Whirlpool galaxy shot at 135mm.

Equipment:

• Samyang 135mm f2.0
• Fuji X-T5

Images:

• 723 x 60s
• ISO 400

Full resolution: https://telescopius.com/pictures/view/188842/deep_sky/whirlpool-galaxy/M/51/galaxy/by-maxi_franzi

Wide field shot of the virgo cluster.

Equipment:

• Samyang 135mm
• Fuji X-T5
• Star Adventurer 2i

Images:

• 387 x 30s
• ISO 400
• f2.0

Full resolution and more info: https://telescopius.com/pictures/view/188443/deep_sky/markarian-chain/galaxy/by-maxi_franzi

Was surprised to be able to see it this far south, in canyon of the ancients so super remote.

Taken on a Canon R8 24mm wide lens, iso 1600, 15 second exposure, f5.0; no post processing.

Washington State ferry

Tonight a big solar storm hit the earth, showing aurora at least as far south as Northern Africa. I'm at 'RACA', a Belgian astro camp and took this picture with night mode on my Pixel7 phone. The main show lasted well over an hour and traces are still visible now, several hours after the start!

Hope this low effort post is accepted, I just wanted to share my first image when I started.

There was no telescope or tracker used, just a smartphone leaned against my wallet.

Images:

• ~400 x 1s
• ISO 3200

Editing:

• stacking/ stretching in Siril
• GraXpert for gradient and denoising
• BlurXTerminator for deconvolution
• Starnett++ to edit the barely visible nebula a bit better
• final editing in Photoshop

This was shot under extremely poor conditions with lot of clouds. So this is just a practice shot, but we try to get the best results with the equipment we have, so we will visit this target again with good seeing.

Equipment:

• Fuji X-T5
• Samyang 135mm
• Star Adventurer 2i

Images:

• 217x 60s
• ISO 125

More info here: https://telescopius.com/pictures/view/185140/deep_sky/whirlpool-galaxy/M/51/galaxy/by-maxi_franzi

So I bought 2 sets because it looked like one set was briefly lost in the mail and this past week I got an email from Amazon that said one set I bought were "fakes."

• Both sets have printing that matches legitimate manufactures.
• The "legitimate" set have all black filters (not the metalized filters I am used to like Thousand Oaks Optical) the "fakes" have the metalized filters.
• Both sets of glasses have the same transmittance as the Thousand Oaks filter material I use on my telescope and cameras.
• The build quality of the "legitimate" glasses is quite a bit worse than the "fakes" with the two layers of paper being misaligned

So, what I suspect is that I actually received a crappy set of "real" glasses and a well made set of counterfeits, this seems in line with the press release made by the American Astronomical Scociety.^[0]^

Some of these newly identified counterfeits are indistinguishable from genuine Qiwei products and appear to be safe. Others look like Qiwei’s eclipse glasses, but when you put them on, you realize they are no darker than ordinary sunglasses. So, these products are not just counterfeit, but also fake –– they’re sold as eclipse glasses, but they are not safe for solar viewing.

So, did anyone get unlucky enough to get some 'real-fake' glasses? An did anyone get a set of legitimate glasses with the non-metalized filter?

^[0]^ https://aas.org/press/american-astronomical-society-warns-counterfeit-fake-eclipse-glasses

Last year, I had my mirrors tested optically because I was never 100% content with even my "sharpest" results - there was always a feeling that there was an unnecessary bit of blur in the raw data.

Happily, the 20" mirror itself turned out to be quite good (not perfect, but at Strehl 0.89 and lambda/10 it is completely within spec and not worth refiguring) - however, the secondary turned out to show a frankly ridiculous lambda/2 (!) astigmatism. Since it was also on the small side for use in deepsky imaging (4" mirror on a 20" F/4 scope) I opted to replace it with a 5" diagonal from Ostashowski optics. The terrible weather in Western Europe in the last 6 months prevented me from doing any real testing (or even reinstalling the telescope in the observatory...) until now.

