Another set of clear nights under very pleasant temperatures for the time of the year.

I managed to get +/- 12 hours on two targets. The first one is the interacting pair of galaxies NGC 4656 & NGC 4631. The second one is the very faint NGC 4236 – of the bigger galaxies (in angular size) in the Northern Hemisphere, but extremely faint so it’s often overlooked.

I’m very happy with both images as they fit nice in the field of view of my scope and even if I’m still not perfectly collimated, the end result is just fine.

Clouds are back now and the moon is up, so it’s time for a little break I guess.

I had a couple clear nights in a row but the weather behaved very unpredictable with a mixture of high and low clouds coming and going and some fogg to top it off.

Over three nights I struggled with collimation and by the time I had it right my subs got plagued by windy conditions. In the end I managed to get about 5 hours on the Leo Triplet and I was really surprised by how well it came out. This shows again it’s always worth setting up, worst case you learn something about the sky conditions.

It’s getting a bit warmer now so let’s see what that means for imaging conditions in the next few weeks.

I like watching stars so here’s a little journey to the brightest stars using the OBAFGKM spectrum.

From Alnitak (the hottest and bluest) to Betelgeuse (the coolest and orangest).

First galaxy of 2025. I’ve always struggled with this one. The challenges are to bring out the detail of the core, getting some structure in the outer arms and battling the bright stars outside of the frame. But I really like the final result.

I also think I have some collimation issues but I hope to solve these in the next few clear nights under the full moon.

The last few weeks I’ve been pondering about getting another scope with more focal length but in the end I’ve decided to stick with my 5 inch newt for now. I do plan to perform some upgrades, so I’m looking for a better focuser and I might even replace the full metal tube with some carbon material.

This should be an interesting project, let’s hope I don’t break the scope in the process.

In the meantime, the SQA55 did some work on the Orion Nebula. This has been an amazing purchase and now it will get some well deserved rest.

In the end I did have some extra clear skies to finish the Horsehead project. I still think this one looks better with a broadband filter but with an 80% moon phase and Orion dropping very low in the early morning I have no choice but to continue with duoband.

I might have some more clear sky tonight so I will have a go at the Orion Nebula.

This is one of the most iconic and well known DSO’s, famously discovered in 1888 by Williamina Fleming. I collected about 5 hours of integration time on this target but had to throw away about 3 hours. I believe this target deserves at least 10-15 hours so I’ll park it for now and revisit next winter.

I’ve been trying to get a proper image on the Jellyfish Nebula for a while now. This supernova remnant in Gemini is probably my favorite deep sky object. I did capture something last December which I shared here, but the session was plagued by high clouds and I was never really happy with the final result.

I tried two more sessions this year with my 130PDS in November but I had the same issues with high clouds. 

The sudden appearance of clear skies in the last weeks gave me another opportunity though. I decided to take no risks and go for the widefield approach with my SQA55 and I am happy with the result. I still feel I might revisit this one at some point with a SII filter to bring out some of the green of the nearby nebula.

2024 has been an amazing year for my astrophotography. It started rough with only a couple cold clear nights in January but really opened up by April. In total I managed to work on 38 projects with many of them exceeding 10 hours total integration time. 

I also managed to get some pictures of objects that were really high on my bucket list such as the Twin Quasar, TON618,  brown dwarfs, the Trifid Nebula and the Helix nebula. 

I need to prep my 130PDS now for galaxy season and as I said before I might look at upgrading to a bigger refractor in the near future. No rush though, the universe is not going anywhere anyway. 

I had two clear nights on Christmas which I used to gather about 11 hours on the Rosette Nebula and another 7 hours on the California Nebula. With the cold weather outside this really made me appreciate the simplicity of a small refractor. I can carry the whole setup outside and I’m up and running within 10 minutes. Compared to my small newtonian I never have to go outside to tinker or change things, it just works.

This is driving me down the rabbit hole of potentially looking for a new scope to go after smaller targets. I love my newt but it has some serious flaws (mainly the weak focuser). I could get a better, bigger newt but that comes with extra challenges. I could also get a bigger refractor but that too comes with certain limitations. I’ll probably overthink this for the next few months.

For now I’m looking forward to galaxy season again.

A rather unique event happened this week, two consecutive clear nights in november! I really wanted to test my mount after the belt mod upgrade and used the Pleiades as a test target.

The belt modification – before and after:

There are more targets I would like to shoot but everything will depend on the weather. This shot of the Pleiades was taken with the SQA55 so I’ll try another target soon with my ‘heavier’ setup, the 130 PDS.