On 01 February the comet reached its closest proximity to Earth. A few hours of clear skies allowed to capture this moment as a second image

A wide-field image of NGC2264, or Cone Nebula, embedded in lots of hydrogen-alpha regions. Next to the actual cone is the Christmas Tree star cluster, illuminating the surrounding gasses to emit bright blue OIII signal.

Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) is one of the brighter comets this year. It is still increasing in brightness, and while not likely, it could still possibly become visible with the naked eye. This post describes the image itself and also contains an animation of the comet moving across the backdrop of the stars.

M74, also known as the Phantom Galaxy, is about 32 million light-years away from Earth. The galaxy contains two clearly defined spiral arms and is therefore used as an archetypal example of a grand design spiral galaxy.

The Crab Nebula is a supernova remnant and pulsar wind nebula in the constellation of Taurus. Imaged here in a Hubble Palette. This is the first image using BlurXTerminator for deconvolution, which is nothing short of a revolution in PixInsight image processing.

The Tadpoles nebula is a very characteristic nebula in the constellation Auriga. This narrow-band image in Hubble palette clearly shows where this emission nebula gets its name from.

NGC 7789 is an open cluster in Cassiopeia that was discovered by Caroline Herschel in 1783. She was the sister of the well known William Herschel. When looking at this object visually the loops of stars and dark lanes give the impression of a rose, that’s what gave it the nickname Caroline’s Rose.

A beautiful spiral galaxy, also known as ‘little M33’. Photographed in sessions two years apart, but all combined into one LRGB image, enhanced with H-alpha data indicating areas of active star formation within the galaxy.

The beautiful Jellyfish nebula (IC443) in the constellation Gemini. Here in a wide-field shot together with reflection nebula IC444. The narrow-band images are processed in the SHO Hubble palette.

On the very first night testing out the new Mewlon-180c, some short videos were shot of the Moon. After processing the video-files using the new software PlanetarySystemStacker, this moon image came out. Certainly a motivation to do a lot more moon photography and test the Mewlon on some of the planets.

The beautiful globular cluster M3, here photographed using the newly acquired Takahashi Mewlon 180c telescope and QHY268m camera. Properly using this setup will probably require some further fine-tuning, but its a good start.

An image of NGC7023, captured on three different occasions, two(!) years apart. The bright blue reflection nebula is referred to as Iris Nebula, named after the similarly blue flower. With more than 17h of exposure also the darker nebulae are visible.

In the constellation Cepheus this large area of nebulosity can be found with a massive star, 100,000 times bigger than our Sun, in the center that lights up the whole cloud. The nebula is registered as NGC7822.

Sh2-240, also known as the Spaghetti Nebula is a very large and faint object that requires long exposures with a wide-field telescope. A reducer on the FSQ-106 in combination with full-frame camera and > 17h of exposure resulted in the following image.

M13, or the Hercules Cluster, is a relatively small, but densely packed globular cluster. A perfect target to test out a new long focal length telescope, the Takahashi Mewlon 180c, in combination with the QHY268c, an APS-C sized OSC camera.

One of the star clusters closest to Earth is M44, also known as the Beehives Cluster. Big red giants, white dwarfs and young bright blue stars make for a colourful scene. Plenty of additional galaxies and double stars can be discovered in this scene as well.

An old 2019 dataset of Sh2-155, also known as Cave Nebula, was finally processed to this image in SHO Hubble palette. The nebula itself is only a small object in a much larger region of all sorts of emission, reflection and dark nebulosity.

Bright comets are seldom appearances in our solar system. Comet Leonard was one of the most striking examples this year. Just days before it would become at its brightest and before it would cross the ecliptic, this image was shot in the early morning hours.

First light for a new camera, the QHY268c. Subject is M34, a very beautiful and colourful open cluster in the constellation Perseus. The cluster is pretty close-by at 1500 lightyears and rather bright at magnitude 5.5, so an ideal object to get acquainted with a new camera.

After a night of testing out guiding with the RST-135E mount, there was some time left to image a new target. M15, a globular cluster best visible in September, was just the perfect fit. One of the most dense globular clusters in our galaxy, with probably a black hole in its core.