First Light with the Askar FMA180 Pro

 It was a good night to shake down a new setup ...

The forecast for Saturday night 5/10 was for intermittent clouds early on and clear skies after midnight. this forecast, coupled with the fact that there was a very bright 96% illuminated Moon up almost the entire night, made it easy to decide to shake down my Askar FMA180 Pro (click here to view a post about building this rig). The goal was to get everything working, an imaging would be a bonus. 

The process started well before dark. It began when the Askar FRA600 (on loan from a friend) was removed from the mount. I took the Pegasus Astro Pocket Powerbox Advance off the Askar FRA600 rings and installed it on the Losmandy Dovetail Rail that the Askar FMA180 Pro was installed on. I have three gutter spikes in the ground where I set up my mount for imaging. The mount was leveled, then the Askar FMA180 Pro rig was installed on the mount and connected all the cables (performing some cable management to tame the mess of cables). I connected everything to my laptop and verified that all the devices could connect to NINA, adjusting COM port settings as required. The telescope was then slewed to point at the tree line across the street so the Guide Scope and the Imaging Scope could be roughly focused. I also created the PHD2 profile for this setup and took darks for the guide camera. The mount was parked and covered with a tarp. 

At dusk, I came back out and uncovered the scope. The first order of business was to properly focus the Guide Scope. I used SharpCap to do this. Once focused, the mount was polar aligned. SharpCap was used for this too. The Guide Camera was disconnected from SharpCap and was reconnected to PHD2. Using the Calibration Assistant Tool, the mount was slewed to 0 declination and about 5 degrees from the Meridian. After calibration was completed, I ran the Guiding Assistant for 15 minutes and applied the recommended changes to the guiding settings. The Imaging Scope was focused by eye. I worked on multiple autofocus runs in NINA to optimize the autofocus settings. After getting the autofocus set up, I verified plate solving worked. So far so good. Dodged a few clouds here and there but everything progressed smoothly. So now what?

I started to search for imaging targets that would be a good fit for this wide field rig. The best option was IC 1396, The Elephant Trunk Nebula. I have imaged this target before with my 80 mm Refractor at 480 mm of focal length (click here to view the previous result for IC 1396). Unfortunately, this target did not clear the tree line until about 1:30 AM. Since this was the first weekend with nice weather this spring, we did a lot of yard work during the day and I did not want to stay up all night. Then it hit me, maybe this was the time to finally try the (Advanced) Sequencer in NINA. I had already download templates from Patriot Astro, but never had a need to try this functionality out. I modified the OSC template for my setup and did a quick test. It worked perfectly. I loaded in a Sequence to image IC1396 starting at 1:30 AM until about 4:45 AM.  Again, it worked perfectly! I woke up the next morning and the scope was parked, the camera warmed, and 55 subs were saved to the laptop's hard drive. I was worried the subs would be of poor quality due to the 96% illuminated Moon but was pleasantly surprised after processing the image. Having said that, if the opportunity presents itself to add more exposure time to this, I will! 

Here's the resulting image :

IC 1396 - The Elephant Trunk Nebula - first light with the Askar FMA180 Pro.

Processing:

All pre and post processing was performed in PixInsight. Pre-Processing: All subs were visually inspected with Blink and subs with issues were removed. All light Frames, Flats, Darks and Dark flats were loaded into WBPP. Linear Post Processing: Background extraction was performed with GraXpert followed by BXT (correct only). SPCC was used for Color Calibration followed by a full application of BXT. The Stars were removed using StarXT. Starless Linear: Noise was reduced with NXT. The image was made non-linear with HT. Linear Stars: The stars were made non-linear with Seti Astro's Star Stretch Script.

Non-linear Post Processing: Starless: The Narrowband normalization Process was used to get the "SHO" look. Color, intensity, and contrast were adjusted with various applications of CT. Saturation was increased with CT. The Image blend Script was used to sharpen the image with a High Pass Filter. LHE was applied at 2 Kernel sizes an the Unsharp mask was applied. The DSE script was used to enhance dark nebula regions. Stars: Saturation was increased with CT. SCNR was applied and the Correct Magenta Stars Script was used to help with stars captured with a dual narrowband filter. CT was used to adjust contrast one last time. Final: The Stars and Starless images were combined with Pixel Math to produce the final image. 

What is it?

IC 1396 is a region of ionized interstellar gas and dust that contains smaller regions of concentrated gas and dust that appear as dark knots or globules in visible light images. The gas in the entire region is being ionized by the bright star HD 206267 in the center of the image. The Elephant Trunk Nebula is one of those concentrations of gas and dust. It can be seen rising from the bottom of the image. These areas of concentrated gas and dust, including The Elephant Trunk, are star forming regions. Young stars within The Elephant Trunk were discovered in 2003 using infrared telescopes.

An annotated image of IC1396

How Big is it?

IC1396 has a size of 170 x 140 arcminutes (1 degree is 60 arcminutes) on the night sky and is about 100 light years across.

How Far is it?

IC 1396 is located about 2,400 light-years (ly) in the Constellation Cepheus.

How to find it?

The constellation Cepheus is located near the bright signpost constellation Cassiopeia. Cepheus is a circumpolar constellation for observers at mid-northern latitudes and above. This means the constellation never sets. It is visible all night, appearing to circle the north celestial pole currently located near the North star, Polaris. to me, this constellation looks like a house with a disproportionately large roof. IC 1396 is indicated in the chart by the red rectangle just off what would be the ground floor of the house. 

