70 refractor SolarQuest on Heliofind Mount

Sky-Watcher Australia

8 hours ago

Fine example of getting a beautiful astro image from fairly low-end equipment.

Ian Barrado @ian.barredo used his Sky-Watcher EQ3 mount carrying a Nikon D5300 DSLR camera to capture the most famous star cluster in the skies - The Pleiades (M 45). 13 exposures of 320 seconds at 800 ISO.

The Pleiades are popularly known as The Seven Sisters and by various names across a wide range of cultures. The pale, ghostly blue colour filaments in this image are the thin gas clouds of the Interstellar Medium (ISM) reflecting the light of the bright, hot "B" glass stars of the cluster itself. The finer details of the cluster are visible in long exposure images like this one, but even a pair of binoculars or a small telescope will reveal dozens of more stars than can be seen with the eye alone.

Thanks for sharing this Ian!

#skywatcheraustralia
#pleiades
#astro #astronomy #star #starcluster #m45 #nightphotography #nightsky #dslr #dslrastrophotography #astrophotography #deepspace #universe #universetoday #nebula #astrophysics #canonphotography @canonaustralia ... See MoreSee Less

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Sky-Watcher Australia

1 day ago

HAPPY 90th BIRTHDAY PLUTO!

After years of searching, on this day in 1930 astronomer Clyde Tombaugh confirmed the existence of a small body beyond the orbit of Neptune and the number of classic planets in the Solar System increased by one.

He discovered Pluto by painstakingly comparing images of star fields to spot a tiny dot that moved from night to night as it slowly orbited the Sun.

It's theoretically possible to see Pluto through a telescope of at least 300mm (12") or more aperture and even then it's very hard to determine which one the faint stars in the field of view is in fact Pluto. You're probably better off looking at images like this from the New Horizons spacecraft flyby in 2015.

So why isn't Pluto a planet any more? Lots of reasons. But it mainly boils down to Pluto being the first to be discovered of a vast number of objects in the Kuiper Belt. This is the largest structure in our Solar System and made up of many thousands of bodies, some larger and heavier than Pluto, to small chunks of rock and ice. If Pluto is a planet, why aren't all these bodies also planets?

Despite all this, Pluto will always Solar System favourite for many of us.

#skywatcheraustralia #pluto #solarsystem #kbo #kuiperbelt #astronomy #astro #deepspace #pluto90 #space #newhorizons #nasa #universe #universetoday #telescope #nightphotography #nightsky ... See MoreSee Less

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Sky-Watcher Australia

2 days ago

For the Sky-Watcher image of the week we head to Wellington New Zealand to stay on The Carina Nebula, this time by Matthew @mos_astro taken with a Williams Optics GT 81 mm refractor riding on a Sky-Watcher EQ6-R mount. This mid-range mount has proven a reliable workhorse for astrophotographers around the world. Imaging camera was a ZWO AIS1600 MM Pro for just under 20 hours using SharpCap Pro. (More info on the EQ6-R here bit.ly/2Xwyuxs )

A different mix of the narrowband data captured and the wider field view from the 81mm APO refractor gives another perspective of this jewel of the southern skies - plus it's good to see some astro images from NZ!

It's definitely worth a visit to Matthew's Astrobin page www.astrobin.com/9cltlm/0/ for complete details on how he captured and then processed this stunning image.
#skywatcheraustralia
#astrophotography #eq6r #narrowbandimaging #southernsky #nightsky #astroscape #astronomy #astro #telescope #nebula #EtaCarinae #hubblepalette #universe #universetoday @zwoasi #astrobin ... See MoreSee Less

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Sky-Watcher Australia

2 days ago

For the Sky-Watcher image of the week we head to Wellington New Zealand to stay on The Carina Nebula, this time by Matthew @mos_astro taken with a Williams Optics GT 81 mm refractor riding on a Sky-Watcher EQ6-R mount. This mid-range mount has proven a reliable workhorse for astrophotographers around the world. Imaging camera was a ZWO AIS1600 MM Pro for just under 20 hours using SharpCap Pro. (More info on the EQ6-R here bit.ly/2Xwyuxs )

A different mix of the narrowband data captured and the wider field view from the 81mm APO refractor gives another perspective of this jewel of the southern skies - plus it's good to see some astro images from NZ!

It's definitely worth a visit to Matthew's Astrobin page www.astrobin.com/9cltlm/0/ for complete details on how he captured and then processed this stunning image.

#skywatcheraustralia
#astrophotography #eq6r #narrowbandimaging #southernsky #nightsky #astroscape #astronomy #astro #telescope #nebula #EtaCarinae #hubblepalette #universe #universetoday @zwoasi #astrobin ... See MoreSee Less

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