• Date - November 2007
• Telescope - William Optics Zenithstar 66 with 0.8 focal reducer/flattener
• Mount - Paramount ME
• Camera - Starlight Xpress SXVF M8C binned 2x2
• Exposures - 30x4 minutes unguided
• Acquisition software - Maxim DL
• Processing software - Photoshop CS2

I will be having another attempt at this large subject when I have the H36 camera up and running

• Date - November 2007
• Telescope - William Optics Zenithstar 66 with 0.8 focal reducer/flattener
• Mount - Paramount ME
• Camera - Starlight Xpress SXVF M8C binned 2x2
• Exposures - 4x4 minutes unguided
• Acquisition software - Maxim DL
• Processing software - Photoshop CS2

Due to the freezing mist coming in at 4am I was restricted to 4 exposures when I was planning on doing 30, this subject will be revisited when better conditions allow

• Date - November 2007
• Telescope - William Optics Zenithstar 66 with 0.8 focal reducer/flattener
• Mount - Paramount ME
• Camera - Starlight Xpress SXVF M8C binned 2x2
• Exposures - 13x4 minutes unguided
• Acquisition software - Maxim DL
• Processing Software - Photoshop CS2

There was light mist appearing in the sky causing the resulting image to appear a bit fuzzy, to be revisited

• Date - December 2007
• Telescope - William Optics Zenithstar 66 with 0.8 focal reducer/flattener
• Mount - Paramount ME
• Camera - Starlight Xpress SXVF M8C binned 2x2
• Exposures - 20x4 minutes unguided
• Acquisition software - Maxim DL
• Processing Software - Photoshop CS2

Taken just before dawn, probable reason for mottled colour cast

• Date - April 2008
• Telescope - TMB 115 f7
• Mount - Paramount ME
• Camera - Starlight Xpress SXVF H36 with broadband Light polution filter
• Exposures - 18x8 minutes unguided
• Acquisition software - Maxim DL
• Processing software - Photoshop CS2

Poor seeing conditions, image cropped due to vignetting

• Date - April 2008
• Telescope - TMB 115 f7
• Mount - Paramount ME
• Camera - Starlight Xpress SXVF H36 with broadband light pollution filter
• Exposures - 10x8 minutes unguided
• Acquisition software - Maxim DL
• Processing software - Photoshop CS2

Poor seeing conditions, image cropped due to vignetting

• Date - May 2008
• Telescope - TMB 115 f7 with matching field flattener
• Mount - Paramount ME
• Camera - Starlight Xpress SXVF H36 unfiltered
• Exposures - 60x2 minutes unguided
• Acquisition software - Maxim DL
• Processing software - Photoshop CS2

Very bad light pollution and sky glow caused light pollution gradient over part of image, used Gradient Xterminator to try and resolve this, first use of field flattener, no cropping used

The details are the same for the previous image of M51 but I cropped the image to show just M51 complete with companion galaxies

• Date - May 2008
• Telescope - TMB 115 f7 with matching field flattener
• Mount - Paramount ME
• Camera - Starlight Xpress SXVF H36 unfiltered
• Exposures - 30x2 minutes unguided
• Acquisition software - Maxim DL
• Processing software - Photoshop CS2

As with image of M51 there was a bad light pollution gradient across the image which I have tried to remove using Gradient Xterminator, there may be some remnants still evident which I can't see on my laptop screen

The details for this image are the same as the previous image of M106 except as before with M 51 I have cropped the image to show an enlarged view of the galaxy and its companions, especially the galaxy to the left of M 106

• Date - October 2008
• Telescope - TMB 115 f7
• Mount - Paramount ME
• Camera - Starlight Xpress SXVF H36
• Exposures - 6x10 minutes Ha 6x10 minutes OIII 5x10 minutes SII unguided
• Acquisition software - Maxim DL
• Processing software - Photoshop CS2

Emission line filters are generally only used for emission nebulae but occasionally the Ha filter is used to augment the RGB filter set to help bring out more detail in other objects such as galaxies. This was an experiment to see what result would be obtained if I used Ha OIII SII in place of RGB, I also used the Ha data as aluminance channel. There was intermittent cloud when I took this image so I didn't get as many subframes as I was hoping hence the noisy image.

