We have been blessed/cursed by a very dry Djeran / Autumn period. Cursed because no rain after a long, hot Bunuru( Second Summer) and blessed because the nights are cold, and very clear.

This and @rdm having to be on Munich time for a few days prompted some enthusiastic astrophotography sessions ahead of the news that the clouds were finally coming to us with some rain.

We figured that we'd do a lot of astrophotography, and then write it up and share photos during the rainy cloudy bits to keep us going.

So here we are - this is my first post about it, and it's about the last day of the clear sky.

We have here NGC 4945 or Caldwell 83 - also known as the Tweezers Galaxy (I personally think it looks more like an orange peeler).

I was leafing through Astronomy Australia 2025 and found it as a target for May. I hadn't come across this galaxy before, and was thrilled to find a galaxy that's a big enough apparent size to suit my #dwarf3

These are great books and the last of this great almanac that they'll publish, after 30 years - so get yours today - https://quasarastronomy.com.au/product/astronomy-2025/ even though it's a yearbook it's still going to be useful down the track. If you're in Australia or close enough. #SouthernHemisphereAstronomy folks. I grabbed some of their back catalogue - incredibly cheap and plenty of interesting stuff in there, if only historically. 🙂

So, anyway, back to the galaxy - I plonked the #SmartTelescope on the roof later in the evening so it's only a few hours exposure. Gain was 80, exposure was 60. Got a few hundred frames in two sessions as I belatedly realised that I should get the telescope to shut down before the closest Sun made itself apparent.

So then, in the morning @rdm ran me through the Mega Stack and Stellar Studio provided through Infinity Lab within the telescope, which was super easy, and then I did some cropping in Snapseed.

And this is the result, I hope you enjoy!

#Astrodon #Astronomy #BackyardAstrophotography #DrivewayAstrophotography #Galaxy

What should I target this evening with my #Dwarf3 ?

Southern hemisphere , of course

#Astronomy #astrophotography #Astrodon

So I'm attending a tech conference in Munich this week - virtually. This means I am keeping CEST, and that lunchtime is 6pm local.

So at lunchtime, I set up my #dwarf3 on the back roof, and let it run for the 'afternoon'.

My target was Messier 6 aka NGC6405 aka "The Butterfly Cluster". There is some very nice nebulosity right next to it. so I framed things a little off, and also got the smaller open clusters NGC6383 (aka NGC6374) and the tiny NGC6404.

I ended up with 240 frames out of 300, at 60s per frame - or 4 hours of usable data.

I then ran it through the Dwarflab postprocessing tools, and finished off with some work in Google photos and Snapseed.

#nebula #OpenCluster #M6 #NGC6383 #NGC6406 #Astrodon #Astronomy #astrophotography #Scorpius

Compared to other astronomer gears, this small #dwarflab astrograph might be a toy - but it is a serious one…

M101 „Pinwheel Galaxy“.
Composed with 102 images á 30s plus 139 images á 60s from my #dwarf3 - overall about 3 hours.
Post processed with #siril , #graxpert and others.

#astronomy #astrophotography #stargazer

Today we have a mosaic of two images, both taken the same night by two #Dwarf3 #SmartTelescopes from the roof of the studio at the back of our house, where we left them running all night, with the help of a pair of 10Ah USB-C powerpacks.

I targeted The Cat's Paw Nebula (NGC6334), while @leece targeted part of the nearby NGC6357. We both made sure to have the individual nebulae off-centre frame enough that we could get a slight overlap.

For both we have around 7 hours of exposure - 420ishx60s@80, both with the internal Ha/OIII filter.

We ran both images through the Dwarflab Stellar Studio to do a star removal, and recomposed both images with a star mask. Some final tuning in Snapseed, and then a manual combining of the two shots.

All up, about 2 hours actual effort, over three days.

#Astrophotography #Astrodon #NGC6334 #NGC6357 #MosaicImage #Nebula #Astronomy #Dwarflab #Snapseed

Noch nicht mal ganz voll und schon so hell…

(97% Mond, Imagestack mit 100 Bildern je 1/500s bei Gain 0 mit Astrofilter, beschnitten, leicht geschärft und entsättigt)
#dwarf3 #astrophotography

A couple of nights ago I let my #Dwarf3 stay out all night with a stellation mask, which bagged me about 8 hours worth of #Antares , #Messier4 , and other goodies, including the Antares #ReflectionNebula.

I ran it through the #DwarfLab #StellarStudio tools, and then did a bit more cleanup in #Snapseed and #GooglePhotos - about 15 minutes work.

I'm pretty darned pleased with the results.

#astronomy #astrophotography #Astrodon #SmartTelescope #Nebula #Star #GlobularStarCluster

Dark Side of the Moon

#astronomie #mond #astrophotography #dwarf3

Well, we've been quite busy over the last two weekends and such, and a lot of it has involved astrophotography.

Our Easter was quite peaceful so we chilled out and did some photography then - I took this of the Trifid and Lagoon #Nebula on Easter Sunday. I've got a Dwarf 3 (and 2) so we're used to landscape - but I rotated this in post, because it looked really good that way.

Tilt your head to see it in the original.

#Astrophotography #dwarf3 #SouthernHemisphereAstronomy #DrivewayAstrophotography #BackyardAstrophotography #Astrodon

A quick snap of the sun with my #dwarf3 and the solar filters. There was some high, hazy cloud, so it's not very sharp, but you can see sunspots.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/dtl/shares/04c8xh4F61