Wesley's Tool-Box

This morning, not long after midnight, I gazed the southern sky to find the planets Saturn and Mars near the full Moon. These planets were both near their oppositions - it was just 11 days away for Saturn and Mars went through it less than 6 hours ago. You don't see their oppositions happening close together often because Mars opposition happens every 25 to 26 months, while it's around 12 months and 2 weeks for Saturn. The next time the two occurring within two weeks of each other is in 2082, when it's 4 days apart (Saturn: August 29, Mars: September 2).

I attached my iPhone 6S Plus onto the Celestron X-Cel LX 9mm eyepiece that I bought relatively recently to observe the planets in more detail. It was the first time both were used on the telescope for astrophotography. They both worked as expected and produced the images you see above. The brightness of the Moon nearby may have washed out a bit of detail, but other than that it turned out fine. I may have to try out using filters next time to see if it makes any difference.

Telescope: Celestron NexStar 6SE + X-Cel LX 9mm eyepiece
Device: iPhone 6S Plus (afocal)
Filters: None
Location: Naju, Korea
Stacked with PIPP 2.5.5 and RegiStax 6.1.0.8

Saturn
Settings: 29mm - ISO 125 - 1/20s - f/2.2
Time: 2016-05-23 01:58 KST
31 photos

Mars
Settings: 29mm - ISO 32 - 1/90s - f/2.2
Time: 2016-05-23 02:04 KST
100 photos

While some people went to special vantage points to see the first sunrise of the new year, I decided to stay right in Naju Bitgaram City to see it. Over the edge of the city and between the apartment buildings, I was able to glimpse the reddish orb peeking over the mountainous horizon.

I wish everyone a happy new year of the red monkey. It'll be even more interesting year than before. Hopefully, that will be in a good way. I'm wondering if I'll have the time to see the Mercury transit of the Sun on May 9 in either Europe or east coast of North America, for one thing...

Device: Sony A5000
Settings: 50mm - ISO 100 - 1/100s - f/9.0
Filters: None
Time: 2016-01-01 07:53 KST
Location: Naju, Korea

Just before taking photos of the Orion Nebula on November 12, I pointed my telescope to get some images of the Andromeda Galaxy. This was, of course, in hopes of getting better results than a week ago. And as you can see, there were indeed some improvements. Details near the core are more noticeable, and a part of the outer "ring" is starting to get visible on the lower left if you look with a bright monitor. Still, it seems that I need even darker skies to get a clearer photo of this galaxy.

FYI, the tiny galaxy to the left of the Andromeda Galaxy is Messier 32. If you click on the picture for a larger view, you can see another galaxy, Messier 110, at the bottom right as a fain blob.

Telescope: Celestron NexStar 6SE + f/6.3 focal reducer
Device: Sony A5000 (prime focus)
Settings: (945mm) - ISO 1250 - 30s - (f/6.3)
Filters: None (3 photos) + Baader M&S (2 photos)
Time: 2015-11-12 00:06-00:19 KST
Location: Naju, Korea
5 photos stacked with Deep Sky Stacker 3.3.4

Earlier this year, I took photographs of the Orion Nebula, a.k.a. Messier 42, with the Canon SX50 HS camera or with Tamron 18-270mm lens attached to the Canon 450D. This was before I got my Celestron telescope, so I had high hopes of getting even better photos once the telescope was in my hands. Alas, the Orion constellation was already hiding below the horizon before midnight at this point, so I was focused in planetary targets most of the time.


As winter times creeped up again, the constellation was again viewable in the late night to early morning. That is, if the clouds, rain, or fog weren't obscuring it. This happened in the early hours of November 12, so I brought my telescope outside for a couple of hours of astrophotography. While I snapped several targets, the Orion Nebula looked the most promising.


As the conditions were good, I took the photos mostly without any filters. Then I took a few with the Baader Moon & Skyglow filter on to see what difference it might make. Once I started post-processing, I could see that the one with the filter might have a slight advantage in bringing out the faint details, but nothing dramatic. With the individual frames ready, I used the Deep Sky Stacker for the first time for automatic selection and stacking.

After about an hour of processing, the software selected five frames from non-filtered ones and one from the filtered ones to deliver this beautiful result. If you click on the photo for a wider, larger view, you can spot a part of the reflection nebula NGC1977 at the top left as well. In the future I may try to get this properly into the frame.

Telescope: Celestron NexStar 6SE + f/6.3 focal reducer
Device: Sony A5000 (prime focus)
Settings: (945mm) - ISO 1250 - 30s - (f/6.3)
Filters: None (5 photos) + Baader M&S (1 photo)
Time: 2015-11-12 00:51-01:14 KST
Location: Naju, Korea
6 photos stacked with Deep Sky Stacker 3.3.4

With the recent purchase of Celestron f/6.3 focal reducer (as mentioned in The Toon-Box) and the fine-tuning of the secondary mirror collimation, I've been quite eager to do some deep sky photography. Alas, the autumn sky at Naju has not been very cooperative.

For some reason, the days without clouds experienced thick fogs (and possibly smogs) and the days without fogs experienced cloudy sky. As the former at least provided some visibility near the zenith and because the constellation of Andromeda is currently very high up in the evening, the Andromeda Galaxy became the obvious target when the opportunity came.

The best three photos from the shooting session were manually stacked and processed, resulting in what you see above. It seems that the fog blocked much of the structural details of the galaxy, but you can still see a bit of it near the core. Also, the satellite galaxy known as Messier 32 (M32) are clearly visible in the bottom as well. I'll be trying on the Moon & Skyglow filter under a better weather condition to see if I can improve upon this.

(Note: M32 was misidentified as M110 earlier, and has now been corrected)

Telescope: Celestron NexStar 6SE + f/6.3 focal reducer
Device: Sony A5000 (prime focus)
Settings: (945mm) - ISO 1000 - 30s - (f/6.3)
Filters: None
Time: 2015-11-03 20:25-20:45 KST
Location: Naju, Korea
3 photos stacked