• Date - February 2009
• Telescope - Takahashi BRC-250
• Mount - Paramount ME
• Camera - Starlight Xpress SXVF H36
• Exposures - 8x10 minutes Ha, 7x10 minutes OIII, 4x10 minutes SII unguided
• Acquisition software - Maxim DL
• Processing software - Photoshop CS2

Clear night but with a full moon and some freezing mist high in the air, this is a crop of a wide field image that includes the Owl nebula

• Date - April 2009
• Telescope - Takahashi BRC-250
• Mount - Paramount ME
• Camera -Starlight Xpress SXVF H9
• Exposures - 20x5 minutes Ha and 20x2 minutes each for RGB
• Acquisition software - Maxim D
• Processing software - Photoshop CS2

Clear night but poor seeing, quite hazy. First light for the H9

This is the same image as the previous one except that I have removed some light pollution gradient and used some mild sharpening and tweaked the curves andf levels to help bring out a bit more detail

Thanks to some usful tips frm Neil Fleming and fellow members from some of the forums I have done a complete reprocess using the same data

• Sigma clip combined in Maxim DL
• Stretched using Log stretch with maximum pixel value and 16 bit
• Saved to 16 bit tiff
• 100% Ha blended to Red channel using normal blend
• 20% Ha blended to Blue channel using normal blend
• Manually colour combine RGB channels in Photoshop CS2
• Levels and curves
• Contrast enhacement
• Unsharp mask
• Gradient removal with Gradient Xterminator
• Mild noise reduction

This seems to have brought out more detail in the red jets better

• Date - April 2009
• Telescope - Takahashi BRC-250
• Mount - Paramount ME
• Camera - Starlight Xpress SXVF H9
• Exposures - 10x4 minute unguided each for RGB
• Acquisition software - Maxim DL
• Processing software - Photoshop CS2

The seeing conditions have been very poor despite there being cloud free nights giving a slight misty appearance to the images

• Date - April 2009
• Telescope - Takhashi BRC-250
• Mount - Paramount ME
• Camera - Starlight Xpress SXVF H9
• Exposures - 20x4 minutes Red filter and 17x4 minutes Green filter
• Acquisition software - Maxim DL
• Processing software - Photoshop CS2

• Date - April 2009
• Telescope - Takahashi BRC-250
• Mount - Paramount ME
• Camera - Starlight Xpress SXVF H36
• Exposures - 10x4 minutes through red and green filters unguided
• Acquisition software - Maxim DL
• Processing software - Photoshop CS2

Only managed the red and green channels as clouds prevented the blue and Ha channel, half of the original 20 red subframes were no good due to poor seeing

• Date - May 2009
• Telescope - Takahashi BRC-250
• Mount - Paramount ME
• Camera - Starlight Xpress SXVF H36
• Exposures - 15x4 minutes for red and green and 6x4 minutes for blue
• Acquisition software - Maxim DL
• Processing software - Photoshop CS2

Could only get 6x4 inutes for the blue channel as it was getting too light to image after 3am

• Date - May 2009
• Telescope - Takahashi BRC 250
• Mount - Paramount ME
• Camera - Starlight Xpess SXVF H36
• Exposures - 15x4 minutes CLS filter
• Acquisition software - Maxim DL
• Processing software - Photoshop CS2

I only managed to get the luminance channel done before the subject started to go behind a tree so will revisit this at a later date

• Date - May 2009
• Telescope - Takahashi BRC-250
• Mount - Paramount ME
• Camera - Starlight Xpress SXVF H9
• Exposures - 13x4 minutes Red, 9x4 minutes Green and 14x4 minutes Blue autoguided with LVI Smartguider
• Acquisition software - Maxim DL
• Processing software - Photoshop CS2

This close up show more detail than the widefield shot and is my first try at autoguiding

• Date - March 2010
• Telescope - Takahashi FSQ106ED
• Mount - Paramount ME
• Camera - Starlight Xpress SXVF M8C
• Exposures - 15x20 minutes guided with OAG and Lodestar with dithering
• Acquisition software - Maxim DL
• Guiding software - Maxim DL
• Processing software - Photoshop CS2

I don't normally do galaxies or use OSC cameras but I thought I would give this a try as there aren't many emission nebula visible where I live at the moment and I haven't used this camera for ages. The very small pixel size necessitates very long subframes