Finder Chart for IC1396

Image Details:

Capture Date: 5/11//2025

Location: Eden, NY

Telescope: Askar FMA180 Pro

Camera: ZWO ASI2600MC Pro

Filter: Optolong L-eXtreme

Mount: Sky-Watcher USA EQ6-R Pro

Exposure: 55 exposures at 180 sec / Gain 100 / Offset 50 / -10°C each for a total exposure of almost 2 hours and 45 minutes.

Software: NINA, SharpCap Pro, PHD2, and PixInsight

Clear Skies!

Ernie

M82 from the BMO - Group Capture / Group Process

 Some processing fun on a very soggy Astronomy Day ...

Saturday May 5th was Astronomy Day. Our club had a busy day scheduled. We were going to open the observatory from 12 to 5 pm for Solar Observing and various other activities. A small group was leading a group of local Girl Scouts through a badge workshop. Finally, we had our monthly Public Night event. Mother Nature had other plans. We canceled the 12 to 5 pm Astronomy Day event due to persistent rain all day. We did use the time to clean and organize the observatory. The Girl Scout badge workshop went on as planned (just no observing) and we never cancel Public Night. We had one visitor, and I think that person was a friend of a member. 

One of the members of our club's imaging special interest group (The Tuesday Night Imagers) had collected data on M82 on Sunday 4/27 with our club's telescopes. She collected data with both the Celeston 14" Edge HD and the Tele Vue NP101is. Collecting data with only a UV/IR filter and some data with a Dual Narrowband filter. I copied the data from the 14" telescope to my portable hard drive and transferred it to my laptop. I had joined via Zoom and a few other members participated, but had to leave early. I fired up PixInsight and started processing it. I connected my laptop to one of our large screen TV's and we worked on the data as a group. I drove but many of the choices made during the processing came from the other members that participated. In particular one of our members who is an experienced astrophotographer and a meteorite hunter/collector. It was a lot of fun, and the resulting image is undoubtedly different from what I would have come up without their input. Here's the resulting image. 

M82 from the BMO on 4/27/2025 - Group process

Processing:

I'm going to keep this pretty high level. too much time has elapsed for me to accurately describe all the steps we used. Basically, data from both the UV/IR Cut filter and the Dual Narrowband filter was loaded into WBPP with all calibration frames and pre-processed. This resulted in two master light frames that were registered to one another. Both master lights were processed up through making them non-linear. We then split a clone of the Dual Narrowband data into separate channels (R, G, & B). We treated the R channel as Ha and added it to the UV/IR data. We also fully processed the unsplit Dual Narrowband data. Ultimately, we blended both images together with the image blend script. 

What is it?

Messier 82 (M82) is also known as The Cigar Galaxy. M82 is an example of a peculiar galaxy. It is also a starburst galaxy. It had a relatively recent (astronomically speaking) encounter with its neighbor, M81. M82 has been disturbed as a result of this encounter. We can see this in the dust lanes and heavy star formation.  

An annotated image of M82

How Big is it?

M82 has a size of 11.2 x 4.3 arcminutes (1 degree is 60 arcminutes) on the night sky. It is about 40,200 light years in diameter.

How Far is it?

M82 is located about 12 million light-years (ly) from Earth.

How to find it?

M82 is a popular target or visual astronomers and astrophotographers. For visual observation, larger aperture, a night with no moon, and dark skies always help for galaxies. I would recommend a low power (wide field if view) eyepiece. With my 24 mm Tele Vue Panoptic and my 8" f/6 Dob, I can get both M81 & M82 in the same field of view. Ust eh following steps to find M82 (and M81):

1. Find the Big Dipper.
2. find the Bowl Stars Phecda & Dubhe (Note: Phecda is the Star where M109 is indicated in the finder chart below)
3. Draw an imaginary line from Phecda to Dubhe
4. Extend the line through Dubhe roughly the same distance as the Phecda/Dubhe line
5. M81 & M82 should be in your eyepiece or an optical finder scope

Finder Chart for M82

Image Details:

Capture Date: 04/27/2025

Location: North Java, NY (Buffalo Astronomical Association's Beaver Meadow Observatory)

Telescope: Celestron 14" Edge HD w/0.7x Reducer

Camera: OGMA AP26CC

Filter: OGMA 2" UV/IR Cut & Antlia 5 nm Alp-T Dual Narrowband

Mount: Astro Physics AP1200 Mount

Exposure: UV/IR Cut: 18 exposures at 300 sec / Gain 100 / Offset 100 / -10° C each for a total exposure of 1 hour 30 minutes. Alp-T: 10 exposures at 600 sec / Gain 100 / Offset 100 / -10° C each for a total exposure of 1 hour 40 minutes. Combined: 3 hours 10 minutes

Software: NINA, PHD2, and PixInsight

Clear Skies!

Ernie

M109 captured on 4/23/2025 from the BMO

 Another clear night ...

The forecast for Wednesday April 23rd was promising. Therefore, our club's observatory directory decided Wednesday would be our imaging special interest group's session for the week that night. I could not attend as I had work meetings that night. However, I was able to join the group via Zoom and contribute to the night's imaging efforts while still attending to my work commitments. T skies were not the best but clear enough to image. With no Moon until four in the morning, we decided to go after a broadband target like a galaxy. I wanted to go after M64, The Black Eye Galaxy. Another member of the group suggested M109, a Barred Spiral Galaxy in Ursa Major. They made a better case than I did, and the group decided on M109. I'm glad they did. It is a very beautiful target.

After solving the usual array of issues that come with operating the observatory so infrequently, we began imaging at 9:24 PM and imaged until 10:54 PM. We captured data with both the NP101is and ZWO ASI2600MC-Pro system and the Celestron 14" Edge HD w/0.7x Reducer and the OGMA AP26CC system. I only worked on the data from the 14" telescope. With the combination of the 14" telescope and the OGMA AP26CC camera, we have settled on 300 sec subs for broadband imaging with the UV/IR cut filter, assuming sky conditions allow for it. If the Moon were up, we would most likely have to reduce exposure time. This target is framed very well with this telescope/camera combination. Here's the resulting processed image:

M109 from the BMO on 4/23/2025.

