Tonight is probably the first perfect night for star-gazing for a very very long time! The sky looks clear and the forecast also looks very promising! So lets see which surprises this night is going to have 🙂
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Behind the unspectacular name NGC6914 a nice emission nebula in constellation Cygnus is hiding. To me the nebula looks a little like a dark monster with two deep blue eyes in the center of the picture 😀
The picture is also available in full resolution here.
 | Date | 2015/07/15 |
 | Location | Böblingen / Germany |
 | Object | NGC6914 (Emission Nebula) |
 | Camera | Atik383L+ |
 | Guiding | yes, QHY5-II Mono via OAG |
 | Telescope | 8" GSO Newtonian |
 | Barlow lens | none |
 | Mount | EQ6Syntrek |
 | Cooling | -15°C |
 | Luminance | 7x, 600s, bin: 1x1 |
 | Red | 5x, 150s, bin: 2x2 |
 | Green | 5x, 150s, bin: 2x2 |
 | Blue | 5x, 150s, bin: 2x2 |
 | Dark | 10x |
 | Flat | 10x |
 | Total exposure | ~1h50min. |
Clear skies!
Last updated: June 16, 2022 at 23:19 pm
This article is about Astrophotography in Oberstdorf. Last year I put all my equipment into the car and drove to Lake Garda. Unfortunately, in contrast to the forecast I had lots of clouds and no chance to take a good astro-picture. Last weekend I decided to give it another try and took all my equipment to Oberstdorf – a small village at the foot of the German Alps. Beside hiking I think this place is well suited for astrophotography.
I found a good place not far from the center of Oberstdorf, with free view to Polaris and almost no traffic:
GPS coordinates: 47°24’17.5″N 10°17’28.9″E
Important update: The described location can only be reached by car when driving into a “no entry” road. Of course you do this on your own risk.
(Oh, and btw. a good Italian restaurant is also not too far: Ai Quattro Canti…)
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vdB 126 is a reflection nebula in constellation Vulpecula. To me it looks like a black claw with at least 4 fingers.
I like the many stars in this region! In this clear night I was able to get 8 good IR frames before the moon rose. For stacking I used DeepSkyStacker 3.3.2 with Kappa-Sigma Clipping. The picture is also available in full resolution here. Finally, I decided to put it into my My Top Astro-Pics gallery.
| Date | 2015/07/08 |
| Location | Böblingen / Germany |
| Object | vdB126 (Reflection nebula) |
| Camera | Atik383L+ |
| Guiding | yes, QHY5-II Mono via OAG |
| Telescope | 8 |
| Barlow lens | none |
| Mount | EQ6Syntrek |
| Cooling | -15°C |
| Luminance | 8x, 600s, bin: 1x1 |
| Red | 7x, 150s, bin: 2x2 |
| Green | 7x, 150s, bin: 2x2 |
| Blue | 7x, 150s, bin: 2x2 |
| Dark | 10x |
| Flat | 10x |
| Total exposure | ~2h12min. |
Clear skies!
Last updated: June 16, 2022 at 23:33 pm
The evening of 24th June 2015 was a warm and nice summer evening. All the clouds vanished and the forecast predicted a clear night 🙂 Since I didn’t image a nebula for quite some time I decided to image one this night. Recently I came across Sh2-88 which is an HII emission nebula in constellation Vulpecula. So this should have been the target for tonight!
I saw some great pictures of Sh2-88 before which have been taken using an H-alpha filter. Since I am not yet having an H-alpha filter I just decided to give it a try without H-alpha. Of course the nebula structures don’t come out as good as when using a such a filter. But I am still satisfied for a picture with just 5 IR frames. The seeing with my f/5 GSO Newton (F=1000mm) was around 2.1″ – so quite good for this region.
| Date | 2015/06/24 |
| Location | Böblingen / Germany |
| Object | Sh2-88 (Emission nebula) |
| Camera | Atik383L+ |
| Guiding | yes, QHY5-II Mono via OAG |
| Telescope | 8" GSO Newtonian |
| Barlow lens | none |
| Mount | EQ6Syntrek |
| Cooling | -15°C |
| Luminance | 5x, 600s, bin: 1x1 |
| Red | 5x, 150s, bin: 2x2 |
| Green | 5x, 150s, bin: 2x2 |
| Blue | 5x, 150s, bin: 2x2 |
| Dark | 3x |
| Flat | 10x |
| Total exposure | ~1h27min. |
Clear skies!
Last updated: June 17, 2022 at 6:58 am