25 minute exposure of NGC 2264 taken with a seestar s50. Testing the new denoise function added in the most resent seestar firmware update.

No further post processing so colors seem to be a bit off as a result of the denoise feature, but otherwise an amazing result as most images from the seestar s50 contain a lot of RGB noise!

Shot with Vaonis Vespera II smart scope. 30 minutes of observation.

This is a first test to shoot NGC 7293 with a 135mm lens. Sadly we could only gather 15 min exposure time as the time frame for shooting this nebula is super short and we had a lot of clouds. Hopefully we have better conditions next year. But this test makes us hopeful to get a decent image with our equipment.

• Samyang 135mm
• Fuji X-T5
• dual narrowband filter
• Star Adventurer 2i
• 29 * 30s
• stacked in Siril
• BXT, NXT, SXT
• final editing in PS

I recently discovered the Open Astro Tracker by OpenAstroTech. Does anyone have experience with it and can recommend it? I don't want to spend time and money for a product that maybe won't work, but I really like the idea of a self build tracker. I also like that it can be upgraded later by adding things like a autoguider

Because my camera is only ~1kg (2.2lbs) the small model is enough and I don't plan on upgrading anytime soon. If I can be sure it will work, its fine if it takes some time to print and assemble.

Also, can someone make a rough estimation of the price? On the website it is around 250€ for a complete kit, but I have a 3d printer and don't need the autoguider right now. For me that seems a little expensive for mostly 3d printed parts.

Panasonic FZ70

Or would the tolerances needed in the hinged mirror make the whole thing unusable?

I was looking at modern "smart telescopes" recently and noticed some are sideways and wondered if that would be possible for a normal hobby Newtonian telescope.

Possible upsides:

• no tripod needed for use
• mirror is light so smaller motors can be used for movement

Possible downsides:

• maybe mirror flatness?

EDIT/UPDATE: so i tryed it with a 75mm first surface mirror, it kinda worked, at least better than a normal mirror, but i wasnt able to get it as sharply focused as i like. I suspect the mirrior i use has micro ripples because its just 2mm thick and doesent look like its seen a polishen process....guess thats how far a budget of 25bucks gets ya

I'm thinking about an IoT Polar Aligner. The main idea is to use a Raspberry Pi W with the camera module to find and detect the North Star and display it on the mobile phone. The final goal is to connect it with servos so that it can automatically align itself. Does anyone know of a similar open source project?

Crosspost: https://mander.xyz/post/20076533

Got another shot at C/2023 A3.

• Samyang 135mm f2.0
• Fuji X-T5
• 603 x 5s
• ISO 400
• Stacked, streched in Siril
• combined stars, comet and foreground in Photoshop

Southern Ohio, USA. Bortle 3. Exif data is in the image. Colored adjusted in Gimp. We actually saw zero meteors. I was quite disappointed until I got home and looked at the RAW files in Windows Photos Legacy. I found 8-9 meteors! Apparently RAW files have some magic going on.

Saw two shooting stars pop up while watching the comet last night, one of them showed up in the exposure I was taking at the time.
Canon R8 w 13s exposure, iso 8000, f7.1; cropped.

Taken with Vaonis Vespera II smart scope.

Taken with Pixel phone over 4:00 minutes in Astro mode. RAW further edited in Snapseed.

Got lucky with a clear night.

We got extremely lucky and got a tiny window of cloudless sky in an never ending sequence of cloudy nights. Also the conditions were a nightmare with severe light pollution and lights shining directly at our equipment.

• Samyang 135mm f2.0
• Fuji X-T5
• 158 x 5s
• ISO 125
• @f2.8

And maybe somebody here can explain to us what the ionized gas is that 'shoots out‘ in front of the comet?

Also do the colours seem to be correct? We tried our best at background extraction and maintaining the true colour, but the raw data was of poor quality. From images of other comets the dust tails normally seems to have a yellow/orange colour and only the plasma tail is blue.

Edit: found the answer to the Anti-tail. It shows the trail of dust were the comet has traveled, which appears to come out at the opposing side because of earths angle relative to the comet and sun.

Equipment:

• Samyang 135mm f2.0 lens
• Fuji X-T5 (unmodified)
• Star Adventurer 2i

Images:

• 220 x 60s
• ISO 400

Processing:

• stacked in Siril
• remove green noise
• background extraction
• BlurXTerminator
• NoiseXTerminator (0.5)
• GHST
• final editing and recomposition in Photoshop

More details: https://telescopius.com/pictures/view/202996/deep_sky/ngc-1456/pleiades/by-maxi_franzi

We really struggled to combine RGB with Ha. For our first try at continuum subtraction however we are very pleased.

Equipment:

• Samyang 135mm f2.0 lens
• Fuji X-T5 (unmodified)
• Star Adventurer 2i
• STC duo narrowband filter

Images:

• 288x 60s RGB
• 592x 60s narrowband

Processing:

• stacked in Siril
• remove green noise
• background extraction
• star removal on both rgb and Ha
• continuum subtraction with Pixelmath in Siril
• adding Ha to RGB with Pixelmath
• BlurXTerminator
• NoiseXTerminator (0.5)
• GHST
• final editing and recomposition in Photoshop

Full resolution and more details: https://telescopius.com/pictures/view/202859/deep_sky/ngc-206/m31-andromeda/by-maxi_franzi

~600 images with 4 seconds exposure without a tracker. This is my first ever (successful) try of any object on the night sky. I did a post a few weeks ago asking for a camera setup, and I went and bought a panasonic lumix g85 with the 45-150 f4-5.6 lens I had in mind before that. I know this is not the ideal setup, but I am still very proud of that image. Although I would appreciate any feedback on how to improve my skills.

M31 shot only in Ha and OIII.

Equipment:

• Samyang 135mm f2.0
• Fuji X-T5 unmodified
• Star Adventurer 2i
• STC dual narrowband filter

Images:

• 650x 60s
• ISO 3200

Processing:

• remove green noise
• background extraction
• photometric colour calibration
• BluXTerminator
• NoiseXTerminator (0.4)
• star removal
• GHST
• saturation, blending and final adjustments in Photoshop