Processing:

All pre and post processing was performed in PixInsight. Pre-Processing: All light Frames, Flats, Darks and Dark flats were loaded into WBPP. After processing the resulting Master Light Frames, Satellite trails were visible. I blinked the individual subs and found 3 of the 16 subs had very bright satellite trails. I opened the 3 raw frames with the trails and used Seti Astro's Blemish Blaster script to remove the trails. The trails were reduced in intensity but could still be seen. I saved the 3 frames and then re-ran WBPP with more aggressive settings for rejection (reducing the High sigma in Winsorized Sigma Clipping from 3 to 2 and enabling Large Scale Pixel Rejection at a sigma of 2).  Linear Post Processing: Background extraction was performed with GraXpert followed by BXT (correct only). SPCC was used for Color Calibration followed by a full application of BXT. The Stars were removed using StarXT. Starless Linear: Noise was reduced with NXT. The image was made non-linear with HT. Starless Non-linear Post Processing: Saturation and intensity were increased with CT. Exponential Transformation was used to increase intensity. The Create HDR Image script was used to compress the core of the galaxies (mask was used). The Image Blend script was used (with high pass filter) to increase sharpness. LHE was applied at two different kernel radii and Unsharp Mask was applied (lightly). Stars Linear: The Stars image was made non-linear with Seti Astro's Star Stretch script. Stars Non-Linear: Saturation was increased with CT. Starless: Intensity, and contrast were adjusted with various applications of CT. The Stars and Starless images were combined with Pixel Math to produce the final image

What is it?

Messier 109 (M109) is a barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Ursa Major. Scientists believe our galaxy, The Milky Way, is a barred spiral galaxy. 

An annotated version of the M109 image.

How Big is it?

M109 has a size of 7.5 x 4.4 arcminutes (1 degree is 60 arcminutes) on the night sky. It is about 177,000 light years in diameter.

How Far is it?

M109 is located about 81 million light-years (ly) from Earth.

How to find it?

M109 is located in the constellation Ursa Major as shown by the small red square in the Finder Chart below. The galaxy is located about 40' southeast of Phecda, one of the bowl stars in the big dipper asterism. Dark skies and large aperture are helpful in viewing this galaxy.

Finder chart for M109.

Image Details:

Capture Date: 04/23/2025

Location: North Java, NY (Buffalo Astronomical Association's Beaver Meadow Observatory)

Telescope: Celestron 14" Edge HD w/0.7x Reducer

Camera: OGMA AP26CC

Filter: OGMA 2" UV/IR Cut

Mount: Astro Physics AP1200 Mount

Exposure: 16 exposures at 300 sec / Gain 100 / Offset 100 / -10° C each for a total exposure of 1 hour 20 minutes.

Software: NINA, PHD2, and PixInsight

Clear Skies!

Ernie

A Trio in Leo and a Bright Asteroid too!!

 Where Science and Art Intersect ...

Please excuse this deep dive into my personal motivations for astrophotography. It is important to understanding why I'm so excited by this image and its contents. 

I came to astrophotography as a visual astronomer. I got into visual astronomy due to my deep interest in science. I've had this deep interest in science most of my life. I've never been an artistically minded person (although both my parents had artistic talents). I have been involved in astronomy outreach for many years; and I get great satisfaction from sharing the cosmos with our community. Once smart devices (smartphones and tablets) started to become common place, I tried to use them as another way to share the experience at my telescope with more people. This is what lead me down the path of astrophotography. Joining the Buffalo Astronomical Association (BAA) specifically to learn how to take better pictures of space and to get access to better instruments. Somewhere along the way, this became a creative or artistic outlet that I wasn't consciously looking for. To be 100% clear, the pictures I take of space are "pretty pictures". A lot of effort is placed on enhancing the data to optimize it aesthetically (color, sharpness, contrast etc.). The Science is still an underlaying foundation, that never goes away, and is a fundamental part of the experience for me. For me, astrophotography is at the intersection of Science and Art, both make an essential contribution to the experience. 

The forecast for Tuesday April 22nd improved to indicate clear skies for most of the night. A trip to our club's observatory was not in the cards for a work night. After work, I came home and set up my rig. I had not imaged from home since October. I had to rebalance the telescope on the mount, as it had been removed during the intervening time. Setting up took a little longer than usual but was completed without any issues. Once it was dark enough, the telescope was polar aligned, calibration in PHD2 guiding software was performed, and the focus of the main telescope was confirmed, allowing for successful plate solving and autofocus routines. The target for the night was already determined to be the Leo Triplet. There was no Moon until early in the morning, Leo is well placed in the sky for many hours of imaging, and I liked the framing with the Askar FRA600 (still on loan from my friend) and the ZWO ASI2600MC Pro. I loaded the sequence that I created in advance and hit play. Everything went smoothly and I imaged until about 10:30 PM when at the Meridian. I did not take flats at start up as I knew the camera had to be rotated to get the framing I wanted. So, I came out at Meridian Flip and took my flats. Once completed, I resumed the sequence and went inside to go to sleep. I knew I would lose the target some time between 2:30 to 3 am. The sequence was set to stop capturing images around 2:50 am, park the scope, and warm the camera sensor. I got up the next morning and put my rig into the shed before work, putting everything away properly after work. I collected 150 2-minute exposures. The last 20 were in the trees. After viewing the exposures with Blink in PixInsight, I ended up with 126 usable exposures. This is the resulting image:

This image of The Leo Triplet was captured on 4/22/2025 from my backyard.

