My astrophotography 2022

CCD vs Film? Lots of time vs no patience? Alright, this is your place to discuss all the astrophotography what's and what's not. You can discuss about techniques, accessories, cameras, whatever....just make sure you also post some nice photos here too!
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hhzhang
Posts: 730
Joined: Sun May 10, 2020 4:11 pm
Favourite scope: 115mm APO

Re: My astrophotography 2022

Post by hhzhang »

2022-Jan-9
2022's first shot of sunspots

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hhzhang
Posts: 730
Joined: Sun May 10, 2020 4:11 pm
Favourite scope: 115mm APO

Re: My astrophotography 2022

Post by hhzhang »

2022-Jan-18

The near earth asteroid (7482) has generated a lot of buzz in the media. It is making a close approach to earth around Jan-18 at a distance of ~2million KM.

This evening it was clear to thin high clouds, and I chose to shoot it with a 135mmF2 lens. It moves at a staggering rate of ~2"/sec -- meaning any long focal length scope/lens will have to go very short exposure time to keep the image of the asteroid round.

I first located it in a 15-sec exposure that saw a definite streak in the target star field. I then shot quite a number of 8-sec subs with the mono ASI183MM Pro.

Later I changed to cam to ASI2600MC in order to get OSC images of the asteroid. I ran 30-sec subs on this camera.

This is the animated asteroid motion from ASI2600MC images.

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hhzhang
Posts: 730
Joined: Sun May 10, 2020 4:11 pm
Favourite scope: 115mm APO

Re: My astrophotography 2022

Post by hhzhang »

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hhzhang
Posts: 730
Joined: Sun May 10, 2020 4:11 pm
Favourite scope: 115mm APO

Re: My astrophotography 2022

Post by hhzhang »

Bonus shot from this evening's moonrise scene.

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hhzhang
Posts: 730
Joined: Sun May 10, 2020 4:11 pm
Favourite scope: 115mm APO

Re: My astrophotography 2022

Post by hhzhang »

Finally, I caught a shot of Venus in the morning sky. It passed the conjunction with Sun a few days ago but had been very elusive behind the low clouds over the eastern horizon. When I looked out towards the eastern horizon from home this morning, I immediately noticed a bright dot just above the cloud. It was brighter than I anticipated -- and shinning well in the twilight.

So this allows me to put up the three brightest celestial objects in the same composite image. The active sun, the full moon, and the crescent Venus!

I purposely made the images to the same scale.

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hhzhang
Posts: 730
Joined: Sun May 10, 2020 4:11 pm
Favourite scope: 115mm APO

Re: My astrophotography 2022

Post by hhzhang »

Learning to make astro timelapse animation with Siril.

However, it turns out the video-sharing can be a bit problematic. The original MP4 video plays well on my computer.
When uploaded to the Google shared album, the video in the album plays as well as the original -- but its shared URL shows a video of terrible quality and has lost all the details.
When uploaded to Youtube, it lost just a little detail. Notice how quick it moves at a distance of ~2 million KM.

https://youtu.be/mk2y1LDnIWo
hhzhang
Posts: 730
Joined: Sun May 10, 2020 4:11 pm
Favourite scope: 115mm APO

Re: My astrophotography 2022

Post by hhzhang »

2021-Jan-22

A largely clear night I had anticipated. But my astrophotography session started with a stupid mistake-- I drove down to the Seletar reservior and set up the gear, but failed to do polar alignment because the ASIAir Pro could not resolve any of the images. I noticed something wrong with the lens --- ah -- it was not the 135mm lens I choose to shoot with, but the 35mm lens. I realised I was hastily packing up everything and just grabbed "35mm" and mounted it on my camera.

So I had to return home and decided to shoot from my neighborhood.

The primary target for the night was the California nebula -- which I had never shot before.

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hhzhang
Posts: 730
Joined: Sun May 10, 2020 4:11 pm
Favourite scope: 115mm APO

Re: My astrophotography 2022

Post by hhzhang »

Spent hours of precious clear skies on a challenging target: the jellyfish nebula and its neighbors. Last Jan I actally shot it with an AIS180mmF2.8 lens and the ASI2600MC but failed to capture its full shape. Now with the help of a narrowband filter (Ha) and a more sensitive mono cam ASI183MM Pro, plus a faster lens (135mmF2), I hoped for a much better image.

Unfortunately, it is too much of a challenge shooting this nebula under the adverse conditions here.

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hhzhang
Posts: 730
Joined: Sun May 10, 2020 4:11 pm
Favourite scope: 115mm APO

Re: My astrophotography 2022

Post by hhzhang »

2022-01-22~23

Clear skies, again!

The major task was to capture the Rosette Nebula. I shot it last Jan -- ended up with a rather poor image.

Today's H-alpha subs look good -- a bit of detail already shown up in single 120s exposures. But OIII signal is super weak. Due to various reasons, I only captured ~30x120s of OIII --- and moreover -- half of them were ruined by guided tracking problems -- leaving only 16 subs of OIII of nice quality.

Out of 66x120s H-alpha subs, only 49 subs are kept thanks to the accurate tracking.

So the end result is a little disappointing, but at the same time it compared well against last year's.

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hhzhang
Posts: 730
Joined: Sun May 10, 2020 4:11 pm
Favourite scope: 115mm APO

Re: My astrophotography 2022

Post by hhzhang »

The pre-dawn eastern sky will soon see a stunning show featuring the planets and the milky way. Thanks to the equatorial position of Singapore, we can capture a view of the milky way in as early as January.

It is just a bit pity that the glorious scene can only be appreciated under truly dark skies. However, this year's outlook of any adventure crossing the border is very pessimistic.

Nevertheless, here is a record of this early scene -- 2022's first attempt at the milky way!

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