Month: September 2019

Chasing darkness in Greece – Karpathos

Like every summer, I packed the telescope, mount, camera and many accessories and flew to Greece. This time we went to Karpathos, the island not spoiled by massive tourism and light pollution. Long story short, the skies were amazing, but every single night, except one, was extremely windy. It was a torture – to see millions of stars and not be able to photograph them. There is no surprise that Karpathos is beloved by windsurfers and kite surfers. In the end I captured only the Iris Nebula and the Double Cluster. I talked to locals and they told me that the wind should stop at the end of September, so probably I picked the wrong time.

On the other hand I was able to do a wide angle astrophotography of the Milky Way. SQM reached 21.5, galactic core was so bright and I think the photos of the Milky Way are quite decent. This time I changed the setup and purchased Canon EOS 6D, which is one of the best cameras for this purpose. Moreover, there are many second hand 6Ds, because mirrorless mania arrived. 6D combined with Samyang 14 mm f2.8 offers excellent performance for this purpose.

Karpathos offers other beauties, for example very beautiful beaches, mountains, delicious food friendly people and many more.

Our house Elaeon with remarkable dark skies – SQM 21.5
Olympos
Apela beach
Avalon M-Zero and TS 6" Newtonian
Avalon M-Zero and TS 6″ Newtonian at Elaeon

Double Cluster NGC869 and NGC884

Two clusters visually close to each other can be located between constellations Perseus and Cassiopeia.  The clusters are relatively young (12 million years) and they are 2700 light-years far from Earth.

The picture was captured during my travel to Karpathos where I had only single wind free night.

I know, the composition should be turned by 90°. I just simply forgot to twist the camera.

Technical details:

TelescopeNewton 150/600 mm
Aperture150 mm
Focal length630 mm
MountAvalon M-Zero
AutoguidingZWO 174MM, Guidescope 30 mm
CameraZWO 071 Pro @-5°C
CorrectorExplore Scientific HR
FiltersAstronomik L-1 - UV IR Block Filter
Exposure28x180s, Gain 94, bin 1x1,
Date2019-09-03

NGC7023 Iris nebula

Iris nebula, known as NGC 7023, is a reflection/dark nebula located in constellation Cepheus. It’s 1300 light years far from the Solar system and it has 6 light years in diameter. In the middle of the nebula rules so called baby star, which is only few thousand years old. The star was created partially from the gas which is now illuminated.

The picture was taken under dark skies of Greek island Karpathos during my 2019 expedition. Unfortunately, the weather was very bad. There wasn’t a single cloud on the sky, but it was extremely windy, therefore I got only one single steady night and this night I wanted to capture also other deep space objects. Therefore the picture is a stack of only 37 pictures, each 2 minutes long.

Technical details:

TelescopeNewton 150/600 mm
Aperture150 mm
Focal length630 mm
MountAvalon M-Zero
AutoguidingZWO 174MM, Guidescope 30 mm
CameraZWO 071 Pro @-5°C
CorrectorExplore Scientific HR
FiltersAstronomik L-1 - UV IR Block Filter
Exposure37x120s, Gain 94, bin 1x1,
Date2019-09-03