Over the past few nights we've been shooting #C70 aka #NGC300. This spiral #Galaxy in #Sculptor used to be classed as part of the Sculptor Group, but recent research places is much closer to us, and independent of that group.

It is a rather pretty galaxy, particularly as it is almost face-on to us, giving a lovely view of the arms.

This was shot over two nights, 6:30hrs of usable data, at gain 60, with the basic 'astro' filter, using a #Dwarf3 .

Post processing in #Snapseed after preprocessing in #StellarStudio

#Astronomy #astrophotography #Astrodon #SmartTelescope

This morning, as I emerge from a week of HMPV (a respiratory illness), I have an unusual (for me) treat.

Last night, while I slept, I had my #Dwarf3 up on the patio roof just outside the door to the games room I am isolating in. The games room is elevated, so the patio roof is at eye level. This makes it perfect for putting the telescope on, and then crawling into bed. The downside is that the field of view is quite limited, as the games room roof overhangs the patio roof by a goodly amount.

But the view to the North and East is not bad. And it turns out that, while Andromeda is blocked by the houses next door, #M33 is not.

Now here in Perth, it does not get very far above the horizon at the best of times, but last night I managed to snag an hour and a half of it.

(Edited to include what I've been sick with.)

So here we are: The #TriangulumGalaxy , Dwarf3 #SmartTelescope . Postprocessed in the #DwarfLab #StellarStudio, #Snapseed, and #GooglePhotos

#Astronomy #Astrodon #astrophotography

Last night was the last night of clear weather for a week or so for us, so, despite the full moon, we popped the Dwarves up on the roof.

First up let's look at what I got the #DwarfII to do. I thought I'd revisit my old favourite, #C63 the #HelixNebula . What I got surprised me greatly.

Here is the same scene - about a fortnight apart - one shot on the #Dwarf3 and the other on the DwarfII. In both cases there is about 7 hours of exposure, at gain 80, and both are using a dualband #OIII / #HII filter.

Both were post processed in the #StellarStudio and finished in #Snapseed .

I am utterly amazed at just how good the Dwarf2 stands up. No, it is not as good as the Dwarf3, but it is still a solid image, and one I am very pleased with.

#Astronomy #astrophotography #Astrodon #SmartTelescope #BackYardAstronomy

Over the last three nights - a break in the weather for us here in #Boorloo ( #PerthWA ) - I've been targeting the same target after midnight and through to astronomical twilight. It is another target that is familiar to me - #C63 or #HelixNebula sometimes known as the Eye of Sauron Nebula or the Eye of God Nebula.

This is the largest planetary nebula visible to us, only about 200 parsecs away, and is about 2.8 light years across, making it about 22 arcminutes across for the main body, and is about 6500 years old.

So back to the making of this image. Each night I got about five hours of shooting in with my #Dwarf3 , for about fifteen hours total. I had to ditch a bunch of frames as they had dodgy data (atmospheric distortions, musktrails, and, in one case, a passing jet), which brought me down to thirteen hours and thirty-six minutes (816x60s@80). These I restacked using the "Megastack" function of the #DwarfLab app (about 3 hours - executed entirely within the telescope), and then passed the result to the #StellarStudio part of the app (running in the cloud) to optimize the FITS file and run a star removal.

I then exported a PNG of each version, and started post-processing. This consisted of passing the starless image into #Snapseed and boosting the saturation, darkening shadows and so on. Then I took the optimized version and took the shadows to maximum darkness, and reduced the overall brightness somewhat, leaving me with a reduced star version, with almost no nebula visible. Lastly, in Snapseed again, I used the double exposure tool to stack the two parts together.

And here is the result.

#Astronomy #Astrodon #Astrophotography #C63 #HelixNebula

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