Eagle nebula aka Star Queen nebula (M16) in constellation Serpens, at about 7000 light years is home to the "Pillars of Creation" made famous by Hubble telescope. I always wanted to capture this but, my Southern sky is not completely open. I only get about one hour window for capturing these objects … read more

Another attempt at capturing Elephant trunk nebula (IC1396) in Cepheus. This large cloud of gas and dust is a star forming region with many 'young' (~100,000 years old) stars. Use of Nikon Z6 camera with the full frame sensor instead of the cropped sensor ASI533MC-pro astro camera, makes it a wider … read more

Soul nebula in Cassiopeia at about 6500 light years from us. This large emission nebula is often photographed with its neighbor - Heart nebula. WO ZS61 : ASI533MC-pro : L-eXtreme : 47x3min : SIRIL : PS read more

The Lagoon nebula (M8) is a large emission nebula in Sagittarius at about 5000 light years away. Its actual dimensions are about 100x50 light years. WO ZS61 : ASI533MC-pro : L-eXtreme : 55x1min : SIRIL : PS read more

Elephant Trunk nebula (IC1396) in Cepheus. This star forming area lies 3000 light years away. The elephant trunk structure that stretches from center to bottom right is about 30 light years long. WO ZS 61 - ZWO ASI533MC-PRO - LeNhance - 25x5min - SIRIL - PS read more

My best Andromeda galaxy image so far. It is only 30 minutes of total exposure but autoguiding makes a huge difference by making all the details clear and sharp. Have to collect more data on the next clear night. The Andromeda Galaxy, also known as Messier 31 (M31) is a barred spiral galaxy … read more

Pelican nebula (IC 5070) is located in Cygnus constellation, right next to the North American nebula. This emission nebula is about 1800 light years away and is 30 light years across. In this image I was struck by the incredible detail that can be seen in the silhouetted dark dust regions. Really … read more

On the night of Aug 13th, set up my camera to capture Perseid meteor showers. Over 5 hours, caught 3 meteors and about 2 hours of continuous cloudless sky to make a startrails image. Nikon Z6; Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8; 60 sec read more

Cygnus wall is a part of the North American nebula (NGC7000) with the most concentrated star formation. The dark area on the right is interstellar dust that is obscuring our view of this whole emission nebula. I think this is my best effort so far at capturing this nebula. This image was taken with … read more

Now with some experience with 2 different cameras on the same telescope, I can see how these different setups have different field of view and it can affect the framing of images. The cameras in this comparison are Nikon Z6, a full frame DSLR with 6048x2024 pixels and ZWO ASI533MC-PRO, a dedicated … read more

Last night was the first time using my new astrophotography setup with a dedicated astronomy camera ZWO ASI533MC-PRO and the small computer ASI AIRPlus that controls the whole setup. It was quick and easy to get polar aligned and focused using the app. Took me a little while to get auto-guiding to … read more

Back on April 21st, I captured an image of the Whirlpool galaxy (M51) and processed it without any calibration frames as I didn’t have flat frames that night. I took some flat frames on the following morning but forgot about it. Finally got around to use a full set of calibration frames (dark, flat … read more

One of my photos was published in the newsletter for a local land preservation trust, Lyme Land Trust. I have plenty of publications for my professional work but this recognition of my hobby makes me feel very happy. Here is the original photo that was captured back in the end of March 2022. It is … read more

The Pinwheel galaxy aka M101 is located in Ursa Major. This face on spiral galaxy is about 21 million light years away. It is a bit larger than Milky Way and has around a trillion stars. This image is a stack of 2 minute subs totaling ~3 hrs of exposure. Taken with William Optics ZenithStar 61 - … read more

I find M51 as one of the most striking images of a galaxy. M51 aka the Whirlpool galaxy along with its companion dwarf galaxy NGC5195 can be seen interacting with each other. This pair of galaxies is located in the constellation of Canes Venatici and is located about 28 million light years away. It … read more

Almost 25 years to the day when I took this photo of comet Hale-Bopp at Princeton Battlefield park in Princeton, NJ. This was taken with a Pentax K1000 - 50mm lens and Kodak Gold 100 film. I remember hiking in the Grand Canyon in following week and the comet looked so much brighter in dark skies out … read more

This is my first try at capturing Markarian’s chain in Virgo. This is a stretch of galaxies that are part of the Virgo cluster. I have seen images of this part of the sky and marveled at the rich field of galaxies. Finally, I was able to get the same view with my own equipment. This is only 1 hour … read more

Spring is officially galaxy season. Here are two groups of galaxies from the constellation Leo captured on two separate nights. In these images you can see billions of stars as each galaxy contains hundreds of millions to billions of stars. 1: The famous Leo triplet. (L to R) NGC3628 aka hamburger … read more

Another attempt at capturing Rosette nebula. This time I was able to get about 2 hrs of exposure instead of 20 mins for the first try a few days ago. There was also enough time to shoot calibration frames - darks, biases and flats. It is so easy to use these calibration frames in Siril. This allowed … read more

I so wanted to capture this for a long time. Last night I set up everything but clouds rolled in in about 20 minutes. That is why it is so noisy. Needs more time. Also, it was such a short exposure, I didn’t bother with calibration frames. This nebula is about 5200 light years away and is huge. The … read more