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.
| Telescope | Newton 254/1000 mm |
| Aperture | 254 mm |
| Focal length | 1000 mm |
| Mount | Gemini G53f |
| Autoguiding | ZWO 174MM, TS 60/240 mm |
| Camera | ZWO 071 Pro @-15°C |
| Corrector | GPU |
| Filters | IR UV cut |
| Exposure | 60x300s, Gain 94, bin 1x1, |
| Date | 2018-04-18 |
Messier 98 is a spiral galaxy located in constellation Coma Berenices. This galaxy is easy to find, because it is located only 6° to the east from the bright star Danebola. M98 is approximately 44 million light years away and it has a blue shift. This means that it is approaching us at about 140 km/s. This means we have still some time till the collision occurs.
| Telescope: | Newton 254/1000 mm |
| Aperture: | 254 mm |
| Focal length: | 1000 mm |
| Mount | Gemini G53f |
| Autoguiding | ZWO 174MM, TS 60/240 mm |
| Camera: | ZWO ASI071MC Pro |
| Corrector: | GPU |
| Filters: | UV IR cut |
| Exposure: | 54xRGB 300s |
| Date: | 2018-04-17 |
NGC2903 is a spiral galaxy located in constellation Leo and it is approximately 30 million light years away from Earth. This galaxy is in many ways similar to our home galaxy Milky Way. For example the diameter is 80 000 light year, which is slightly smaller than the diameter of Milky Way.
| Telescope: | Newton 254/1000 mm |
| Aperture: | 254 mm |
| Focal length: | 1000 mm |
| Mount | Gemini G53f |
| Autoguiding | ZWO 174MM, TS 60/240 mm |
| Camera: | ZWO ASI071MC Pro |
| Corrector: | GPU |
| Filters: | UV IR cut |
| Exposure: | 40xRGB 180s |
| Date: | 2018-04-13 |
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.
| Telescope: | Newton 254/1000 mm |
| Aperture: | 254 mm |
| Focal length: | 1000 mm |
| Mount | Gemini G53f |
| Autoguiding | ZWO 174MM, TS 60/240 mm |
| Camera: | ZWO ASI071MC Pro |
| Corrector: | GPU |
| Filters: | UV IR cut |
| Exposure: | 40xRGB 300s |
| Date: | 2018-04-11 |
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.
| Telescope: | Newton 254/1000 mm |
| Aperture: | 254 mm |
| Focal length: | 1000 mm |
| Mount | Gemini G53f |
| Autoguiding | ZWO 174MM, TS 60/240 mm |
| Camera: | ZWO ASI071MC Pro |
| Corrector: | GPU |
| Filters: | UV IR cut |
| Exposure: | 18xRGB 180s |
| Date: | 2018-03-29 |
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.
| Telescope | Newton 254/1000 mm |
| Aperture | 254 mm |
| Focal length | 1000 mm |
| Mount | Gemini G53f |
| Autoguiding | ZWO 174MM, TS 60/240 mm |
| Camera | ZWO 071 Pro @-15°C |
| Corrector | GPU |
| Filters | IR UV cut |
| Exposure | 25x180s, Gain 94, bin 1x1, |
| Date | 2018-03-21 |
Four bright galaxies in one shot! M96 on the lower left, which I already captured last year. At that time I didn’t know, that there are other galaxies, which can fit into the field of view of my camera. These are: M105 circular, lowest in the galactic triangle, MGC3384 – right in the galactic triangle and NGC3389 – left one in the galactic triangle. These galaxies are located in the constellation Lion and they are visible during the spring. Therefore I call the spring the season of galaxies. The weather last year was much better and I captured many of them. For instance here or here or here or here or here.
| Telescope: | Newton 254/1000 mm |
| Aperture: | 254 mm |
| Focal length: | 1000 mm |
| Mount | Gemini G53f |
| Autoguiding | ZWO 174MM, TS 60/240 mm |
| Camera: | ZWO ASI071MC Pro |
| Corrector: | GPU |
| Filters: | UV IR cut |
| Exposure: | 30xRGB 180s |
| Date: | 2018-03-21 |
M50 is an open cluster located in constellation Monoceros, visually not far from the brightest star Sirius. It was catalogued by Charles Messier in 1772 and it’s approximately 3000 light-years away from Earth. The latest research was conducted in 2012 and confirmed that the cluster contains 508 stars – you can try to count them.