Now the exciting part (at least for me):

After processing the image, I noticed a faint streaked smudge. Having experience processing comets, I recognized that something had moved relative to the stars. When we stack an image with a comet with the image registered to the stars, we get a very similar artifact. See the images below to get a better view of the artifact and to see where in the image it is located. The first image below has two rectangles. The small rectangle was drawn around the area in the image containing the smudge/streak. The large rectangle is an Insert with a 2X magnification of the area is in the small rectangle. This was inserted with Seti Astro's Astromark signature and Insert Adder script in PixInsight. The arrow indicates the location of the smudge/streak. The second image is a crop of the insert.

My initial thought was that it must be an asteroid, and a bright asteroid too!! Now to confirm and identify the asteroid. The first step was to plate solve the image. PixInsight compares the stars in the image to a database and precisely determines the location. PixInsight refers to this as an Astrometric Solution. Once solved, another PixInsight tool was used to annotate the image (see What is it? below to see the annotated image). There it was Asteroid 8 Flora. I was very excited at this point! 

The insert shows the streaked smudge indicating an object that caught my attention. The small rectangle indicates the actual position in the image and the larger rectangle (inset is this area with 2X zoom).

A close up of the area in the insert. 

Now that the asteroid was confirmed and identified, I wanted to see how much it moved over the course of the imaging session. I opened the first and last individual subframes (subs) from the imaging session, Image 001 and Image 130 (images 130 to 150 were in the trees and were not useful). The first image was captured at 9:25 PM and the last usable image was captured at 2:33 AM. This is a duration of 5 hours and 8 minutes. This includes the time used to take flats early in the session. Only 126 subs were used to process the image due to image quality issues. That's why the integration time for the image is only 4.2 hours. I did some processing on the individual images to make them look more presentable. BlurXTerminator was used to make the star shapes better, NoiseXTerminator was used to reduce the noise, and the stretch from the Screen Transfer function was applied with histogram Transformation to permanently stretch the images. The arrows were added with Cosmic Photons' Draw Annotation script. The arrows indicate the position of the asteroid.

Image 001, the first sub captured. The arrow indicates the position of asteroid 8 Flora.

Image 130, the last usable image captured. The arrow indicates the position of Asteroid 8 Flora.

Here's an animated GIF to help show the motion.:

An animated GIF showing the motion of Asteroid 8 Flora over the duration of the imaging session.

Processing:

All pre and post processing was performed in PixInsight. Pre-Processing: All subs were visually inspected with Blink and subs with issues were removed. All light Frames, Flats, Darks and Dark flats were loaded into WBPP. Linear Post Processing: Background extraction was performed with GraXpert followed by BXT (correct only). SPCC was used for Color Calibration followed by a full application of BXT. The Stars were removed using StarXT. Starless Linear: Noise was reduced with NXT. The image was made non-linear with HT. Starless Non-linear Post Processing: Saturation and intensity were increased with CT. Exponential Transformation was used to increase intensity. The Create HDR Image script was used to compress the core of the galaxies (mask was used). The Image Blend script was used (with high pass filter) to increase sharpness. Stars Linear: The Stars image was made non-linear with Seti Astro's Star Stretch script. Stars Non-Linear: Saturation was increased with CT. Starless: Intensity, and contrast were adjusted with various applications of CT. The Stars and Starless images were combined with Pixel Math to produce the final image. 

What is it?

The Leo Triplet is also known as the M66 Group. It is a group of three galaxies in the constellation of Leo. The three galaxies that comprise the group are: M65, M66, & NGC 3628. NGC 3628 is also known as The Hamburger Galaxy. A faint tidal tale can be seen emanating from the lower righthand portion of NGC 3628. There are many more galaxies in this image, feel free to zoom in and look for tiny faint fuzzies.

Asteroid 8 Flora is in this field. It is a large, bright main-belt asteroid.

An annotated version of the image. Note asteroid 8 Flora is located in the lower left of the image.

How Big is it?

• M65 has a size of 9.8 x 2.9 arcminutes (1 degree is 60 arcminutes) on the night sky and is about 117,100 light-years in diameter. 
• M66 has a size of 9.1 x 4.1 arcminutes (1 degree is 60 arcminutes) on the night sky and is about 86,400 light-years in diameter. 
• NGC 3628 has a size of 13.1 x 3.1 arcminutes (1 degree is 60 arcminutes) on the night sky and is about 140,400 light-years in diameter. 
• Asteroid 8 Flora has an apparent size of 0.1 arcseconds and is 136 km in diameter.

How Far is it?

• M65 is located about 41 million light-years (ly) from Earth in the constellation Leo.
• M66 is located about 33 million light-years (ly) from Earth in the constellation Leo.
• NGC 3628 is located about 37 million light-years (ly) from Earth in the constellation Leo.
• Asteroid 8 Flora is 1.688 AU from Earth or about 14.04 light -minutes. One Astronomical Unit (AU) is the average distance to the Sun (93 million miles). 

How to find it?

The Leo Triplet is an excellent target for visual observation or astrophotography. To find it the it: first find the constellation Leo which is very well placed in the sky during the spring in the Northern Hemisphere. find "the Sickle" or "Backwards Question Mark", which is the front of the lion. The bright star Regulus is the handle of "the Sickle". Then find the slightly less bright star Denebola which is the tail of the lion. Moving in the direction of regulus, Chertan or Theta Leonis, is the next brightest star. It marks the hind quarters. Now move roughly in the direction of Virgo to find Iota Leonis, the lion's back leg. The Leo Triplet is about halfway between Chertan and Iota Leonis but slightly "off-line" in the direction of Denebola.

