December 28, 2018: Single Photo Astrophotos

Problem solving Astrophotos:  I took a series of images in order to stack and see the detail of the nebulocity.  Turns out, there is more detail in a single frame than the stack (using Deek Sky Stacker).  So I'm trying to figure out why stacking loses detail (I suspect its because of small errors in alignment)

M42 (Orion Nebula).   Single image, 2 min exposure, 200mm f/2.8, ISO 800

NGC2024 (Flame Nebula) and IC434 (Horsehead Nebula)

Original Image with NCG2024 (lower left) and M42 (upper right)

 M42 (annotated by astrometry.net)

IC 434 (annotated by astrometry.net)

December 18, 2018: Comets, Nebulae and a Galaxy

A progress report on my astrophotography adventure.   

I'm slowly overcoming obstacles.  Among them are mechanical stability, vibration control (iOptron Sky Guider Pro),  (delay shutter opening by 2 sec), equatorial mount polar alignment (in order to take longer exposures).

Here are results over the past month:

46P with the Pleiades in the upper left.   90mm Tamron 2.8 lens

46P Annotation from astrometry.net

46P   200 mm f2.8 lens

M31 - Andromeda Galaxy

M42, Orion Nebula

M42 annotation from nova.astrometry.net

NGC 2024  (Flame Nebula) and Barnard 33 (Horsehead Nebula)  The bright star is Alnitak

Track of a geostationary satellite passing Alnilam

Artifact: Aircraft approaching Orion

Maybe artifact:  a strange object in a wide angle photo of the east

Cropped image of the strange object