After a few clear nights on the Elephant's Trunk, I had one more clear night before a week of rain so I went after a bright target that would look decent even with just a night's worth of data on it. The Western Veil Nebula (aka the Witch's Broom) is pretty bright object, and we haven't had a chance to image the Veil the past two years, so I gave it a shot. I got 3.85 hours on it with the Newtonian, and it turned out pretty good.
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Western Veil/Witch's Broom Nebula (NGC 6960)
Celestron Astromaster 114 (Scope), Skywatcher GTi (Mount)
Player One Ares-C Pro (Main), ZWO 120mm Mini (Guide)
Bloomington, MN (Bortle 8)
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#highpointscientific #veilnebula #nebula #ngc6960 #astrophotography #astronomy #bloomingtonmn #mn #minnesota #minnesota #bortle8 #bortle8sky #optolong #optolonglenhance #playerone #arescpro #playeronearescpro #pixinsight #photography

I’m so glad that I spent more time on the Elephant’s Trunk! A lot of faint nebulae were visible in my last image but now that I have over 10 hours on it, it all just pops out. It gives the trunk a lot of contrast, revealing all of the detailed structure it has. I even gave BlurXTerminator a go which fixed the star shapes and sharpened up the nebulae, and made the already-detailed trunk even more incredible.

421x90s lights (10.53 hours), darks, flats, biases stacked and edited in PixInsight.
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The Elephant's Trunk (IC 1396)
Meade RB-70 (Scope), SkyWatcher GTi (Mount)
Player One Ares-C Pro (Main)
Bloomington, MN (Bortle 8)
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#highpointscientific #nebula #elephantstrunknebula #ic1396 #photography #astrophotography #astronomy #pixinsight #graxpert #playerone #playeroneastronomy #sonysensor #arescpro

My grandpa imaged the Needle Galaxy over 4 nights this week. He got almost 8 hours on it but we had to remove about 2 hours bringing the total to 6. I love how this one turned out! Lots of detail and color, and all of that has been carefully preserved in the core. It's naturally brighter than the rest of the galaxy, but dim enough where you can still make out the details in it.

To the left of the Needle is it's satellite galaxy NGC 4562. To the bottom right of the Needle is it's other satellite galaxy IC 3571, represented in a small blue smudge, which is confirmed to be interacting with the Needle due to a bridge of material between them.

90x240s lights (6 hours) stacked and edited in PixInsight
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The Needle Galaxy (NGG 4565)
Celestron EdgeHD 8" (Scope), Celestron CGEM-II (Mount)
ZWO 294MC Pro (Main)
Jefferson, WI (Bortle 5)
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#highpointscientific #needlegalaxy #ngc4565 #zwo #294mcpro #zwo294mcpro #galaxy #astrophotography #astronomy #jeffersonwisconsin #wisconsin #jeffersonwi #space

My grandpa captured the Fireworks Galaxy in the middle of May and got almost 5 hours on it! The Fireworks Galaxy is located on the border between the constellations Cepheus and Cygnus. It is a bright, colorful galaxy with a yellowish core, large clusters of blue stars, and many Ha regions (which aren't shown in this image). It's called the 'Fireworks' Galaxy because 10 supernovae have been observed in it over the past century.

70x240s lights (4.67 hours), flats, darks, and biases stacked in Deep Sky Stacker, edited in Siril and background extraction and noise reduction applied with GraXpert.
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Fireworks Galaxy (NGC 6946)
Celestron EdgeHD 8" (Scope), Celestron CGEM-II (Mount)
ZWO 294MC Pro (Main), ZWO 224MC Color (Guide)
Jefferson, WI (Bortle 4.5)
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#fireworksgalaxy #galaxy #ngc6946 #spiralgalaxy #astrophotography #astronomy #photography #highpointscientific #jefferson #jeffersonwi #wisconsin #jeffersonwisconsin #wi #suburb #suburban #suburbs #celestron #edgehd #edgehd8 #schmidtcassegrain

NGC 3227 is a rarely-imaged spiral galaxy located in the constellation Leo that interacts with the elliptical galaxy, NGC 3226. My grandpa imaged this galaxy from late April to early May and got 9.6 hours on it. I like the color of this galaxy a lot and it looks like it has a gradient of color that goes from a light blue to more of a golden brown.

144x240s lights, flats, darks, and biases stacked in Deep Sky Stacker, edited in Siril and background extraction and noise reduction applied with GraXpert.
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NGC 3227/NGC 3226
Celestron EdgeHD 8" (Scope), Celestron CGEM-II (Mount)
ZWO 294MC Pro (Main), ZWO 224MC Color (Guide)
Jefferson, WI (Bortle 4.5)
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#jeffersonwi #jeffersonwisconsin #jefferson #ngc3227 #ngc3226 #galaxy #interactinggalaxies #astrophotography #astronomy #highpointscientific #deepskystacker #dss #siril #graxpert

After getting 4 hours on the Horsehead Nebula in December, my grandpa decided to collect some more data on it, bringing it to a total of 9 hours of data! The extra data really brings out the faint dust around the red cloud of ionized hydrogen, adding a lot of depth to the photo. I also really like how this image is rotated as it makes the image look more dramatic.

137x240s lights, flats, darks, and biases stacked in Deep Sky Stacker, edited in Siril, and noise reduction applied in Adobe Lightroom mobile.
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IC 434/Barnard 33
Celestron EdgeHD 8" (Scope), Celestron CGEM-II (Mount)
ZWO 294MC Pro (Main), ZWO 224MC Color (Guide)
Jefferson, WI (Bortle 4.5)
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#horsehead #nebula #ic434 #barnard33 #astrophotography #highpointscientific #zwo #294mcpro #zwo294mcpro #adobelightroom #dss #deepskystacker #siril #photography #horse #jefferson #jeffersonwi #jeffersonwisconsin #wisconsin

The Rosette nebula!! A year ago I couldn’t even imagine getting a shot like this, or not even in October when I first captured it! The Optolong L-eNhance has greatly helped achieve this, along with the auto guider which allows me to not worry about backlash and take even longer exposures that the filter allows.

Over 3 nights last week I got over 110 5-minute subs which got me close to 10 hours of data total! The data is also very clean and it allowed me to stretch a lot of faint details from the center of the nebula without bringing out too much noise.

116x300s lights (9.67 hours) at ISO 1600 with darks, flats, and biases stacked in Deep Sky Stacker, edited in Siril, GraXpert, and noise reduction applied in Adobe Lightroom mobile.
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Rosette Nebula (NGC 2244)
Modified Celestron Astromaster 114 (Scope), SkyWatcher GTi (Mount)
Stock Canon Rebel T4i (Main), ZWO 120mm Mini (Guide), Optolong L-eNhance (Filter)
Bloomington, Minnesota (Bortle 8)
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#highpointscientific #nebula #rosettenebula #rosette #ngc2244 #skywatcher #gti #meade #telescope #astrophotography #astronomy #siril #deepskystacker #adobelightroom #lightroom #adobelightroommobile #minnesota #mn #bloomingntonmn #jeffersonwi #wi #wisconsin #city #dss