Activity

I’m off to Root River again tonight.  I still have Bob Fealey’s key for the streetlight so it will be nice and dark, especially since the moon won’t rise until 3:51 am!  Anyone is welcome to join me.  – John Attewell

I’m going to Root River tonight.  I’m hoping to snare some of the dim Messiers in Leo.  I have a key to turn the streetlight off.  The sky should be clear by sundown and the moon isn’t going to rise until 2:48 am.  Anyone is welcome to join me.  -John Attewell

Thanks. StarNet++ is a neural net trained to recognize stars so they can be separated from non-star features like nebulae. Siril has a nice interface for using that to stretch the brightness of the stars separately from the nebulosity, so that the final result isn’t just a bunch of white stars and looks more “natural”, even though it is of course…[Read more]

Nice images Rob!  Lots of tutorials on Siril online.  Maybe you can briefly mention your experience with this tonight !

Nicely done. I’ve read up on Siril, not familiar with StarNet++.

Keep’em coming!  I’d love to see more.

I’m a WordPress newbie, so now I’ll try using attachments to avoid downscaling the images.

Flame to Orion nebulae: 30 * 13s exposures at 200 mm focal length

Rosette Nebula: 31 * 13s exposures at 200 mm focal length

Both processed with Siril and StarNet++.

I’m not sure where my post went, so apologies if I’m double posting.

I got my camera, a mirrorless “regular daytime” one, astromodified in late 2024, but did not really get the hang of it until March 2025. If anyone else is interested in getting their camera modified please reply and I’d be happy to go into more detail about my experience.…[Read more]

I got my mirrorless camera astromodified in late 2024, but did not really get the hang of H-alpha observing, or even regular daytime photography with it, until March 2025. If you are considering getting a “regular” camera astromodified instead of taking the dedicated astronomy camera route, here are some notes that I wish I had seen all in one…[Read more]

Galaxies are everywhere in the skies during this season (late winter-early spring).  Sky and Telescope’s May 2025 issue has some great articles on galaxies and the cover highlights Messier 106.  My attempt at imaging M106 appears below.  Stellarium views of the sky were used to help identify some of the galaxies present.

Minutes from February 11th, 2025 meeting at RCTC.

M35 and NGC 2158 photographed using my 6 inch 150P Quattro scope and ZWO183 MC camera and Sky Watcher HEQ5 Pro mount on Jan 31 2025.  300, 5 second .frames were stacked.  M35 is much younger and closer than NGC 2158, but both often appear together in small telescope photos.

I agree. Spring Grove Pop anyone?

It will be a GNfA (Glorious Night for Astronomy)!

This one’s for you Dean! Miss you buddy!

Duane

I’m awaiting confirmation that Eagle Bluff is available to the RAC for tomorrow and Saturday.

Tomorrow is not looking good as clouds go, but Saturday is potentially a GNfA (Glorious Night for Astronomy)!

I will post throughout the day as I find out more.

Happy Observing!

Duane

Friday is looking decent before until 1AM. I’m going to be at a retreat (bringing my scope to show a bunch of kids Jupiter) so I won’t be around. But, I wanted to give a heads up that I think the first half of Friday night will be a glorious (half) night for astronomy!

It will also be about 8° out there. If you go out, keep warm!

Duane