| Telescope: | Newton 254/1000 mm |
| Aperture: | 254 mm |
| Focal length: | 1000 mm |
| Mount | Gemini G53f |
| Autoguiding | ZWO 174MM, TS 60/240 mm |
| Camera: | ZWO ASI071MC Pro |
| Corrector: | GPU |
| Filters: | UV IR cut |
| Exposure: | 25xRGB |
| Date: | 2018-03-21 |
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.
| Telescope: | Newton 254/1000 mm |
| Aperture: | 254 mm |
| Focal length: | 1000 mm |
| Mount | Gemini G53f |
| Autoguiding | - |
| Camera: | ZWO ASI 071 |
| Corrector: | GPU coma corrector |
| Filters: | UV IR cut 2" |
| Exposure:8x | 1000 frames, best 700 selected |
| Date: | 2018-03-21 |
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).
| Telescope: | Newton 254/1000 mm |
| Aperture: | 254 mm |
| Focal length: | 1000 mm |
| Mount | Gemini G53f |
| Autoguiding | TS 60 mm, ZWO 174 MM |
| Camera: | Moravian instruments G2 8300M @-30C |
| Corrector: | GPU coma corrector |
| Filters: | Baader narrow band |
| Exposure:8x | 22xHa, 22xOIII, 22xSII 180 s, bin 1x1, |
| Date: | 2018-01-13 |
Soul nebula is a beautiful HII region, where new stars are being born. It’s located in the constellation Cassiopeia and it’s 7500 light-years from Earth. The nebula has a neighbor Heart Nebula (IC1805). One can say that in this constellation the heart and soul are close to each other.
As usual, I used narrow-band filters to capture this spectacular nebula. It didn’t fit into my field of view; this means I would need a shorter focal length.
Update 2023-05-07. I returned to this data and reprocessed it, using the latest post-processing know-how. I learned a lot in the last few years, and Pixinsight got very useful plugins. For example, Blur Exterminator sharpens the data, but it still looks realistic without any artifacts. However, the biggest difference is the white balance of the picture. I used the rainbow SHO technique published by
lukomatico.
| Telescope: | Newton 150/600 mm |
| Aperture: | 150 mm |
| Focal length: | 438 mm |
| Mount | Gemini G53f |
| Autoguiding | TS 60 mm, ZWO 174 MM |
| Camera: | Moravian instruments G2 8300M @-30C |
| Corrector: | ASA 0.73 reducer |
| Filters: | Baader narrow band |
| Exposure:8x | 77xHa, 77xOIII, 77xSII 180 s, bin 1×1, |
| Date: | 2017-11-23 |
Pelican nebula is large cloud of hydrogen gas, where many stars are being born, located in constellation Cygnus (Swan). The nebula is approximately 2000 light-years away from Earth. If you use bit of an imagination, you will be able to see the pelican in the dark cloud surrounding the brighter center of the nebula – good luck with searching.
The picture was taken completely by narrow band filters. The first one is in “fake” Hubble palette and second one as a bi-color image (Ha in red channel, OIII in green and blue channel).
| Telescope: | Newton 150/600 mm |
| Aperture: | 150 mm |
| Focal length: | 438 mm |
| Mount | Gemini G53f |
| Autoguiding | TS 60 mm, ZWO 174 MM |
| Camera: | Moravian instruments G2 8300M @-30C |
| Corrector: | ASA 0.73 reducer |
| Filters: | Baader narrow band |
| Exposure:8x | 32xHa, 32xOIII, 32xSII 180 s, bin 1x1, |
| Date: | 2017-12-15 |
Since Pluto is no longer a planet, the privilege to be the last planet of the Solar System belongs to Neptune. Neptune is after Jupiter and Saturn the third most-massive planet. It has approximately 17 times more mass than Earth. One year on Neptune takes 164.8 years, because the distance between Sun and Neptune is 30 times longer than between Earth and Sun. The planet got its name from Roman mythology, specifically after the god of the sea – the mighty Neptune.
