Heart Nebula

Heart Nebula, IC 1805, Sharpless 2-190,122x90s (3h 4m), ISO1600, Nikon D7000a, Astro-Professional 80mm f/7 with 0,8x reducer, Optolong L-Pro Filter

IC 1805 is a cloud of glowing hydrogen in the constellation Perseus. The gas is ionized by the hot young stars of the cluster Melotte 15 at the nebula’s center.

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Comet 46P/Wirtanen

16.12.2018

Comet 46P/Wirtanen near the Plejades, 16.12.2018, 39*30s 70-200mm lens at 200mm f/4, cropped, Nikon D750, ISO1600, Hoya Red Intensifier

On sundey 16th Decmber 2018 – the comet had its closest approach to Earth, it was only 11.7 million kilometers away, the 10th nearest comet in history. Nikon D750 with 70-200mm lens at 200mm f/4, 39x30s, Vixen Polarie.

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California Nebula NGC1499 in H-alpha

Today I used a break in the clouds to test how the astro-modified Nikon D7000 works with a h-alpha Filter. As the weather was very unstable, I didn’t set up the laptop for guiding, so some images were unusable due to trailing and passing clouds and full cloud cover at the end of the exposure resulted in oly 83x30s unguided exposures. Which way too short, but I am happy with the result under these circumstances.

NGC1499, Baader Planetarium, 1,25″ h-alpha Filter, 83x30s (41,5m) exposure, Astro-Professional 80mm f/7 refractor.

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Monster Sunspot AR2192

Today I had the opportunity to see and photograph the giant sunspot Active Region 2192, it already has rotated a bit away from our direction, so the probability of a massive solar storm with possible damage to space and other infrastructure is reduced.

Full disc view of sunspot AR2192

Detail of the image above:

Closeup of Sunspot AR2192

 

The images were taken with a Nikon D7000 camera using a Astro-Professional ED80 f/7 doublet refractor. A Baader solar filter ND3.8 was used for filtering the sunlight.