A finder chart for the Leo Triplet.

Image Details:

Capture Date: 04/22/2025

Location: Eden, NY

Telescope: Askr FRA600 (no reducer)

Camera: ZWO ASI2600MC Pro

Filter: none

Mount: Sky-Watcher USA EQ6-R Pro

Exposure: 126 exposures at 120 sec / Gain 100 / Offset 50 / -10°C each for a total exposure of  4.2 hours.

Software: NINA, SharpCap Pro, PHD2, and PixInsight

Clear Skies!

Ernie

Building a “Super” Wide-Field Imaging Rig.

Super Sizing my Field of View ...

I have been thinking about and planning my next Astrophotography acquisition for many months. At the end of last year, I made the decision build a “super” wide-field imaging rig. The initial purchase for this project was the telescope, an Askar FMA180 Pro. In addition to the telescope, I also purchased the Askar EAF kit for the FMA180 Pro, Player One Ceres-C Guide Camera, and SvBony 30 mm f/4 Guide Scope. I purchased both items from Astroworld Telescopes around the holidays. Astroworld is a new retailer for astronomy related equipment with a strong focus on astrophotography gear. The company was started around NEAF 2023 by Daniel Higgins. Dan is an astrophotographer himself and in my opinion, he truly provides excellent customer service. The plan is to pair Askar FMA180 Pro with my ZWO  ASI2600MC Pro (APS-C) One Shot Color (OSC) camera. Wait!!! Let me back up for a minute and get into why I'm heading down this path.

Why Build a “Super” Wide-Field Rig:

My current primary imaging rig is already somewhat wide-field. I use an Explore Scientific Essential Series ED80 Triplet Refractor with my ZWO ASI2600MC Pro camera. This telescope has an aperture of 80 mm, a focal length of 480 mm, and is f/6.  It is an entry level scope as far as quality goes, it has served me well but long-term plan is to upgrade and use this for visual observer. The 80 mm refractor will make a nice compliment to my 8" Dobsonian. 

This 80 mm refactor has been perfect for many targets (Orion Nebula, Western Veil Nebula, Eastern Veil Nebula, and many others. The next piece of equipment in my collection that has a wider-field of view (FOV) is my 50 mm lens (the Nifty Fifty) for my DSLR. This is quite a gap and has proven to be a limitation, especially when bright comets with long tails are visible, as was the case this past October. Additionally, I live in Western New York (WNY), not far from Buffalo, NY. The weather here is persistently cloudy, primarily due to our position relative to Lake Erie. Also, I'm very active in our local astronomy club's (Buffalo Astronomical Association) outreach activities, which results in losing some nights to outreach events. Factoring in life's other obligations, I get about one night of imaging a month (on average). This creates a real obstacle for going after mosaics to capture larger objects (entire Cygnus Loop, Heart & Soul nebulae together, etc...). 

I was looking for telescopes/camera lenses in the 135 mm to 200 mm focal length range. I narrowed my choices down to the Rokinon 135 mm lens and the Askar FMA180 pro. An astronomy pal has let me use his Askar FRA600 telescope while he recovers from shoulder surgery. I'm really impressed with the quality of the optics and the overall quality of the scope. Feedback on the Askar FMA180 pro from other members of my local club and members of the AstroworldTV Discord community helped me come to the decision to go with the Askar. I want to be clear; feedback was positive on the Rokinon lens was positive too. Overall, the Askar won out in my brain. The combination of the Askar FMA180 Pro and the APS-C sized sensor of my ZWO ASI2600MC Pro camera will give me a FOV of about 7.5 degrees by 5 degrees. Here are a few screenshots from the website Telescopius.com Telescope Simulator tool showing how some popular objects will be framed with this setup.

Equipment Needed for the Build:

The Telescope: Askar FMA180 Pro. 

• An apochromatic sextuplet refractor 
• 40 mm aperture
• 180 mm Focal Length
• f/4.5 Focal Ratio
• New Purchase (Astroworld Telescopes)

Imaging Camera: ZWO ASI2600MC Pro

• APS-C sensor (IMX 571)
• color
• 3.76 um pixels
• integrated USB 2.0 Hub
• USB 3.0
• Shared with existing rig

Guide Camera: Player One Ceres-C

• IMX 224
• Color (a mono camera would be more sensitive, color is fine for this rig)
• 3.75 um pixels
• New Purchase (Astroworld Telescopes)

Guide Scope: SvBony 30 mm f/4 Guide Scope

• 30 mm aperture
• 120 mm Focal length
• f/4
• Helical Focuser
• New Purchase (Astroworld Telescopes)

Other Items/Accessories:

• Askar EAF Kit for the FMA180 Pro (New Purchase - Astroworld Telescopes)
• ZWO EAF (shared with existing rig)
• Pegasus Astro Powerbox Advance (shared with existing rig)
• ZWO Filter holder (shared with existing rig)
• Dew Strips 
• Losmandy Style Rail to mount everything on 

Future Items:

• Apache Case
• Dedicated Pegasus Astro pocket Powerbox Advanced
• Mini PC

Build Status and Next Steps:

The rig is pretty much ready to go. I need to attach the Pegasus Powerbox (currently on my main imaging rig). I will share my imaging camera and the powerbox between the two rigs until I can afford to buy another powerbox (1st priority) and camera. I haven't had first light yet. That probably won't happen until late May / Early June. We are currently in galaxy season, as I write this in mid-April of 2025. I will use the FRA600 or our astronomy club's Celeston 14" Edge HD to image if any opportunities arise. They will be better suited for galaxies and my friend's shoulder will heal and he will want the FRA600 back. Looking forward to a super wide-field take on Nebula Season this year!

