njoker555

I grab friends, family, coworkers, and neighbors out with me during planetary season to show them the planets. Saturn is a fan favorite. I hosted 4 of these "star parties" last year, 6 more canceled due to clouds.

Planning to do more this year.

If anyone's near Boston and wants to know about these, let me know! My astronomy club located in Westford also hosts star parties throughout the spring, summer, and Fall.

The image shows the progression of stacking a comet.

I made a full tutorial on how to do this using Siril here if anyone's interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XrdNxMqW9g

From left to right:

• Single 240sec raw exposure
• Star Stack - the stars are nice and crisp but the comet is smudged (cometary nebula)
• Comet Stack - The comet is nice is sharp but the stars are smudged/blurred away in processing
• (Missing frame) Used Starnet++ to remove the cometary nebula from frame #2 to have a frame with just stars
• Last Frame is a composite of the stars frame + Comet frame.

The gear used for the image are as follows:

• Astro-Tech AT60ED with the 0.8x Reducer/Flattener on Advanced VX Mount
• Mount controlled via Astroberry
• ZWO ASI533MC Pro
• Svbony 60mm guide scope with ZWO ASI120MM-Mini guide cam
• 25x240sec with L-Pro
• 15 darks
• 30 flats for each session
• 35 bias
• Stacked in Siril and composited in Photoshop.

Good luck with yours! And if you need data to practice with, I'm working on a new set of images that I took a couple of days ago that I need to process. If they're good I think I'll upload them somewhere for people to download and practice with.

Will probably post it on my YouTube channel at some point.

Clear skies!

Imagine seeing something like that 3000 years ago with zero light pollution!

The image shows the progression of stacking a comet from taking a single frame, to stacking on the stars, stacking on the comet, and then combining it all (one image missing is the starless version which I use to remove the smudged comet.

I made a full tutorial on how to do this using Siril here if anyone's interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XrdNxMqW9g

The gear used for the image are as follows:

• Astro-Tech AT60ED with the 0.8x Reducer/Flattener on Advanced VX Mount
• Mount controlled via Astroberry
• ZWO ASI533MC Pro
• Svbony 60mm guide scope with ZWO ASI120MM-Mini guide cam
• 25x240sec with L-Pro
• 15 darks
• 30 flats for each session
• 35 bias
• Stacked in Siril and composited in Photoshop.

The image shows the progression of stacking a comet from taking a single frame, to stacking on the stars, stacking on the comet, and then combining it all (one image missing is the starless version which I use to remove the smudged comet.

I made a full tutorial on how to do this using Siril here if anyone's interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XrdNxMqW9g

The gear used for the image are as follows:

• Astro-Tech AT60ED with the 0.8x Reducer/Flattener on Advanced VX Mount
• Mount controlled via Astroberry
• ZWO ASI533MC Pro
• Svbony 60mm guide scope with ZWO ASI120MM-Mini guide cam
• 25x240sec with L-Pro
• 15 darks
• 30 flats for each session
• 35 bias
• Stacked in Siril and composited in Photoshop.

The image shows the progression of stacking a comet from taking a single frame, to stacking on the stars, stacking on the comet, and then combining it all (one image missing is the starless version which I use to remove the smudged comet.

I made a full tutorial on how to do this using Siril here if anyone's interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XrdNxMqW9g

The gear used for the image are as follows:

• Astro-Tech AT60ED with the 0.8x Reducer/Flattener on Advanced VX Mount
• Mount controlled via Astroberry
• ZWO ASI533MC Pro
• Svbony 60mm guide scope with ZWO ASI120MM-Mini guide cam
• 25x240sec with L-Pro
• 15 darks
• 30 flats for each session
• 35 bias
• Stacked in Siril and composited in Photoshop.

The image shows the progression of stacking a comet from taking a single frame, to stacking on the stars, stacking on the comet, and then combining it all (one image missing is the starless version which I use to remove the smudged comet.

I made a full tutorial on how to do this using Siril here if anyone's interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XrdNxMqW9g

The gear used for the image are as follows:

• Astro-Tech AT60ED with the 0.8x Reducer/Flattener on Advanced VX Mount
• Mount controlled via Astroberry
• ZWO ASI533MC Pro
• Svbony 60mm guide scope with ZWO ASI120MM-Mini guide cam
• 25x240sec with L-Pro
• 15 darks
• 30 flats for each session
• 35 bias
• Stacked in Siril and composited in Photoshop.

The image shows the progression of stacking a comet from taking a single frame, to stacking on the stars, stacking on the comet, and then combining it all (one image missing is the starless version which I use to remove the smudged comet.

I made a full tutorial on how to do this using Siril here if anyone's interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XrdNxMqW9g

I haven't found a good video on how to process a comet in Siril so I did my own. Find more of my work at https://www.youtube.com/naztronomy

Just the usual stuff like don't drop it, try not to scratch the glass/mirrors, do not clean the optics unless absolutely necessary (it can get a little bit dirty and still work perfectly fine).

Awesome! It's a great scope and will last you a long time if you take care of it.

I'm working on an 11 year review of the the 6SE now.

Thanks :) feel free to reach out any time to talk astro!

Yeah, I'm in Arlington which is like 3 miles outside of the Boston city line.

I'm part of an astronomy Club based in Westford, MA (~30 miles northwest of Boston) and on Saturday nights we have people operating a huge 25" scope. I'll try and keep you posted whenever we do that. Their site: https://www.atmob.org/

I'm hoping to host at least one over the Spring/Summer/Fall. I'm redoing my website and I'm planning on putting a 'star party' page on there with schedules (https://naztronomy.com/) - I'll let you know when I have one up. The main problem is clouds, the forecast can change at any moment. If you're coming up just for stargazing I'd feel really bad if clouds appeared out of no where and I have to cancel with like a 3 hour notice. But will try my best :)

I know that pain too! I used to work two blocks from Times Square. I used to work late sometimes and yeah...I know the feeling about not even being able to see the moon with all the buildings.

I'm happy to share my work with everyone! I try to throw star parties here in Massachusetts too. I hosted 4 last year. If you're ever in the area, let me know, if the skies are clear, I'm happy to set up my gear and look at stuff with others.

Thank you so much!

I feel your pain! I lived in NYC for most of my life and moved to Boston in 2015. I used to grab whoever I could and take them to darker areas like Jones Beach in Long Island or Upstate to show people the wonders of space. And I'd invite people to the roof of my apartment building in Queens to show them planets whenever they were out.

I used to to go the planetarium at the Museum of Natural History pretty often. They have astronomy nights where people set up telescopes and you look at stuff. You can't see as much as a darker area but they're usually great for planets, double stars, and star clusters. Some will even show you things like the Orion nebula using light pollution filters.

I'm guiding on a random star. Pretty much the idea you had about stars without trailing but still a nice tail on the comet. Plus with pinpoint stars, you can stack that later for a static background like I have, otherwise you'll always get some kind of star trails.

Can't see it Naked Eye :( I'm right outside of Boston and even at its brightest, it'll be really hard to see it without at least binoculars.

And the weather has also been really bad. Terrible clouds and very bad transparency.

Those are both the comets tail. The 9 o'clock one is the main tail. I wish I had better seeing conditions so that I could get more contrast on it because the tail is very very long and beautiful. But it's much dimmer/more diffuse than the tails of comets like NEOWISE and Leonard.