Recent content by Bill Richards

The Bubble Nebula is an emission nebula located approximately 7,100 light-years from Earth. Its massive outer shell is 7 light-years across—about 1.5 times the distance from our sun to Alpha Centauri. The bubble is created by a super-hot star that is 45 times more massive than our sun. Gas...

The Silver Sliver Galaxy (aka NGC 891) is a beautiful example of an edge-on spiral galaxy about 30 million light-years away. The next image is uncropped and has been annotated, highlighting many other galaxies in the frame. I don't know if the forum supports this, but when you zoom way in on...

This is the net result of over 250,000 images taken in rapid succession on a night with above-average seeing conditions, and post-processing only the best 10% of them (using AutoStakkert! and waveSharp3).

Saturn is currently at opposition (directly opposite the sun), so ideal for photographing. The first image includes 6 of Saturn's moons, which are labeled in the 2nd image. I also have a short time-lapse video in which you can see two of the inner moons moving in their orbits, but when I...

Hi Jim, The sensor is exactly the same in both cameras, it's just that the duo is newer. Bill

Thanks, Jim. Yes, I have the Duo as well as the Pro. The Duo, being newer, has a lower noise floor than my 5-year old 2600-Pro, so I've been using it mostly. But with a focal reducer installed on either the EdgeHD or the Esprit 100, the image circle is too small to adequatly illuminate the...

I posted a version of this two years ago but was able to gather more data on it last week and use improved processing techniques to obtain a much improved result. The Helix Nebula (NGC 7293), affectionately known as the "Eye of Sauron", is a colorful planetary nebula about 650 light-years away...

Thanks, Jim. Hope to see you "back in the saddle" again soon!

The "Veil Nebula" is a cloud of heated and ionized gas and dust left over from a massive supernova that occurred about 8,000 years ago when a star 20 times more massive than the Sun and ~2,100 light-years away ended its life in a spectacular explosion. The event would have appeared brighter...

The "Blue Horsehead Nebula" is a faint reflection nebula close to the Rho Oph region. Reflection nebulas are composed of very fine dust that normally appears dark but can look blue when reflecting the light of energetic nearby stars. In this case, the source of much of the reflected light is a...

The Pinwheel Galaxy (aka M101) is a face-on spiral galaxy 21 million light-years from Earth. It's a large galaxy, with a diameter of 170,000 light-years comprised of about a trillion stars. By comparison, our own Milky Way has a diameter of 100,000-120,000 light-years and has about 200,000...

Yeah, that Radian TriAd Quad filter really captures a lot of red since it passes SII as well. The problem with that filter - like many others - is that it generates halos around bright stars. I spent a lot of time trying to eliminate them in post-processing. My Astro Hutech IDAS NBZ filter...

I posted this once before, but captured another 11.5 hours of data last week and the new version is (I think) much better. The Crescent Nebula (aka NGC6888) is an emission nebula about 5000 light-years from Earth. It is formed by the fast stellar wind from a Wolf-Rayet star colliding with and...

The Owl Nebula (aka M97) is a planetary nebula located about 2000 light-years away. It's approximately 8000 years old and is known for its two dark, eye-like patches, formed by a barrel-shaped inner shell, which give it an owl-like appearance. The nebula formed when a dying Sun-like star ran...

Thanks, Jim!