Clear Skies!
Ernie

Video - My Year (2024) in Astrophotography - Part 2

Happy New Year!!!

Hard to believe another trip around the Sun is almost coming to an end. Here's a little video of my astrophotography from 2024. This video is part 2 of 2. Wishing you and yours all the best for 2025!!!

Clear Skies!

Ernie

Click on the Square in the Bottom Right of the Window Below to View the Video Full Screen

Blog Posts Corresponding to Images in the Video:

M8, M20, and friends from across the street

A Smoky Sea Horse Nebula

A Tiptoe Through the Tulip Nebula

The Cocoon Nebula from the BMO

M16 from the BMO (No Blog post for this one)

NGC 281 - The Pac-Man Nebula

NGC 7331, The Deerlick Group from the Beaver Meadow Observatory (BMO)

October 2024: An Amazing Month for Astronomy - Part 2 (Comet C/2023 A3)

NGC 7635 - The Bubble Nebula - from The BMO

Video - My Year (2024) in Astrophotography - Part 1

It's that time of year again ...

Hard to believe another trip around the Sun is almost coming to an end. Here's a little video of my astrophotography from 2024. This video is part 1 of 2. Wishing you and yours all the best for the holidays! Here's to 2025!!!

Clear Skies!

Ernie

Click on the Square in the Bottom Right of the Window Below to View the Video Full Screen

Blog Posts Corresponding to Images in the Video:

A Tale of Two Supernova ... Part 1

A Tale of Two Supernova ... Part 2

M45 - The Pleiades

NGC 2237 - The Rosette Nebula (Skull Orientation)

M104 from the Beaver Meadow Observatory (BMO)

The Needle Galaxy (NGC 4565) from the Beaver Meadow Observatory (BMO)

First Light with the New Camera at the Beaver Meadow Observatory 

M51 from the BMO

NGC 7635 - The Bubble Nebula - from The BMO

 Bubblicious ...

Thursday November 7th & Tuesday November 12th were our club's (Buffalo Astronomical Association) imaging group (The Tuesday Night Imagers) imaging sessions at our club's dark sky observatory, The Beaver Meadow Observatory (BMO). Our club's Observatory Director and Tuesday Night ringleader ran the Celestron 14" Edge HD while another member ran the Tele Vue NP101is with his personal camera attached. I joined via Zoom. Of the two nights, the 12th had better seeing/transparency. The 7th was also plagued with software issues. They were not able to connect to the Pegasus Astro ultimate Power Box after a windows update. After several updates and reboots, the situation was resolved. 

I have (and continue) to take PixInsight classes from Masters of PixInsight. Their most recent Photons to Photos class was on processing Bubble Nebula data from a Celestron 14" Edge. The timing was perfect. I picked up a few techniques that were ultimately used to process this image. Here is the result.

NGC 7635 - The Bubble Nebula from 10/7 & 10/12 at the BMO.

Processing:

All pre and post processing was performed in PixInsight. Pre-Processing: Our club's Observatory Director pre-processed the images in PixInsight (WBPP) and sent me the Master Light image. Linear Post Processing: Background extraction was performed with Auto DBE Script from Seti Astro followed by BXT (correct only). SPCC was used for Color Calibration followed by a full application of BXT. The Stars were removed using StarXT. Starless Linear: Noise was reduced with NXT. The image was made non-linear with HT. Starless Non-linear Post Processing: The CreateHDRImage script was used to compress the Bubble and bright surrounding nebula (a mask was created and used by the script). Narrowband Normalization (Mode 1) was used to create the SHO or Hubble Palette look. Saturation and intensity were increased with CT. Sharpness was improved with ImageBlend script using a High Pass Filter. LHE was applied at 2 Kernel sizes. Additionally, Unsharp mask was applied. Finally, the DarkStructureEnhance script was applied (0.2). Stars Linear: The Stars image was made non-linear with Seti Astro's Star Stretch script. Stars Non-Linear: Saturation was increased with CT. Starless: Intensity, and contrast were adjusted with various applications of CT. The Stars and Starless images were combined with Pixel Math to produce the final image. 

What is it?

NGC 7635 is also known as Sharpless 162, Caldwell 11, and The Bubble Nebula. It is an H II region emission nebula in the constellation of Cassiopeia. The Stellar Wind from a young, massive, and hot central star has created the bubble by blasting it out of the glowing gas against the denser material in the surrounding molecular cloud.

Annotated image of NGC 7635 - The Bubble Nebula.

How Big is it?

NGC 7635 has a size of 15.0 x 8.0 arcminutes (1 degree is 60 arcminutes) on the night sky. It is about 6.1 light years in diameter (similar in size to our Milky Way Galaxy).

How Far is it?

NGC 7635 is located about 11,000 light-years (ly) from Earth.

How to find it?

The NGC 7635 is located about halfway between Cassiopeia and Cepheus, very close to the Open Star cluster Messier 52 (M52).  Dark skies, large aperture, and a nebula filter are helpful in viewing this group.

Finder Chart for NGC 7635, The Bubble Nebula.

Image Details:

Capture Date: 11/7/2024 & 11/12/2024

Location: North Java, NY (Buffalo Astronomical Association's Beaver Meadow Observatory)

Telescope: Celestron 14" Edge HD w/0.7x Reducer

Camera: OGMA AP26CC

Filter: Antlia Alp-T

Mount: Astro Physics AP1200 Mount

Exposure: 11/7: 9 exposures at 600 sec / Gain 100 / Offset 100 / -10° C each for a total exposure of 1.5 hours. 11/12: 22 exposures at 600 sec / Gain 100 / Offset 100 / -10° C each for a total exposure of 3.67 hours. The total combined integration time is 5.167 hours.

