With my AZ setup, I'm limited by tracking, field rotation (mostly tracking) so I shoot 1 second exposures for the sharper images

Yes, like the above reply mentions, the sky conditions mean a lot. On darker, clearer and moonless nights, I've seen the spiral arms of M51, didn't look like the images but was still pretty surreal to see with my own eyes.

Thank you <3

Here is my latest DSO work! Caldwell 38 aka The Needle Galaxy. I took this on March 22, 2023 from my backyard in Salem, OR. I spent about 5 hours to capture this data, meaning that on average about half the frames were rejected due to tracking/wind or other factors.

Details: Used sharpcap livestacking to shoot 50, 3 minute stacks consisting of 180x1 sec exposures. Then RGB alignment was done on all the frames to align the color channels using AstroSurface, and the data the 50, 3min stacks were also stacked using AstroSurface. The master stack was preprocessing in SiRiL with green noise removal, background extraction, banding reduction and color calibration. Final color adjustment, denoise, and sharpening done in GIMP.

Gear: SW 10" GoTo Dob and Uranus-C with UV/IR cut filter

This is enough to see the moon, planets, and some of the brighter dso's, but not enough for photos like this sharp. The aperture is 70mm, which is just under 3 inches, compared to 10 inches which is 254mm. The light-gathering power is incomparable

I used a 10" goto Dobsonian for this image, but I'm sure you can get similar results with an 8. A goto or tracking setup will make your life easier but it isn't necessary especially if you have a larger camera sensor

Thank you sir! I'm hoping to shoot more data when the weather clears up

A clear night gave me the chance to test my new camera out once again! This time I tried to focus on one target and gather a lot of data for a nice image. It could use more data, but here is my take on M51 last night with my 10" GoTo Dob and my new Uranus-C camera.

Details: 3600x1s exposures (1 hour) using Sharpcap livestacking of 12x5 minute frames, then using deep sky stacker to combine the livestacks. Processing done in SiRiL and GIMP.

Gear: Skywatcher 10" GoTo Dob and Uranus-C + UV/IR cut

After spending nearly a week processing this data I proudly present my new time-lapse of the red planet, I don't know if this is lucky but my 2022 and 2020 are very similar in terms of capturing the same side of the planet. This was taken on two different days: December 17, 2022 between 4:06 and 8:32 and December 15 between 7:24 and 9 UTC which is why there is a sudden appearance of clouds toward the end of the time-lapse. If you look closely some clouds can be seen moving and dissipating just north of center in the "first" part of the video.

Details: 109x2 minute videos shot over a period of 6 hours in average-very good seeing conditions. The best frames from each video were stacked using AutoStakkert. Then for each stack, wavelets, rgb alignment, denoise and white balance done in AstroSurface. Final denoise and color adjustments done in GIMP using G-MIC and batch image manipulation. To make the time-lapse I used Davinci Resolve to align/rotate frames, and PIPP to convert to GIF.

Gear: Skywatcher 10" GoTo Dob, X-Cel 2x (used 3x when seeing was very good), ZWO ADC, ASI178mc + UV/IR cut

P.S. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone!

I'm glad you like it, thank you!

I finally had some really nice weather this week so I decided to set up my gear right at sunset to get this photo of Saturn and some moons (Rhea, Tethys, Titan and Dione). Taken on: November 17, 2022 at 2:52 UTC from Salem, OR, USA.

Process: 2x5 minute videos, best ~10% stacked using AutoStakkert. Then wavelets and rgb alignment done with AstroSurface, and de-rotated the sharpened stacks with WinJupos. Final sharpening, denoise, and color adjustments done with GIMP. Also the moons were masked using a stretched version of one of the stacks.

Gear: Skywatcher 10" GoTo Dob, X-Cel 2x, ZWO ADC, ASI178 + UV/IR cut

Thank you good sir. I got really lucky with the seeing and weather :)

I use a 10" GoTo dobsonian, and for this image: a 2x barlow, zwo adc, and an asi178 color camera.

I'd say around $2500 USD. Telescope is around 1700, camera is 250 and other accessories will be another 300-400

Get an apertura AD8 dobsonian or ad12 if you're looking for something bigger; they are cheap and easy to use. Using a sky chart or Stellarium app will help you locate objects. It ain't GoTo (motorized) so you'll have to point it by hand, but it will give you some unforgettable views of the planets, and under truly dark skies you can even make out spiral arms of some galaxies and some of the brighter nebula

You can see it in the day time, if your telescope points to it ;)

Yeah, I dont think so. Size matters, especially for planetary photography.

Hey thank you for the comment.

Most of the planets are bright and visible to the naked eye, there are websites/apps like Stellarium that show where they are in the sky so that helps locate them. My telescope is motorized so it tracks and points to the object automatically as it moves across the sky when the telescope is properly aligned.

The telescope I use is a newtownian, which uses 2 mirrors, a concave primary mirror and a flat secondary mirror. Then you can insert barlow lenses into the focuser barrel to increase the focal length, this way you can zoom :)

I used Sharpcap to shoot the videos and then AutoStakkert to stack the best frames :)

It has a little typo, you'll notice it if you read it slowly. But either way that's awesome!

Hmm, that's actually not a bad idea lol

That would have to be a pretty big mirror, I think

Yeah! Seeing them with your own eyes is a trip :)

Haha good guess, and that is pretty insane! Thank you :)

Yes, something like that. Most likely it was due to some thin low clouds passing in front of Jupiter but it could have also been due to wind making the air unstable causing more refraction. Also, towards the end of the time-lapse it was mostly due to the altitude, the lower Jupiter was in the sky, the more atmosphere light had to pass through resulting in a blurred image.

This is also why telescopes are usually on mountain tops, to avoid the effects of atmospheric distortion as much as possible :)

I got very lucky with the seeing conditions, they were near perfect that night. Thank you for the comment :)

Yeah! It totally is :)