Jupiter is near opposition this April, here is the view from April 9th:
Astro-Physics 127mm f/8, QHY5L-II, 3x Televue Barlow.
Moon and Jupiter
Big Sunspots AR2644 & AR2645
Today two big sunspot groups were prominently visible on the sun:
Active Region 2644, 50 frames of 524, Astro-Physics 127mm f/8, QHY5L-II, Vixen 2x Barlow
Active Region 2645, 50 frames of 524, Astro-Physics 127mm f/8, QHY5L-II, Vixen 2x Barlow
Comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresák, 25.3.2017
The Comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresák is passing through the constellation Ursa Major these nights.
66×30″, ISO1600, 300mm f/4, Nikon D750, Skywatcher Star Adventurer, Deep Sky Stacker, Photoshop, Lightroom.
66×30″, ISO1600, 300mm f/4, Nikon D750, Skywatcher Star Adventurer, Deep Sky Stacker, Photoshop, Lightroom. Crop from the image above.
This animation created from the individual frames used for the image above, shows the movement of Comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresák against the starry Background. The time-span of the animation is 36 minutes between 19:09 and 19:45 UT on the evening of March, 25th.
Venus at 4%
Today Venus was a very delicate crescent, with only about 4% of it’s visible disc illuminated by the sun. I used the 127mm f/8 refractor with a 1.4x teleconverter and took a number of images using the Nikon D750. 20% of 46 individual images were used to create this image using the software Autostakkert:
127mm f/8 Astro-Physics, Nikon D750, TC-E14II
Testing a new guiding setup
This evening I did a quick test under the stars to see, how iAstroHub 3.0 works with my setup.
Apparently it works quite well, though I need to test with longer exposures.
The sun 2017-01-28
The sun shows only few spots when near solar minimum. Today the Spots AR2629 and 2628 were clearly visible.
Astrophysics 127mm f/8 with Nkon TC-14EII and Nikon D750 Baader solar film (photographic density).
Taurus Molecular Cloud
Inspite of all the beautiful stars, I have a fascination for the dark stuff lurking between them Today I managed to get almost an hour of exposures of the Taurus molecular cloud,
The dust cloud between the Pleiades and Auriga is called the Taurus molecular cloud, 27x120s (54m), AF-D Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 at f/2.8, Nikon D750, ISO 800.
Milky Way above light pollution
Nikon AFS Nikkor 20mm f/1.8, Nikon D750, f/2.2, 15s, 3200 ISO
The lights of the town Isny in southern germany paint the sky with unwanted light, nearly washing out the intricate features of our home galaxy the Milky Way.
Giant Sunspot AR2456
These days the large sunspot AR2456 is very prominent on the sun’s disc:
Mercury Transit 2016
Today the tiny disc of mercury crossed in front of the sun. The weather didn’t cooperate fully, and I had to switch mounts as the Meade randomly stopped tracking in RA, and the WiFi router for the roof didn’t work as expected and tested… but I was still able to get some decent images… Read More