Hector's Astro House

Hector's Astro House My name is Dave and I have 2 passions. My first is BBQ and I have a YouTube and page called Hectors Smokehouse. My second has been astronomy.

I've only just got into Astrophotography and this page chronicles my journey

Haven't had a chance to play with the telescope for a while. Having a play with new software, this is 47 Tucanae, 13000 ...
31/10/2021

Haven't had a chance to play with the telescope for a while. Having a play with new software, this is 47 Tucanae, 13000 Light Years away and is the secong brightest Globular Cluster in the sky. This is shot with the red filter.
Later tonight I've having another go at the Horsehead Nebular in LRGB

This was a very difficult target from 2 nights ago. This is NGC2264 The Christmas Tree Cluster, Cone Nebula and the Fox ...
09/01/2021

This was a very difficult target from 2 nights ago. This is NGC2264 The Christmas Tree Cluster, Cone Nebula and the Fox Fur Nebula. This was very faint and initially I thought that I didn't have any data, it took a lot of work to stretch it out of Photoshop.
This Nebula is very close to us at 2600 Light Years, so this photo is showing what was happening in this star forming region in 600BC 😁
I used 20 x 5 minute exposures but think I would have benefited using 10 mins in SHO. I think this will be something I keep going back to , to create more data and therefore more detail, as some detail is definitely missing.

I decided to reprocess my Eta Carinae photo. This time I used H,O,O on the RGB channels and it gives a much more realist...
09/01/2021

I decided to reprocess my Eta Carinae photo. This time I used H,O,O on the RGB channels and it gives a much more realistic colour due to the high Hydrogen Alpha (Red) content.
I prefer this more redder version, which do you prefer?

This is NGC3722 ETA Carinae Nebula. It is 4 times larger than the Orion Nebula and can be seen with the naked eye, under...
08/01/2021

This is NGC3722 ETA Carinae Nebula. It is 4 times larger than the Orion Nebula and can be seen with the naked eye, under a completely dark sky. It is around 8000 Light Years away.
Unfortunately this Nebula can only be seen in the Southern Hemisphere, due to it being so close to the Southern Celestial Pole. This photo uses the Hubble Telescope colour palette to show more contrast and detail. It has a lot of Hydrogen so would typically be redder. This photo has 23 x 5 minute exposures in Sulfur, Hydrogen and Oxygen.

Hot off the press😁 This is the first 5 minute exposure using an Oxygen filter of the Eta Carinae Nebula, close to the So...
07/01/2021

Hot off the press😁 This is the first 5 minute exposure using an Oxygen filter of the Eta Carinae Nebula, close to the Southern Celestial Pole. I'm planning around 23 x 5 minute exposures in Oxygen, Sulfur and Hydrogen. So a total exposure time of around 6 hours. Just need a whole clear night 😁

Hopefully we will be shooting tonight,after a terrible couple of months of cloudy skies. The skies were clearer in Winte...
07/01/2021

Hopefully we will be shooting tonight,after a terrible couple of months of cloudy skies. The skies were clearer in Winter 😂
Tonights target is the Eta Carinae Nebula, which is only visible in the Southern Hemisphere. Fingers crossed it keeps clear 😁😀

The new wide field, lighter weight set up is ready to go. Just need some clear nights 😁This will be more difficult to u...
09/10/2020

The new wide field, lighter weight set up is ready to go. Just need some clear nights 😁
This will be more difficult to use, it doesn't have a 'go-to' function. It'll take longer to find deep space objects but its more portable and I'll be able to take it to some dark sky sites.
- Star Adventurer 2 Mount
- Redcat 51 50mm refractor
- ZWO ASI294 Colour Camera
- ZWO EAF Auto Focus
- Astrodad Focus Kit
- Dew Heater Bands
- ZWO ASIAIR Pro Computer
- Williams Optics Uniguide 32
- ZWO ASI120 Guide Camera

This is the Rosette Nebula. It mainly consists of Hydrogen Alpha. It is relatively close, being inbetween our spiral arm...
03/10/2020

This is the Rosette Nebula. It mainly consists of Hydrogen Alpha. It is relatively close, being inbetween our spiral arm and the next one out. It is around 5200 Light Years away, so this light is from around the 'Age of the Pyramids"
It would take 130 light years just to travel across the Rosette. The central hole would take 30 light years to cross and the whole Nebula has around 10,000 solar masses (stars). You would be able to fit 5 of our moons into this nebula, so again it is large in the sky but not very bright.
l'm definitely improving my processing but need to work more on the stars.
- 20 x 180s Ha subs
- 20 x 180s Oiii subs
- 14 x 180s Sii subs
- Darks, Flats and Bias frames
- Skywatcher Esprit ED100 Telescope
- EQ6-R Pro Mount
- ZWO ASI1600MM Pro Camera
- ZWO ASI120 Guide Camera
- ZWO ASIAIR Pro Computer
- Pegasus Dew Heater
- ZWO EAF Autofocuser
- Deep Sky Stacker
- Photoshop

When you use narrowband filters rather than the traditional RGB filters or colour camera, you can be a bit more inventiv...
02/10/2020

When you use narrowband filters rather than the traditional RGB filters or colour camera, you can be a bit more inventive with the colours, giving a false colour images. Producing images whose colours are different to what your eyes would see. The Hubble telescope uses its own colour palette to give more depth and contrast to its photos. With Hubble the Sii goes to Red, the Ha goes to Green and the Oiii to the Blue channel. But you can change these to give a more dramatic look or more contrast.
Below is my original photo of the Tarantula Nebula using the Hubble palette and next to it, is a new version using Ha on the Red channel to give a totally different look. Even though the content is accurate, the colours are not necessarily what you would see with your eyes, these photos becoming equally about art, as well as astronomy.

Which version do you prefer?

This is tonight's target. It's the the Running Chicken Nebula 😁😁😁 This'll be a long run 125mins of Ha, 100mins of Sii an...
01/10/2020

This is tonight's target. It's the the Running Chicken Nebula 😁😁😁 This'll be a long run 125mins of Ha, 100mins of Sii and 100mins of Oiii, a total of 5 hours and 25 mins 😁

This shows my first photo of the Tarantula Nebula taken 4 weeks ago. The new version has so much more depth and contrast...
01/10/2020

This shows my first photo of the Tarantula Nebula taken 4 weeks ago. The new version has so much more depth and contrast. This is partly due to the my processing but more so, due to the mono camera and narrowband filters. I'm loving digging deep into this new hobby 😁😁
I've also included the black and white photo straight out of the camera.

This is from Monday night. The Tarantula Nebula or 30 Dorodus, is in the Large Magellanic Cloud. This is only seen in th...
30/09/2020

This is from Monday night. The Tarantula Nebula or 30 Dorodus, is in the Large Magellanic Cloud. This is only seen in the Southern Hemisphere due to it being close to the Southern Celestial Pole. I think this has the look of Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh :-)
The Tarantula Nebula is 160,000 Light Years away but it is so large and bright, that if it were situated where Orion is, it would cast shadows over the Earth.
This was one of the first photos I took 3 weeks ago, I'll post them both to show the difference a month makes and using narrowband filters on a mono camera.

- 25 x 180s Ha subs
- 25 x 180s Oiii subs
- 25 x 180s Sii subs
- Darks, Flats and Bias frames
- Skywatcher Esprit ED100 Telescope
- EQ6-R Pro Mount
- ZWO ASI1600MM Pro Camera
- ZWO ASI120 Guide Camera
- ZWO ASIAIR Pro Computer
- Pegasus Dew Heater
- ZWO EAF Autofocuser
- Deep Sky Stacker
- Photoshop

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