Software: NINA, PHD2, and PixInsight

Clear Skies!

Ernie

A Tiptoe Through the Tulip Nebula

 Target Number Two from Friday 7/26

So picking up from where we left off in the last post (click here). After taking flats with no filter to match my B150 exposures, I installed the L-eXtreme filter and took flats. Then slewed the telescope to the Tulip Nebula (SH2-101) in Cygnus. Started collecting subs at 2:40 AM and stopped the sequence at 3:57 AM due to the increasing sky brightness and immanent loss of the target to the trees in the West.  Sky conditions weren't great due to the smoke from the wildfires out west. I've settled on 180 sec as the default exposure time for imaging with the L-eXtreme. Here's the resulting image:

SH2-101, The Tulip Nebula

Something cool in the image:

Any Rush fans out there? Any fans of Black Holes? The star labeled as HD226868 in the annotated image below is the star that orbits the black hole Cygnus X-1! See if you can see a very faint arch starting from the label HD226868 and arcing back towards +35°20’. It is really subtle, but it is the bow shock created by one of the relativistic jets emanating from the black hole interacting a denser area of dense interstellar medium. Cygnus X-1 is one of the strongest X-ray sources detectable from Earth and the first X-ray source to be widely accepted as a black hole. Cygnus X-1's status as black hole was the subject of a friendly bet between Stephen Hawking and Kip Thorne.

Crop of the annotated image of SH2-101 highlighting the star (HD226868) that orbits the black hole Cygnus X-1.

Processing:

All pre and post processing was performed in PixInsight. Pre-Processing: All subs were visually inspected with Blink and subs with issues were removed. All light Frames, Flats, Darks and Dark flats were loaded into WBPP. Linear Post Processing: Background extraction was performed with Auto DBE Script from Seti Astro followed by BXT (correct only). SPCC was used for Color Calibration followed by a full application of BXT. Noise was reduced with NXT. The image was made non-linear with HT. Non-linear Post Processing: Stars were removed with StarXT. Stars: Saturation was increased with CT. Starless: The Narrowband normalization Process was used to get the "SHO" look. Color, intensity, and contrast were adjusted with various applications of CT. Saturation was increased with CT. LHE was applied at 3 Kernel sizes. Unsharp mask was applied and MMT was used to increase sharpness. The DSE script was used to enhance dark nebula regions. The Stars and Starless images were combined with Pixel Math to produce the final image. 

What is it?

The Tulip Nebula (SH2-101) is a bright nebula in the constellation Cygnus. This region of gas and dust is an HII region. Unlike the Dark Nebula B150, the gas in the tulip is ionized and is giving off its own light.

Annotated image of SH2-101

How Big is it?

SH2-101 has a size of 16 x 9 arcminutes (1 degree is 60 arcminutes) on the night sky. It is about 70 light years in diameter.

How Far is it?

SH2-101 is located about 6,000 light-years (ly) from Earth in the constellation Cygnus.

How to find it?

It may be possible to view this object visually (I have never done so). I would suggest a nebula filter (like a UHC filter) to improve contrast and make the nebula "pop" in the eyepiece.

SH2-101 is located in the neck of Cygnus the Swan. About 1/2 way between the head (Albireo) and Sadr.

Finder Chart for SH2-101.

Image Details:

Capture Date: 07/26/2024

Location: Eden, NY

Telescope: Askr FRA600 (no reducer)

Camera: ZWO ASI2600MC Pro

Filter: Optolong L-eXtreme

Mount: Sky-Watcher USA EQ6-R Pro

Exposure: 25 exposures at 180 sec / Gain 100 / Offset 50 / -10°C each for a total exposure of almost 1.25 hours.

Software: NINA, SharpCap Pro, PHD2, and PixInsight

Clear Skies!

Ernie

A Smoky Sea Horse Nebula

 It was perfectly clear, except for the wildfire smoke!

Friday 7/26 was the second night of what turned out to be a string of 4 clear nights. That was the good news. The bad news was that wildfire smoke from out west had rolled in. It would be the only night I would have any chance of imaging, so when we got home around 10 pm, I set up and was collecting subs by 11 pm. The week before I tore down my setup. I removed the dovetail saddle on my EQ6-R pro and replaced it with an ADM Saddle that was purchased at last year's NEAF. I also replaced my telescope with an Askar FRA600 that is on loan from a friend. He is unable to use the scope for a bit and generously allowed me to borrow it. I did some cleanish skies last Saturday night and was able to get focused and verify everything was working. 

The first target of the evening was Barnard 150, The Sea Horse Nebula. The 61% illuminated Moon rose around 11:38 PM. I continued to image this target until a little after 2 am, when the Moon started to clear the trees and was impacting the image quality. I took flats, popped the L-eXtreme filter in the image train, took flats with that and switched to a second target for the session. That will be another story. I captured a total of 74 exposures at 2 minutes each. Hope to get more time on this object, as I believe this will improve the result. Here's the final image. 

Barnard 150, The Sea Horse Nebula.

Processing:

All pre and post processing was performed in PixInsight. Pre-Processing: All subs were visually inspected with Blink and subs with issues were removed. All light Frames, Flats, Darks and Dark flats were loaded into WBPP. Linear Post Processing: Background extraction was performed with Auto DBE Script from Seti Astro followed by BXT (correct only). SPCC was used for Color Calibration followed by a full application of BXT. Noise was reduced with NXT. The image was made non-linear with HT. Non-linear Post Processing: Stars were removed with StarXT. Stars: Saturation was increased with CT. Starless: Saturation was increased with CT. LHE was applied at 3 Kernel sizes. Unsharp mask was applied and MMT was used to increase sharpness. The Stars and Starless images were combined with Pixel Math to produce the final image. 

