity and pointed my newton on the Moon. The illumination was only 34%, which means that as soon it gets dark, the Moon is not far from horizon and you have to capture it through thick layer of turbulent atmosphere. The picture is a stack of 700 frames.

Technical details

Telescope:Newton 254/1000 mm
Aperture:254 mm
Focal length:1000 mm
MountGemini G53f
Autoguiding-
Camera:ZWO ASI 071
Corrector:GPU coma corrector
Filters:UV IR cut 2"
Exposure:8x1000 frames, best 700 selected
Date:2018-03-21

NGC281 Pacman nebula

January 13, 2018
H II nebula
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NGC281 is a HII region, which reminds a head of the main character in very popular game from nineties. It is located in constellation Cassiopeia and it 9500 light-year far from us. This nebula was discovered long time ago by Edward Emerson Barnard and it is possible to observe this nebula by reasonable sized telescope under dark skies. Well, I wouldn’t see probably anything, because I live in light polluted area, therefore I had to use narrow band filters, which block the light pollution.

The picture is composed out of 66 narrow band exposures, which means slightly more than one hour per channel. First one is bi-color composition of hydrogen and oxygen, the others are in Hubble palette (hydrogen in green, oxygen in blue and sulfur in red).

Technical details

Telescope:Newton 254/1000 mm
Aperture:254 mm
Focal length:1000 mm
MountGemini G53f
AutoguidingTS 60 mm, ZWO 174 MM
Camera:Moravian instruments G2 8300M @-30C
Corrector:GPU coma corrector
Filters:Baader narrow band
Exposure:8x22xHa, 22xOIII, 22xSII 180 s, bin 1x1,
Date:2018-01-13

 

Worldwide coma correction exercise

April 5, 2017
Hardware
86 Comments

Introduction

What is coma and why needs to be corrected. Coma is a special type of an optical aberration. It’s mainly visible in the astrophotography – the stars are deformed into comet-like shapes:

Fast Newtonian telescopes suffer from comatic aberration, mainly in the corners of the photos. These telescopes are nowadays very popular between amateur astrophotographers just like me, because they offer the best price/aperture ratio. There is easy way how to suppress the comatic aberration – coma correctors. There are many coma correctors on the market, but there are just a few published reviews or comparisons between them. Therefore I decided to perform the comparison myself. Quite big collection of coma correctors has assembled in my drawer ready to be tested:

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M106 Galaxy

March 30, 2017
Galaxy
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Galactic harvest continues. Here again, I focused my scope on previously photographed DSO. The galaxy is located in the constellation Canes Venatici (hunting dogs) not far from the famous Ursa Major (great bear) and is approximately 24 million light-years from us.

Telescope:Newton 254/1000 mm
Aperture:254 mm
Focal length:1000 mm
Mount:Gemini GF53f
Autoguiding:Orion Mini, TS 50/160 mm
Camera:Moravian instruments G2 8300M @-30C
Corrector:GPU
Filters:Baader L, RGB
Exposure:27xL 300s bin 1×1, 15xRGB 200 s bin 2×2
Date:2017-03-30

M104 Sombrero galaxy

March 29, 2017
Galaxy
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Spring is a season of the galaxies. Winter nebulae are gone and constellations Lion, Ursa Major, or Virgo offer stunning deep-space objects. The moon was hidden and the wetter was finally good, so I took to opportunity and pointed my telescope into the constellation Virgo and collected some light coming from the Sombrero galaxy, which has been on the way for 32 million years. This galaxy resembles a Mexican hut because it’s surrounded by a dust belt. This is my second attempt to capture M104. The first one, two years ago, was not that successful. Anyway, it’s better than last time, but I still cannot get to the quality of the Hubble Space Telescope. However, my equipment has a better price/performance ratio 🙂

Telescope:Newton 254/1000 mm
Aperture:254 mm
Focal length:1000 mm
Mount:Gemini GF53f
Autoguiding:Orion Mini, TS 50/160 mm
Camera:Moravian instruments G2 8300M @-30C
Corrector:GPU
Filters:Baader L, RGB
Exposure:45xL 300s bin 1×1, 22xRGB 200 s bin 2×2
Date:2017-03-29

M1 Crab nebula

January 7, 2017
Supernova remnant
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It all started here. The crab nebula is the first cataloged deep-space object. Charles Messier was searching for the comet (1758) but discovered his first deep-space object. The Crab nebula, also called Messier 1, is a supernova remnant like a Veil nebula, but it’s much further from the Solar system – 6500 light years.

My first picture was made with a pinched mirror, therefore I waited two years and captured it properly. Since I live in a light-polluted area, I chose narrow band filters to get better contrast and composed this picture out of hydrogen alpha (red channel) and OIII (green and blue channel) narrow band pictures.

And here is the picture in “false” colors – Hubble palette (SII – red, Ha – green and OIII – blue).

Telescope:Newton 254/1000 mm
Aperture:254 mm
Focal length:1000 mm
Mount:Gemini GF53f
Autoguiding:Orion Mini, TS 50/160 mm
Camera:Moravian instruments G2 8300M @-30C
Corrector:GPU
Filters:Baader Ha, OIII
Exposure:16xHa, 10xOIII, 10xSII 300 s bin 1×1
Date:2017-01-07