Tag: Black Forest

Chasing darkness in Schwarzwald

My second expedition after the dark skies (this year) led us to Germany, specifically to Black Forest (Schwarzwald) in the state of Baden-Württemberg. We rented a small cabin for a weekend and I took the same equipment which I took to Milos, i.e. telescope newton 150/600 mm, mount iOptron CEM25P and ZWO 071 Pro camera.

As soon got dark, the Milky Way showed up. I measured SQM and it reached 21.1, which is not spectacular, but far better compared what I have at home.

The equipment was working perfectly, but the dew started to form on the secondary mirror, because the cabin is close to river Breg, which means a lot of humidity. I never had dew problems with Newtonian telescope up to now. Lessons learned – I need a dew shield. I managed to capture only M74 Galaxy and M78 Nebula.

Anyway, I also managed to capture wide angle photos with my Pen-F and Fish eye lens.

Here are the star trails – exposure 30x30s:

And here is the Milky Way – exposure 1x30s ISO 3200 f1.8:


M74 Phantom Galaxy

Messier 74, sometimes called Phantom Galaxy, is a galaxy located in the constellation Pisces. This galaxy has two prominent spiral arms and it is a typical example of a spiral galaxy. The distance of 35 million light-years from Earth has been estimated, therefore what we are looking at here is a 35 million year old picture.

The photo was taken in Schwarzwald under decent dark skies and it’s an integration of 45 photos, each 3 minutes exposure, i.e. more than 2 hours of exposure time in total.

Technical details:

TelescopeNewton 150/600 mm
Aperture150 mm
Focal length660 mm
MountiOptron CEM25P
AutoguidingQHYCCD miniGuideScope 130 mm f/4.3, ZWO 174 MM
CameraZWO 071 Pro @-10C
CorrectorExplore Scientific HR coma corrector
FiltersAstronomik L-1 – UV IR Block Filter
Exposure45x180s, Gain 94, bin 1×1,
Date2018-10-12