What is it?

B150 is a Dark Nebula in the constellation Cepheus. It is an interstellar cloud and dust so dense that blocks the optical or visible light behind it (from our point of view). 

An Annotated image of B150.

How Big is it?

B150 has a size of 60 x 60 arcminutes (1 degree is 60 arcminutes) on the night sky. 

How Far is it?

B150 is located about 1,200 light-years (ly) from Earth in the constellation Cepheus.

How to find it?

I'm not going to say this object can't be observed visually because I don't know. I've never attempted to visually observe this. Definitely not a target for beginners. Dark skies with excellent seeing/transparency would be required to have a chance. This object is about 1 degree in angular size, so a fairly wide field of view would be required.

This object is in Cepheus as shown in the finder chart below. B150 is between Cepheus and Cygnus as indicated by the solid red rectangle in the finder chart.

Finding Chart for B150.

Image Details:

Capture Date: 07/26/2024

Location: Eden, NY

Telescope: Askr FRA600 (no reducer)

Camera: ZWO ASI2600MC Pro

Filter: none

Mount: Sky-Watcher USA EQ6-R Pro

Exposure: 74 exposures at 120 sec / Gain 100 / Offset 50 / -10°C each for a total exposure of almost 2.5 hours.

Software: NINA, SharpCap Pro, PHD2, and PixInsight

Clear Skies!

Ernie

M8, M20, and friends from the farm across the street

 Imaging in the heart of the Milky Way ...

I have not imaged with my home rig for several months. Been imaging with the club's scopes at the observatory and life has been pretty crazy (let's not talk about the weather). Saturday 7/6 was no exception. Our club had a Public Night at our observatory. I couldn't attend due to a family commitment. Fortunately, we got home in time to do some imaging. I live in farm country and have reasonably good skies. Unfortunately, I have a lousy horizon due to the trees. So, I set up across the street in my neighbor's backyard. Their yard borders their farm fields, so the horizon is amazing. This allowed me to go for M8 & M20, something I could never get from my yard.

I got imaging so late; I'm calling this on a Sunday 7/7 image. I had to stop multiple times due to clouds. Ended up with just under 2 hours of data (114 subs at 60 sec each). Really pleased with the result. Especially for a target that is so low in the sky here.

M8, M20, and friends from across the street from my house.

Processing:

All pre and post processing was performed in PixInsight. Pre-Processing: All subs were visually inspected with Blink and subs with issues were removed. All light Frames, Flats, Darks and Dark flats were loaded into WBPP. Linear Post Processing: Background extraction was performed with GraXpert followed by BXT (correct only). SPCC was used for Color Calibration followed by a full application of BXT. Noise was reduced with NXT. The image was made non-linear with HT. Non-linear Post Processing: Stars were removed with StarXT. Stars: Saturation was increased with CT. Starless: Saturation was increased with CT. LHE was applied at 3 Kernel sizes. Unsharp mask was applied and MMT was used to increase sharpness. The Stars and Starless images were combined with Pixel Math to produce the final image. I ended up with 2 versions one bright image and a darker version. I liked elements of each, bit was not totally satisfied with either. I ended blending both images (70% dark with 30% bright) to get the final image.  

What is it?

There is a lot going on in this image. The scope was pointed into the heart of the Milky Way. Going to focus on the three Messier objects in the image. 

Messier 8 (M8) The Lagoon Nebula. M8 is a large star forming region, some dark nebula, and a star cluster. This is giant glowing cloud of interstellar dust where stars are forming and have been formed (the star cluster).

Messier 20 (M20) The Trifid Nebula. M20is a unique combination of a star cluster, emission nebula, dark nebula, and a reflection nebula. It is called the Trifid nebula due to the tree lobed appearance.

Messier 21 (M21). M21 is an open star cluster located near M20. This is a relatively young cluster at about 4.6 million years old.

An annotated image of M8 & M20.

How Big is it?

M8 has a size of 9o x 40 arcminutes (1 degree is 60 arcminutes) on the night sky. It is 113.6 light-years (ly) in diameter.

M20 has a size of 29 x27 arcminutes (1 degree is 60 arcminutes) on the night sky. It is 43.9 light-years (ly) in diameter.

M21 has a size of 14 arcminutes (1 degree is 60 arcminutes) on the night sky. It is 20 light-years (ly) in diameter.

How Far is it?

M8 is located about 4,300 light-years (ly) from Earth in the constellation Sagittarius.

M20 is located about 5,200 light-years (ly) from Earth in the constellation Sagittarius.

M21 is located about 3,900 light-years (ly) from Earth in the constellation Sagittarius.

How to find it?

The lagoon is naked eye visible in dark sky locations. All three objects are located in the constellation Sagittarius, which is low in the South for Northern Hemisphere stargazers in the summer. Find the Teapot, they are located above (North) of the Spout of the Teapot.

A finder chart for M8 & M20

Image Details:

Capture Date: 07/06/2024 into the morning of 07/07/2024

Location: Eden, NY

Telescope: Explore Scientific ED80 Essential Series Air-Spaced Triplet Refractor

Camera: ZWO ASI2600MC Pro

Filter: none

Mount: Sky-Watcher USA EQ6-R Pro

Exposure: 114 exposures at 60 sec / Gain 100 / Offset 50 / -10°C each for a total exposure of 1.9 hours.

Software: NINA, SharpCap Pro, PHD2, and PixInsight

Clear Skies!

Ernie