The Northern Lights, polar lights or aurora borealis as they are called are a once in a lifetime experience for many of us. The display of this astronomical phenomena can be experienced at places which are located at high latitude. They begin in the Earths atmosphere at altitudes from 60 to more than 250 miles—when charged particles from the sun become trapped in the Earth's magnetic field. The result is a colorful, dancing light show.

Chromosphere and Photosphere Composition April 9, 2020 "Meade 60
Herschel's Prism
Optolon L + Baader Solar Continuum
ZWO ASI120
Sky Watcher Star-Adventures
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Coronado PST
ZWO ASI120
Sky Watcher Star-Adventures

Frames: 1000
Frames Stack: 750
Firecapture
Autostakkert + Registax + Ps

Fifty years ago on 17 April Robert Gillette happened to be in the right place at the right time, aboard the USS Iwo Jima, the Apollo 13 prime recovery ship.

In this image and other in this set, James Lovell is on deck minutes after arriving, with Rear Admiral Donald C. Davis, Commander of Task Force 130, the manned spacecraft recovery group.

Norway's peak season for the Northern Lights is between September and March, though that's to do more with the long, dark nights at this time of year rather than an increase in solar activity. Forecasting the Northern Lights means predicting solar activity, which is virtually impossible with our current technology. Timing is everything.

PLACE OF PHOTOGRAPHY

LOCATION: PLAYA DE SKAGSANDEN - LOFOTEN (NORWAY)

PHOTOGRAPHIC PARAMETERS

CAMERA: NIKON Z7 CAMARA

LENS: NIKOOR 14-24 F2.8

FOCAL: 14 MM

ISO: 800

SPEED: 30 S.

APERTURE: 2.8

TIME: 21:41

A RGBHOO version of M1, Crab Nebula. Total integration time is 12 hours 19 minutes (R 2h 6m, G 2h, B 13m, Ha 4h 30m Oiii 2h 40m), image has been cropped.

Here is the Toby Jug Nebula imaged with the CDK17 in Chile (Obstech El Sauce).

While there are many images of this out there, few feature the outer Ha halo that was only recently discovered (I dont know how recent or who by).

The Ha is extremely faint and it took 21 hours at bin 2x2 to reveal what is shown here.

HFG 1 is a very old large, low-surface-brightness planetary nebula in Cassiopeia. It surrounds, and was produced by, a binary star system (V664 Cas) that is moving rapidly through our Galaxy. V664 Cas is comprosed of a white dwarf star and a large red giant. The two stars are very close and rotate around their common centre of gravity every 14 hours. The star system is moving towards the lower left of the image. As HFG 1 plows through the interstellar medium, a bluish bowshock is produced; and a red trail of gas is left behind in its wake.
EQUIPMENT USED
Twin APM TMB LZOS 152 refractors
10Micron GM2000 HPS mount
Twin QSI6120 CCD cameras
Astrodon filters
IMAGE CAPTURE
5nm H-Alpha: 33x1800 bin 2x2
3nm OIII: 35x1800 bin 2x2
Luminance: 11x600 bin 1x1
Red: 10x300 bin 1x1
Green: 10x300 bin 1x1
Blue: 10x300 bin 1x1
Total integration: 38.3 hours
Pixel scale: 0.533 arcsec/pixel
Field radius: 0.351 degrees
Capture dates: 15 October - 6 November 2019
Capture location: Fregenal de la Sierra, Spain

Copyright: Peter Goodhew

Triple shot combination in H Alpha, OIII and RGB late October 2019.
Crescent Nebula, NGC6888, remnant of an ancient supernova in the Swan constellation, just below the bright star Sadr.

Shooting on 29-9, 30-9, 02-10 from a 5.5 bortle sky

Discovered by Pierre Méchain in 1781, Messier 106 (M106) is a spiral galaxy located in the northern constellation Canes Venatici. The galaxy lies at a distance of 22 to 25 million light years from Earth. It has the designation NGC 4258 in the New General Catalogue.

