Recent content by Andy Nowlen

I had some time Saturday October 19 between dark and moon rise in between cloud banks moving through. I framed NGC 869. Star clusters are not my normal sort of target. But it was bright and could be captured quickly. I used my C11 Rasa and captured the image in 100 60 second subframes. I...

I am not certain I needed all this time on target but I like the result of two long nights before the rainy season begins. It was easy to do since everything was set up and on target! October 13-14 Rasa time = 17.3 hours (346*180s) - RASA f/2.2 Takhashi time = 13.3 hours (46*300 and 57*600s)...

Nice job! I have always struggled to process this the way it seems it should be. You nailed it!

Thanks Jim. It was an 'almost' enjoyable project! Working out the calibration frames for each session was a bit confusing at first.

I guess this is the season for this target and great minds..... Here I have combined 3 sessions from two scopes August 27-29. I used the Televue 127 and the C11 Rasa. The image scales are close. I was able to crop to the Televue at 660mm. I stacked the sessions from each scope and combined...

I like the wide field view of this target.

August 26-27. This image turned out pretty well even though transparency was not great. I lost a lot of subframes. I assume from less than helpful seeing. Also, i found out that one of my mounts really struggled with guiding near the zenith. Asi071mc cool AsiAir Sharpstar 76mm @ 335 Radian...

Very Nice! I read that the trunk is over 20 light years in length. Hard to imagine!

Its a different view of the Pelican than I have previously done. I like the feeling of motion that I see. August 9 and 10 about 5 hours integration with the Rasa. I have been using the IDAS NBZ II high speed filter. There is always a learning curve related to post processing the stacked image.

Turmoil in the Heart - IC1805 A clear night emerged August 16 2024, just 3 days before the full moon, 88% illuminated. Transparency was quite poor but some clearing came along after I got started. I decided to use the C11 Rasa and aimed at the target which was directly opposite the moon. The...

Sh2-170 and LBN576. CEM40 Sharpstar 76mm @ 335mm Asi 071mc cool camera C1 (HaOiii) filter 10 hours integration from my B6 front driveway August 4-6.

Here I have my PacMan integrations from 2022, 2023 and 2024. The nights are short so I added them all together. During the 2022 and 2023 sessions one scope was at work. During the several 2024 sessions 2 scopes were on target at the same time. I have been interested to see how more exposure...

In early July 2024 we had a 2 week series of clear nights. Some of those nights had excellent transparency and excellent seeing. I decided to gather more data on this target. I had data from 2022 when I was very new to astrophotography. Adding data to this target in 2024 was a very different...

Hi Jim, Yes the Rasa does a fast job. I had purchased it late last winter, but really didn't get a chance to learn it until recently. It is a used V1 of C11. Because it came with a Celestron focuser, I had to learn Windows 11. I had not used Windows in more than 15 years. What a bummer. So...

Working from my SkyShed pod observatory my C11 Rasa gathered quite a few very dark photons! The darkness was quite short. I started off with 220 sub-frames. After the clouds filled a few, the dawn arrived, and some were culled, I completed the project with 140. Short night-short...