However, the 19th & 20th of March were finally "good" - good seeing (by our local standards...) and on the 20th, transparent skies.

This allowed me to finally stretch the renewed scope's legs a bit, resulting (among a mass of other still to be processed data) in this 62 megapixel mosaic of the Lunar North pole at 0.08"/pixel

Check out the full resolution image on https://www.flickr.com/photos/bartcentral/53618375534/sizes/o/

This will be the only chance I will have to see a total eclipse so I slapped together all the gear I own and made a dry run today. There were some wispy clouds that made things a little soft but it's better than the 400mm I used in 2017.

PLEASE do not look at the sun unless you are wearing proper eclipse glasses.

On Monday April 8th, 2024 there will be a total solar eclipse over the USA, Mexico, and Canada. If you are able to travel to the path of totality, I'd highly recommend it, as the next eclipse over the US won't be until 2045. The difference between a 99% partial eclipse and totality is literally night and day. Remember: it is only safe to look without solar filters during the totality period if you are in the narrow band where totality occurs.

These are good resources for finding out exactly when/how long totality will occur for your location, as well as recommended camera exposure settings:

http://xjubier.free.fr/en/site_pages/solar_eclipses/TSE_2024_GoogleMapFull.html

http://xjubier.free.fr/en/site_pages/SolarEclipseExposure.html

Here is some random assortment of advice:

• Don't forget your solar filter. This goes on the FRONT of your lens/telescope before the light hits any of the optics. Do not look through a telescope or viewfinder with only eclipse glasses on your eyes. You will burn your retinas and damage your equipment.

• Have backup location(s) in case your main observing spot is cloudy on the day of.

• Use an intervolometer or control your camera via PC to automate your camera during totality. It's better to take in the eclipse with your own eyes instead of fiddling with camera settings. If something goes wrong at the last minute just leave it be and enjoy the eclipse.

• Do a full practice run to test out all of you equipment before hand. Get used to taking your solar filter on and off quickly. Bring extra batteries, cables, SD cards, etc.

• You're gonna be outside for a while on a (hopefully) sunny day. Bring plenty of water, suncreeen, and snacks.

• Don't forget your solar filter. You want to focus your camera during the partial phases with the filter on, so that way you're ready to go as soon as totality starts.

• Be prepared for eclipse traffic. During the 2017 eclipse I drove to my site in 3 hours the day before, and took 9 hours to drive back right after the eclipse. Top off on gas beforehand.

• For those with widefield setups, comet 12P will be fairly close to the eclipse and about mag +4.7. Several planets will be visible too.

• It's okay if you aren't exactly on the centerline in the path of totality. Even going 2 miles into the zone of totality will get you a whole minute of total eclipse time, and going halfway to the centerline will get you over 3 minutes.

• At this point it's probably too late to book a flight or hotel that isn't stupidly expensive. Personally, I'm gonna sleep in a walmart parking lot the night before the eclipse.

• DON'T forget your solar filter.

Please keep our community rules in mind when sharing your eclipse pics (titles, acquisition/processing info, etc). I can't wait to see what everyone is going to capture in just a few more weeks!

This is just a test shot to see how much detail can be captured using the 135mm Samyang lens. I think with way more exposure time and proper polar alignment the details can be further improved.

• Fuji X-T5
• Samyang 135mm f2.0
• 400x 15s

Obviously with a real telescope the result would be way better, but as a beginner I first try to push my equipment I already own.

This was a very challenging target for us as we are still beginners, but the comet stands out nicely. We hoped for a bit more detail, but shooting with the Samyang 135mm lens is quite a strech for this target.

Equipment:

• Samyang 135mm f2.0
• Fuji X-T5
• Star Adventurer 2i

Images:

• 400x 15s
• ISO 400

More infos here: https://telescopius.com/pictures/view/183073/comet/by-maxi_franzi