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Hey Folks, long time no post. I know we have a lot of smoke in the air, so I didn’t know if Eagle Bluff was going to happen tonight or not.

It’s not looking good for tomorrow or Saturday. I’ll wait until tomorrow to call it for Eagle Bluff. Keep an eye out if you’re tracking this event.

I’ve picked up the rings for Dean’s scope—and I managed to get the hair out! A bit of crafty work with a rolled-up paper tube and a shop vac did the trick.

If the skies cooperate for a Glorious Night for Astronomy, I’ll be bringing the scope to the Members’ Dark Sky Night at Eagle Bluff on May 23rd. If we’re clouded out, I’ll bring it to the publ…[Read more]

For several days now, there has been a large spot in the sun visible to the naked eye, through protective glasses of course.

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.