M42 Raw and Processed

So ~ this morning I set up my 6" Celestron out on our porch.... StarSense did an OUTSTANDING job calibrating.  Within a few minutes of powering up I was going to whatever I wanted to. :-)

I focused on Orion's Nebula, M42.  For the first time took a set of dark, bias, and flat frames to use for processing.  For lights I went with 30 pics at a single exposure of 1.3"  (I was bumping up against dawn ;)

Raw Pic:

Processed using (FREE) DeepSkyStacker then reduced so it could be uploaded to Blogger:

To me ~ think that they're both pretty :-)

Finally...  Here's the video of Jupiter with an assortment of ISO's  Still a work in progress.

The Moon Through the Clark ~ a 12" Refractor

So a favorite place of mine to be is out at the Witte Observatory Complex.  Last night (for the first time) I took a series of photos through this Clark 12" Refracting Telescope ~ prime focus:

And used Photostitch to make this composite photo of the Moon<3

There are worse hobbies to have ~ lol :-)

A Bit of Sunrise in MS

First "stab" at creating a time-lapse video of a sunrise....  It's harder than I thought :-)
Fog is sooooo cool anyway ~

Solar Eclipse October 23, 2014 (?)

Fighting viewing the Sun through clouds.... at least we got to see part of the eclipse today :-)

The clouds provided a natural filter....

Solar Video

My first stab at photographing the Sun using my new 6" Refractor <3

Also ~ I used StarSense this morning for viewing M31, M42, Jupiter, etc and later this afternoon to track the Sun.  I think I'm REALLY going to like using StarSense to set up my scope!

Lunar Eclipse! :-)

Video shot through my 6" Celestron of the Lunar Eclipse October 8, 2014.... partial into totality :-)ed

Enjoyed the eclipse at the Witte Observatory Complex

Gearing up tonight to photograph the lunar eclipse this coming week October 8.  Here's a video I took through my 6" refractor using Backyard EOS.  Pretty darn cool if I do say so myself ~ lol

A few snap shots...

The Pleiades