Integration time (running total):
    * HA 19 X 300s (95m)
    * SII 18 X 300s (90m)
    * OIII 18 X 300s (90m)
    * Total: 4h35m

    Integration time (running total):
    * HA 14 X 300s (70m)
    * SII 12 X 300s (60m)
    * OIII 12 X 300s (60m)
    * Total: 3h10m

A bright emission nebula located at a distance of 9,800 light years. The evening of 3rd Jan 2026 was dominated by a full Moon for the whole night as it tracked high across the sky. This made any broadband imaging impossible especially as the Moon’s path ran across the majority of this season’s most interesting deep sky objects. That aside, the sky was nicely stable with good transparency allowing excellent guiding with only one dropped frame in nearly thirteen hours.

A bright emission nebula located at a distance of 6,400 light years. Young stars at the centre of the nebula generate stellar winds and create beautiful complex patterns and shapes.

    Integration time (running total):
    * HA 49 X 180s (147m)
    * Total: 2h27m

Notes

Melotte 15 - the heart of the Heart Nebula in Cassiopeia. 2h27m of Hydrogen Alpha at F12 (equivalent of about 40mins in the F4.5 Newtonian). It needs a lot more time and better skies to have the resolution I think it can achieve but I think it’s worth pursuing. The Classical Cassegrain 1836mm F12 + Player One Uranus M uncooled mono camera with 2.9 micron pixels gives an image resolution of 0.33 arc…

Part of the supernova remnant known as the Cygnus Loop. Imaged last year but just processed in the Hubble palette.

    Integration time (running total):
    * OSC 106 X 120s (212m)
    * OSC 106 X 10s (12m)
    * Total: 2h24m
    

    Integration time (running total):
    * L 14 X 60s (14m)
    * R 12 X 60s (12m)
    * G 12 X 60s (12m)
    * B 12 X 60s (12m)
    * Total: 50m

Notes

The bright supernova is visible adjacent to the bright core of galaxy NGC7331 40,000,000 light-years away.

    Integration time (running total):
    * L 14 X 60s (14m)
    * R 12 X 60s (12m)
    * G 12 X 60s (12m)
    * B 12 X 60s (12m)
    * Total: 50m

Notes

Messier 10 is a very low target from 52°N and one which I had never considered photographing. The poor visibility is made worse by the poor southern horizon here. However, the short integration time has produced a remarkably good image of this beautiful globular cluster, helped by the stable sky this evening. This was really an experiment to…

    Integration time (running total):
    * L 18 X 180s (54m)
    * R 15 X 180s (45m)
    * G 17 X 180s (51m)
    * B 18 X 180s (54m)
    * HA 15 X 180s (45m)
    * Total: 4h09m

Notes

Imaged in May, the Splinter Galaxy showed no signs of the tidal tail which probably needs darker skies than I have here in Coventry to be photographically visible.

    Integration time (running total):
    * L 18 X 180s (54m)
    * R 15 X 180s (45m)
    * G 17 X 180s (51m)
    * B 18 X 180s (54m)
    * HA 15 X 180s (45m)
    * Total: 4h09m

Notes

Continuing what has been an incredible galaxy season weather-wise with another version of a large galaxy. Again I decided to reimage this in monochrome with additional weighting for the Hydrogen Alpha channel to highlight the star-forming regions.