Hersey – Page 2 – The Suffolk Sky

12/22/2024 – The Christmas Tree Cluster

December 23, 2024 by Hersey

Merry Christmas!!! NGC 2264 and the surrounding area seemed like a very appropriate target for this time of year. Very cold (24 F), mostly clear, night with a waning last quarter Moon which did not rise until after midnight. A few high…

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Learning PixInsight – Create and Use a Synthetic Flat

December 12, 2024 by Hersey

I have been going through some of my old data practicing with different tools and processing in PixInsight. I had a stack of 18 x 300 seconds of the Leo Triplet which I captured in early April 2024. There were a lot…

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Learning PixInsight – Just Getting Started

December 9, 2024 by Hersey

Recently I requested and downloaded the free trial from PixInsight. Wanted to give it a try to see what I could do with it and see if it might be worth the price. In this post I’ll jump around PixInsight a bit…

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12/07/2024 – The Flaming Star Nebula

December 8, 2024 by Hersey

A little warmer, but still a cold (low 30’s) and mostly clear night. There were a few high clouds early on, but these cleared up around 7:30 PM or so. A bit more of the waxing Moon, but still not enough to…

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12/06/2024 – The Jellyfish Nebula, IC 443

December 7, 2024 by Hersey

Nice clear, cold night. Little bit of a waxing Moon (30% or so), not yet bright enough to cause to many issues. Uncovered the scope in the early afternoon and cooled down the camera. After the Sun set I did a quick…

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12/03/2024 – Two Nights of Tadpoles, a Spider, and a Fly

December 4, 2024 by Hersey

Continued collecting some more light from the Tadpole Nebula, the Spider Nebula, and the Fly Nebula through the AT66ED with the ZWO Duo-Band Filter. Ended up with 3 hours of light from 12/02 and 7 hours from 12/03. A total of 10…

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Quick Peek – Some Tadpoles, a Spider, and a Fly

December 3, 2024 by Hersey

Just wanted to share a quick peak at some light I collected from IC 410 (the Tadpole Nebula), IC 417 (the Spider Nebula), and NGC 1931 (the Fly Nebula) on 12/02/2024. I plan to collect more photons from these objects over the…

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Learning NINA – Custom Mount Park Position with GSServer

December 1, 2024 by Hersey

A buddy and fellow amateur astrophotographer suggested this method of parking the telescope with the OTA facing down to help keep dust, dew, and frost off the primary objective of the telescope. This can be accomplished by setting a custom park position…

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11/29/2024 – NGC 1499 The California Nebula

November 30, 2024 by Hersey

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. The day after Thanksgiving was partly/mostly cloudy most of the day but the Clear Outside Forecast was calling for the sky to clear up just after dark and it did, mostly. A few thin clouds here…

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11/24/2024 – Triangulum with the AT66 and SV240

November 25, 2024 by Hersey

Nice night to grab some light from a far away place. Cool in the low 40s (upper 30s by the end of the night), very nice an clear with no Moon. The plan for the night was to shoot a galaxy, something…

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