🔭 Hobby update! Polaris & NGC 188

Polaris: the North Star.

For centuries, the fixed point in the sky used for navigation. Reliable, constant… almost boring, until you look a bit deeper.

In the same field lies NGC 188, one of the oldest known open clusters in our galaxy (~6–7 billion years old), quietly orbiting the Milky Way while Polaris guided travelers on Earth.

But what makes this region really challenging is something far more subtle: IFN (Integrated Flux Nebula). The dust part.

This faint, dusty structure is not illuminated by nearby stars, but by the combined light of the entire Milky Way. It’s extremely dim, easily drowned by light pollution, and requires careful processing to even reveal.

A guiding star, an ancient cluster… and barely visible interstellar dust connecting it all. Insane, isn’t it?

Technically one of the more challenging fields I’ve captured; not because of complexity, but because of how little signal there actually is. And ok; framing and alinging, and keeping track is … complicated, if you know. You know. Aligning on Polaris is like aiming at a coin from tens of kilometers away; we do that before every shoot.

But there’s always more in the frame; if you push the data far enough and keep track on an asset that basically doesn’t move. 😬

Technical:
• Telescope: William Optics MiniCat 51
• Camera: ASI2600MC Pro
• Filter: Baader Sky & Moon 2”
• Mount: AM3

#astrophotography #astronomy #space #polaris #deepsky

Hobby update #part 2 - Thor’s Helmet 🔭

A recent astrophotography project: NGC 2359, better known as *Thor’s Helmet*, an emission nebula located in the constellation Canis Major, about 12,000 light-years from Earth and roughly 30 light-years across.

The nebula is shaped by the extreme stellar winds of the Wolf–Rayet star WR7 at its center. These rare, massive stars are incredibly hot and lose huge amounts of material through powerful winds. WR7 is believed to be in a relatively short-lived evolutionary phase before eventually ending its life as a supernova. 💥

The distinctive “helmet” shape forms where those winds collide with surrounding gas and a nearby molecular cloud, creating the curved bow-shock structures visible in the image.

*Imaging details*

• Telescope: ZWO FF80 APO
• Mount: ZWO AM5N
• Camera: ZWO ASI585MC-P (Gain 200)
• Filter: Altair Ha/OIII Dual 4nm
• Guiding: ZWO ASI220MM mini
• Control: ASIAir Pro

Captured on 8 March
Integration: 55 × 180s (2h45m)
Calibration: 15 Darks, Flats, Dark Flats
Processing: AstroPixelProcessor

Some frames were discarded due to satellite trails, trees entering the field of view, and a few tracking artefacts - a fairly typical part of deep-sky imaging sessions. 🥹

Enjoy 😊

#astrophotography #astronomy #deepsky #space #science #hobby

#hobby update post 🔭

Another recent hobby project I finally had some time to process. It’s been a while since my last; busy, no good conditions and some other stuff.

This is Jones-Emberson 1 (PK 164+31.1), also known as the Headphone Nebula. It’s a very faint planetary nebula in the constellation 🌌 Lynx, located about 1600 light-years away.

Planetary nebulae are the final stage of medium-mass stars like our Sun. The outer layers are expelled while the core collapses into a hot blue-white dwar, which in this case is an extremely faint 16.8 magnitude central star.

What makes this target interesting for astrophotography is its very low surface brightness. Even though the nebula spans a relatively large area of the sky, the emitted light is extremely faint, making it a challenging object to capture and process.

Always amazing to realize that the light captured here started its journey around the time the Roman Empire was still expanding. 🌌

#space #deepspace #astrophotography #nebula