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):
    * IR_PASS 12 X 180s (36m)
    * L 19 X 180s (57m)
    * R 38 X 180s (114m)
    * G 32 X 180s (96m)
    * B 28 X 180s (84m)
    * Total: 6h45m

    Integration time target
    * Target: 10 hours
    * L/IR_PASS 100 X 180s (150m)
    * R 100 X 180s (150m)
    * G 100 X 180s (150m)
    * B 100 X 180s (150m)
    * Progress: 65%

17th October 2024

Seeing index: Good (4)
Jet stream: Good (9 m/s)
Transparency: Ave (3)

    Integration time (running total):
    * L 81 X 180s (252m)
    * R 73 X 180s (219m)
    * G 75 X 180s (225m)
    * B 72 X 180s (216m)
    * Ha 73 X 300s (365m)
    * Total: 21h17m

    Integration time target
    * Target: 28 hours
    * L 100 X 180s (300m)
    * R 100 X 180s (300m)
    * G 100 X 180s (300m)
    * B 100 X 180s (300m)
    * Ha 100 X 300 (500m)
    * Progress: 76%

7th January 2025

Integration time:
    * L 15 X 180s (45m)
    * R 13 X 180s (39m)
    * B 12 X 180s (36m)
    * G…

    Integration time (running total):
    * OSC 624 X 60s (624m)
    * Total: 10h24m
    

    Integration time (running total):
    * OSC 92 X 300s (460m)
    * Total: 7h40m
    
    Integration time target
    * Target: 7 hours
    * Progress: 109%

    Integration time (running total):
    * OSC RGB 18 X 120s (36m)
    * OSC NB 156 X 300s (780m)
    * Total: 13h00m
    
    Integration time target
    * Target: 12 hours
    * Progress: 108%

The imaging is finished for now. The data is excellent and deserves to be experimented with in processing. The RGB stars also need to be implemented.

    Integration time (running total):
    * OSC 81 X 60s (81m)
    * Total: 1h21m
    

Seeing index: Ave (3)
Jet stream: Ave (16 m/s)
Transparency: Ave (3)

    Integration time (running total):
    * OSC 44 X 300s (220m)
    * Total: 3h40m

Seeing index: OK (3)
Jet stream: Good (7 m/s)
Transparency: Good (4)