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.