Copyright 2020 Bernard Miller

March 30, 2020

Location: New South Wales, AU

Telescope: RCOS 12.5 inch

Camera: SBIG STXL11002 with AOX

Mount: Paramount ME II

HA: 12x20 minutes (binned 1x1)

SII: 12x20 minutes (binned 1x1)

OIII: 12x20 minutes (binned 1x1)

RGB: 8x20 minutes each (binned 1x1)

This is an image of the brightest part of the Monoceros OB1 molecular complex, which include the Cone Nebula, the Christmas Tree Cluster and the Fur Fox Nebula. The image is an HaRGB composition, frames are taken under rural sky (sqm 20.5) with a reflex Canon 1000D mod. Baader, for a total exposure of 15h (6h RGB, 9h Ha).

This has been the biggest (and most pleasurable) challenge of all. Make a mosaic using a narrow band from a wide region of the sky. It was almost two months using every good day to capture.
The biggest difficulty was being able to make the correct color adjustment of the background of the image without affecting the nebulae, I lost count of how many times I used DBE on Pix or redid the mosaic by the APP until I managed to reach this final…

17 million light years from us, in the Constellation of the Chioma of Berenice we find a bright and beautiful galaxy marked by the initials M64.
It is also called "Black Eye Galaxy" due to a vast area of dark dust that covers part of the central area.
The latest studies have shown that the peripheral part of the Galaxy rotates in the opposite direction of the nucleus, probably due to an "ancient" clash with a smaller galaxy captured by M64. This clash would have started to rotate the outer part of the galaxy in the opposite direction to the nucleus. These two areas that rotate in the opposite direction collide forming compressed "gas pockets" creating regions with an extremely intense star formation.

Imaging telescope or lens:Geoptik Formula 20 - Newton 200/1200
Imaging camera:Nikon D5100 full Spectrum Modded
Mount:Sky-Watcher EQ6 SynTrek
Guiding telescope or lens:Sky-Watcher 80/400 f5 acro
Guiding camera:QHYCCD5L-II-M
Filter:Optolong UV/IR Cut
Accessories:Explore Scientific HRCC Coma Corrector , Selfmade Peltier CoolingBox
Dates:15 Mar 2020 , 16 Mar 2020
Frames:
Optolong UV/IR Cut: 58x300" ISO200 -5C
Optolong UV/IR Cut: 39x600" ISO200 -5C
Integration: 11.3 hours

Instrument or lens: SkyWatcher 200/1000 BLACK DIAMOND                                                        Atik 460 EX Mono                                                                                                                                   SkyWatcher NEQ6 Pro Goto Guidance                                                                                              ZWO OPTICAL DIVIDER Reducer / focal corrector                                                                  SkyWatcher Coma Corrector II                                                                                                      Astronomik RGB, Baader Ha 7nm, Astrnomik CLS-CC Access -s                                                  Astrnomik CLS-CCD: 104x300 "-10C bin 1x1Baader Ha 7nm: 140x300" bin 1x1 Astronomik RGB: 48x150 "bin 1x1                                                                                                                                     Integration: 22.3 Hours Darks: ~ 50Flats / PLU: ~ 11Bias / offset: ~ 1001Astrometry.net job                 AD: 7h 36 '52 "DEC center: + 65 ° 36' 10" Pixel scale: 0.468 arcsec / pixel Orientation: 179.532 degrees Field radius: 0.450 Source data: Backyard

Copyright: Rémi Méré

Messier 95, also known as M95 or NGC 3351, is a barred spiral galaxy located about 33 million light-years away in the zodiac constellation Leo. It was discovered by Pierre Méchain in 1781, and cataloged by fellow French astronomer Charles Messier four days later. It has around 40 billion stars.

Copyrigth: David Wills at PixelSkies, Spain www.pixelskiesastro.com

Even the cosmos is practicing “Social Distancing” The great classic of this time of year: Leo triplet, made from a backyard in the Paris region.