RASC Halifax Centre - 2019 Astroimaging Contest

2019 Astroimaging Contest Entries

(Photos are the copyrighted property of the photographers. Permission to use any of their photos for other purposes must be obtained from the photographer.)

These photos (1 - 30) are the 2019 entries. Registrants voted for their People's Choice favourite. Note: with some internet browsers, hovering over the photo with your cursor, will display the photo details.

8 M27 Narrowband (DS) Winner of the DS category - Jeff Donaldson

25 Mare Nubium’s Straight Wall (SS) Winner of the SS category - David Hoskin

13 I feel like a spot of tea. Where's the teapot? (WF) Winner of the WF category - Jerry Black

29 Balancing Rock and Milky Way (WF) Winner of the People's Choice Award - Barry Burgess

Image Title - Fireball Meteor What the object is - Meteor Pertinent details - unplanned capture! I was shooting the Milky Way and the meteor photobombed the shot. It appears to have travelled horizontally above a cloud, which gives a helicopter effect. The green colour was pretty intense. Location - Outer False Harbour near Cape Forchu lighthouse, Yarmouth County, NS Time - July 2, 2019 at approximately 12:39:28 AM; my camera clock settings were "off" so I tried to correct the data by using a universal time clock. Camera - Canon 6D Settings - 20.0 seconds exposure, F/2.0. ISO 1600. Lens - Sigma 20mm F/1.4 DG HSM Art on a Canon mount Tripod, no tracker used Processed in Photoshop CC from TIFF file with basic adjustments to brightness, contrast, shadows, dehaze, colour balance, luminance, saturation, noise and so on. Cropped to required size.

1 Fireball Meteor (WF)

2 Quinan Milky Way (WF)

3 Bubble Nebula in Hydrogen-alpha (DS)

4 Triangulum Galaxy (DS)

5 Spirit Road (WF)

6 One Hundred Thousand Light Years (WF)

7 Milky Way Rosé (WF)

9 Bubble and Friends (DS)

10 The Pinwheel Galaxy (M101) (DS)

11 Sagittarius Star Cloud and beyond (DS)

12 Shadows from the center of the Galaxy (WF)

14 10.8-day-old-moon (SS)

15 Comet meets the Pleiades (WF)

16 Winter sky with comet (WF)

17 The Flaming Star Nebula (DS)

18 The Tadpoles Nebula (DS)

19 Life‘s Good (WF)

20 Blue Moon (SS)

21 Half Moon (SS)

22 Contrast (WF)

$23 The Trifid Nebula (Messier 20) DS. This nebula is located in the constellation Sagittarius. M20 is unusual because the nebula consists of an open star cluster, an emission nebula (red portion), a reflection nebula (blue portion), and a dark nebula (dark gaps within the emission nebula) designated Barnard 85.. Captured 2 August 2019 (11:21 pm) at Hatchet Lake, NS. Equipment consisted of an Orion ED80T-CF 80mm f/6 apo refractor, SkyWatcher EQ6R mount (unguided), and a ZWO ASI183MC CMOS camera (gain 320, RAW16/FITS image format). Processed using PIPP to debayer images, DeepSkyStacker to stack 120 x 60sec subs and 10 darks, Photoshop CS2 to adjust levels, stretch data and correct color balance/saturation. Microsoft Photo was used to tweak clarity, contrast, highlights, shadows, and exposure of the final image.$
23 The Trifid Nebula (Messier 20) (DS)

$24 The Dumbbell Nebula (Messier 27) DS M27. This large planetary nebula, the first to be discovered by Charles Messier, is located in the constellation Vulpecula. M27 is a good target to image under light-polluted skies because of its relative brightness. .•\tCaptured 8 April 2019 (3:46 am) at Halifax, NS. Equipment consisted of an Orion ED80T-CF 80mm f/6 apo refractor, SkyWatcher EQ6R mount (unguided), and a ZWO ASI183MC CMOS camera (gain 120, RGB24/PNG image format). Processed using DeepSkyStacker to stack 143 x 45sec subs and 30 darks, and Photoshop CS2 to adjust levels, stretch data and correct color balance/saturation. StarTools was used for gradient removal. Microsoft Photo was used to tweak clarity, contrast, highlights, shadows, and exposure of the final image..$
24 The Dumbbell Nebula (Messier 27) (DS)

$26 Sunspot Pair SS Sunspots. Sunspots AR2741 (left) and AR2740 (right) are captured in this image, which was taken through an orange filter to give the Sun a more natural color. Umbra and penumbra of AR2740 are well defined. Faculae are visible near AR2741. Limb darkening and some solar granulation are also visible.. Captured 7 May 2018 at Halifax, NS. Equipment consisted of an Orion Short-tube 80mm f/5 achro refractor, 2.5x Barlow lens, solar safety film white light filter, SkyWatcher EQ6R mount, and a ZWO ASI224MC CMOS camera (gain 125, 0.001 sec exposure, RAW16/SER format video) at prime focus with a UV/IR-cut and Orange 21 filters. The RAW16/SER file was debayered with PIPP and 240 frames were stacked with AutoStakkert 3. Lighting, contrast and color were tweaked using Photoshop CS2 and Microsoft Photo..$
26 Sunspot Pair (SS)

27 Northumberland Strait Milky Way (WF)

28 New Moon and the Bull’s Eye (WF)

30 Rocks and Stars (WF)

Examples of previous entries from 2017 and 2018...

(Photos are the copyrighted property of the photographers. Permission to use any of their photos for other purposes must be obtained from the photographer.)

Gibbous Moon	Zodiacal Light	Turret Arch, Arches National Park, Utah
Milky Way at Keji	Starman	Iris Nebula, NGC 7025
M13 Hercules Cluster	M101 Pinwheel Galaxy	Facing Inward, San Pedro de Atacama Chile
Earth Shadow	M13 Hercules Cluster	M42 Orion Nebula
Southern Milky Way	Harvest Moon

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