• Date - September 2010
• Telescope - Takahashi FSQ106ED f5
• Mount - Paramount ME
• Camera - Starlight Xpress SXVF H36
• Exposures - 20x5 minutes luminance and 18x5 minutes each for RGB auto guided by Lodestar and OAG using dithering
• Acquisition software - Maxim DL
• Guiding software - Maxim DL
• Processing software - Photoshop CS2

I managed to do this in one night despite a quarter moon high in the sky, I will be taking some Ha data next and blend it with the red ad blue channel to bring out the nebulous detail within the galaxy

This is using the same data as he previous image but I have reprocessed it so that the core is not so badly burnt out and there is less of a pinkish colour to the image

• Date - January/February 2011
• Telescope - Takahashi FSQ106ED f5
• Mount - Paramount ME
• Camera - Starlight Xpress SXVF H36
• Exposures - 18x5 minutes each for RGB, 9x20 minutes Ha auto guided with lodestar and OAG using dithering
• Acquisition software - Maxim DL
• Guiding software - Maxim DL
• Processing software - Photoshop CS2

This image hasn't had the data calibrated yet amd also I want to do some luminance data, this will be done at a later date

• Date - April 2011
• Telescope - Takahashi FSQ106ED f5
• Mount - Paramount ME
• Camera - Starlight Xpress SXVF H9
• Exposures - 65x5 minutes with luminance filter auto guided by lodestar and OAG using dithering
• Acquisition software - Maxim DL
• Guiding software - Maxim DL
• Processing software - Photoshop CS2

• Date - April 2011
• Telescope - Takahashi FSQ106ED f5
• Mount - Paramount ME
• Camera - Starlight Xpress SXVF H9
• Exposures 65x5 minutes Lum and 12x10 each for RGB auto guided by lodestar an OAG using dithering
• Acquisition software - Maxim DL
• Guiding software - Maxim DL
• Processing software - Photoshop CS2

• Date - May 2013
• Telescope - Takahashi FSQ106ED f5
• Mount - Paramount ME
• Camera - FLI ML 8300
• Exposures - 24x10 minutes Lum, 15x10 minutes each for RGB auto guided by lodestar and OAG using dithering
• Acquisition and guiding software - Maxim DL5
• Processing software - Photoshop CS5

• Date - September 2013
• Telescope - Tele Vue NP127/FLI Atlas/Centreline/PL16803 (prototype)
• Mount - Paramount ME
• Camera - FLI PL16803
• Exposures - 26x10 minutes Luminance, 12x10 minutes Red, 11x10 minutes Blue and 8x10 minutes Green autoguided by Officine Stellare Falco and Lodestar
• Acquisition and guiding software - Maxim DL5
• Processing software - Photoshop CS5

This is the same data as the previous image but with 4 hours of Ha data added by blending into the red channel to show up the star forming regions within the galaxy

• Date - January to March 2014
• Telescope - Televue NP127is
• Camera - FLI Proline 16803
• Mount - Paramount ME
• Exposures - 30x10 minutes Luminance and 12x10 minutes each for RGB auto guided by Lodestar
• Acquisition and guiding software - Maxim DL5
• Processing software - Photoshop CC

• Date - April/May 2014
• Telescope - Televue NP127is
• Camera - FLI Proline 16803
• Mount - Paramount ME
• Exposures - 21x10 minutes Luminance, 24x10 minutes Ha, 24x10 minutes Red, 22x10 minutes Green and 20x10 minutes Blue auto guided by Lodestar and OS Falco
• Acquisition and guiding software - Maxim DL5
• Processing software - Photoshop CC

• Date - November 2014 to January 2015
• Telescope - NP127
• Camera - FLI PL16803
• Mount - Paramount ME
• Exposures - 28x10 minutes Luminance, 12x10 minutes Red, 6x10 minutes Green and 7x10 minutes Blue auto guided with lodestar uding dithering
• Acquisition and guiding software - Maxim DL5
• Processing software - Photoshop CC

Date - May/June 2015

Telescope - Televue NP127/FLI astrograph

Camera - FLI Microline x814

Exposures - 32x10 minutes Luminance, 24x10 minutes Ha, 18x10 minutes RGB auto guided with lodestar using dithering

Acquisition and guiding software - Maxim DL5

Processing software - Photoshop CC