Neptune cannot be spotted by a naked eye, therefore one needs telescope. Even if you have one and you manage to find it, you will not see any details on Neptune’s surface. You will see just boring small spot.
The picture was taken by my biggest telescope Celestron C14. The focal length 4000 mm was increased by 1.6 Barlow lens to 6400 mm. The seeing was, as usual, very bad, therefore there are no details visible and the picture looks not perfectly focused and unsharp. I just wanted to try to capture it and here is the outcome:
| Telescope: | Celestron EdgeHD C14 |
| Aperture: | 354 mm |
| Focal length: | 6256 mm |
| Mount | Gemini G53f |
| Autoguiding | - |
| Camera: | ZWO ASI228MC |
| Corrector: | Barlow 1.6 |
| Filters: | - |
| Exposure: | 1000xL (35% used), 610 ms, Gain 353 |
| Date: | 2017-10-12 |
Elephant trunk nebula is visually one of the biggest deep space objects in the sky. It covers more than 6 times the diameter of the Moon. I had to use the telescope with the shortest focal length and use focal reducer ASA 0.73. Recently, I managed to improve the picture quality of this reducer by adjustment of the tilt. The nebula can be located in constellation Cepheus, but it cannot be spotted visually because it’s very dim.
I spent 4 nights capturing these photos. In total, there is nearly 19 hours of exposure time. Probably this is my longest integration time I have ever made. The first picture is in fake Hubble colors, second one in more or less visible spectrum colors.
| Telescope: | Newton 150/600 mm |
| Aperture: | 150 mm |
| Focal length: | 438 mm |
| Mount | Gemini G53f |
| Autoguiding | Orion Mini Autoguider |
| Camera: | Moravian instruments G2 8300M @-30C |
| Corrector: | ASA 0.73 reducer |
| Filters: | Baader narrow band |
| Exposure:8x | 125xHa, 125xOIII, 125xSII 180 s, bin 1x1, |
| Date: | 2017-10-17 |
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 |
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 |
Venus our neighboring planed in the Solar System. It has smaller orbit compared to Earth, therefore it is visible only in the evening or in the morning, but never during the night. This makes it quite difficult to photograph, because the telescope must look through the thick atmosphere. In my case it’s even more difficult, because the seeing is in my place all the time horrible. The picture looks like it’s not sharp, but this is what I was able to get from my backyard.
| Telescope: | Celestron EdgeHD C14 |
| Aperture: | 354 mm |
| Focal length: | 5850 mm |
| Mount | Gemini G53f |
| Autoguiding | - |
| Camera: | ZWO ASI228MC |
| Corrector: | SiebertOptics Barlow 1.4 |
| Filters: | - |
| Exposure: | 3000xL (40% used), 1.542 ms, Gain 0 |
| Date: | 2017-01-29 |
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 |
The most photographed deep-space object by me is the Veil nebula. I simply love this supernova remnant. The previous mosaic picture revealed that the eastern part is slightly brighter, therefore I pointed my telescope with a longer focal length and made this bi-color picture.
| 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: | 21xHa, 19xOIII 300 s bin 1×1 |
| Date: | 2016-10-31 |
NGC 7635, known as Bubble Nebula is an HII region in the constellation Cassiopeia. Bubble shape structure is caused by the solar wind caused by a massive star.
Well, I must admit, the Hubble Space Telescope has a better resolution, but my telescope has a better price-performance ratio.
| Telescope: | Newton 254/1000 mm |
| Aperture: | 254 mm |
| Focal length: | 730 mm |
| Mount | Gemini G53f |
| Autoguiding | ZWO 174MM, TS 60/240 mm |
| Camera: | Moravian instruments G2 8300M @ -30C |
| Corrector: | ASA 0.73 reducer |
| Filters: | Baader Ha, OIII, SII |
| Exposure: | 39x Ha, 35x OIII, 32x SII, 300 s, bin 1×1 |
