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Rick Tyrrell
Rick Tyrrell
@southpawed.bsky.social
1 month ago
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When you behold a sky like this, best get your ass into the house. (From a summer storm threat that fortunately didn't manifest beyond cool photo opps, as seen in my previous post.) #photography #blueskyphotography #skyphotos #clouds #storms #darksies #summerstorms

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Hendrenimaging
Hendrenimaging
@hendrenimaging.bsky.social
1 year ago
NGC 253 - the Sculptor Galaxy. In August of 2003 my dad and I took my new 6" Schmidt-Newtonian telescope out on an overnight camping trip to Cottonwood Campground at the southern edge of Joshua Tree National Park. It was the first time I had owned a telescope of this size and also the first time I had done a serious night of stargazing under skies dark enough to really see the Milky Way. In going through a list of recommended targets, I sent the telescope slewing to NGC 253 and was amazed when I could faintly see the mottled detail of the two main spiral arms with the brightening of the bar across the middle. From that night, this has been my favorite galaxy, but I have never really felt like I had done it justice in my images taken with short focal length telescopes. The Sculptor Galaxy is also too far to the south for me to image from my observatory at GMARS, as the southern wall blocks anything below about 30 degrees. Last night, I finally got the chance to rectify that. I got out to the dark skies of Red Rock Canyon State Park just after sunset and planned to get as much data as I could with my Celestron EdgeHD 8" telescope at f/10 with a ZWO ASI2600MM-P camera and Optolong LRGB filters on a Sky-Watcher USA EQ6-R Pro mount. The seeing was extremely poor for the first part of the night, and strong smoke and airglow to the south made color balancing a real chore, but things settled down to average-ish seeing by about 11 PM. This image is the best 234 minutes (3.9 hours) of LRGB data. Acquired with ASIAir and processed with DSS, Pixinsight (BlurXterminator saves the day again!), and Photoshop.

NGC 253 - the Sculptor Galaxy. In August of 2003 my dad and I took my new 6" Schmidt-Newtonian telescope out on an overnight camping trip to Cottonwood Campground at the southern edge of Joshua Tree National Park. It was the first time I had owned a telescope of this size and also the first time I had done a serious night of stargazing under skies dark enough to really see the Milky Way. In going through a list of recommended targets, I sent the telescope slewing to NGC 253 and was amazed when I could faintly see the mottled detail of the two main spiral arms with the brightening of the bar across the middle. From that night, this has been my favorite galaxy, but I have never really felt like I had done it justice in my images taken with short focal length telescopes. The Sculptor Galaxy is also too far to the south for me to image from my observatory at GMARS, as the southern wall blocks anything below about 30 degrees. Last night, I finally got the chance to rectify that. I got out to the dark skies of Red Rock Canyon State Park just after sunset and planned to get as much data as I could with my Celestron EdgeHD 8" telescope at f/10 with a ZWO ASI2600MM-P camera and Optolong LRGB filters on a Sky-Watcher USA EQ6-R Pro mount. The seeing was extremely poor for the first part of the night, and strong smoke and airglow to the south made color balancing a real chore, but things settled down to average-ish seeing by about 11 PM. This image is the best 234 minutes (3.9 hours) of LRGB data. Acquired with ASIAir and processed with DSS, Pixinsight (BlurXterminator saves the day again!), and Photoshop.

NGC 253 - the Sculptor Galaxy.

The first galaxy I ever saw details on in 2003 with a 6" Telescope. Imaged in 2024 with my Celestron 8" EdgeHD and ZWO ASI2600MM. 234 minutes exposure time. #celestron #telescope #astronomy #space #galaxy #universe #stars #darksies #astrophotography

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