DEC 26, 2024
I use ZWO's Seestar S50. I like it because of it's ease of use. I know that some people might say it's not "astrophotography" in a traditional sense, as it automatically aims toward the target, but it yields great results. Another benefit of the Seestar is that it is quite cheap for a telescope. It only costs about $500, which is a low price for a telescope.
I use Siril, GIMP, and GraXpert to post-process most of my photos, as they're free.
This is an image I took of the Orion nebula, a bright stellar nursery that is visible with the naked eye. it is south of Orion's belt and is seen as the middle "star" in Orion's sword. I took this image with an H-alpha C1 filter and then processed it into a Hubble Palette. The different gasses have different colors. The blue is Oxygen and the yellow is Hydrogen.
Here's an image I took of the Eagle Nebula, a stellar nursery in the constellation Serpens. It is home to the famous "Pillars of Creation", which you can see in the image.
Here's an image of Andromeda and it's satellites: Messier 101 and Messier 32. It's core is visible to the naked eye from dark locations.
This is an image of Trifid Nebula I took. The Trifid Nebula is a star-forming region in the constellation Sagittarius.
This is an image I took of the Orion nebula, a bright stellar nursery that is visible with the naked eye. it is south of Orion's belt and is seen as the middle "star" in Orion's sword.
Here's an image of the Bubble nebula. The "bubble" is a shell of glowing hot gas around a bright star. The star's strong stellar winds are forming the nebula into a bubble-like shape. Essentially, it's hot gas that is being blown away by a star.
I also took an image of the comet that passed by in September. You can faintly make out an anti-tail. The comet was discovered in January of 2023, and passed near Earth in September, 2024.
The Lagoon Nebula is one of my favorites! It's around 3rd place of all deep-space targets. It formed when a group of young stars emitted a burst of UV radiation, ionizing the surrounding gas and causing it to glow.
The Whirlpool galaxy is a spiral galaxy in the constellation Canes Venatici. It's known for it's unique structure and child galaxy.
One of my Favorite Nebulae to image is the Dumbbell Nebula. It only takes about 1 - 2 minutes of total exposure time, meaning that it's easy to photograph repeatedly.
The pleiades is my favorite constellation and my favorite cluster. That's a big feat for this target. I love this because of the beautiful blue nebulosity around each of the stars. Also, the pleiades is one of the only constellation where all the stars have a correlation to each other.
The Veil Nebula is one of my favorite Nebulae. The image below is only one section of it called the western veil nebula. The entire veil nebula takes up six times more of the sky than the moon
This is an image I took of the Helix Nebula. This nebula was very faintly visible before post-processing, but Siril did it's magic and now it's easy to see.
This is the Rosette Nebula, a glowing cloud of gas in the constellation Monoceros. It is a dense star-forming region, where now stars are actively forming. I know it's supposed to look like a rose, but I see a dog or a skull.
This is the Wizard Nebula, a common target for narrowband imaging, but right now, I don't have narrowband. I'm thinking of doing a RGB vs Narrowband in the future.
10 second exposures for 74 minutes. stacked in siril, edited in GraXpert, Siril, and GIMP.
