August 2025

Welcome to Hank’s August 2025 Astrophotography Blog. This month has a mix of different stuff, so let’s get to it. Last month I showed some of the Hyperstar images that I’ve been taking. The Hyperstar lens shows a very wide field of view, and coupled with the L-Extreme filter that selectively enhances the Ha and Oiii bandwidths, it allows me to capture some interesting images. First up is the North American and Pelican Nebulas. These images were taken when the Moon was nearly full, and the L-Extreme filter let me capture data that the Moon would normally block out. This image is a 2×2 mosaic, or 4 photos that I’ve stitched together.

Sadr is a bright star in Cygnus. As in many areas of Cygnus there is an abundance of nebulosity, or dust and gases that light up when stars are in the area. Sadr is the brighter star on the middle left of the photo. I dimmed it a bit so it wouldn’t dominate the image. This Hyperstar image also used the L-Extreme filter.

These next photos are of targets that I’ve photographed before, but the Hyperstar wide field view reminds me of how isolated each of these targets really are. The last one, galaxy NGC488 in Pisces, is about 90 million light years away, which is about the limit of what I typically try to image.

Last year I took my first image of Albireo, a double star in Cygnus and posted it in my September 2024 blog. I like this pair of stars because each has a different color. The disappointing thing about my original image was that my Seestar telescope made it look like the two stars were touching each other. Since I posted that original photo, I’ve been learning how to process the individual Seestar images or frames that it uses to create the final image. With this new image I used about 200 of the Seestar frames to process the image myself to bring out more details, using a piece of software called Siril. Now I can see both stars . . . and see that they aren’t touching! I also used the Siril processing on the 2nd image too, of the West Veil Nebula to good effect.

On August 6th I took a photo of the Moon. It was waxing and within 3 days of being full. As I looked at the image, I saw a bright spot was on the surface, in the dark horizon area on the left, a little above the midpoint. Was it a sign of life on the Moon trying to signal me? I took two close-ups to check it out. It looks like the Sun’s rays might be reflecting off of a crater’s rim. The crater’s name is Aristarchus. It’s about 24 miles across, 9,100 ft high and the crater depth is 1.7 miles. It sits on a high lunar plateau that has steep sides, which probably can reflect the Sun’s light. So in this case I’ll concede that the Man on the Moon wasn’t sending me a message. Next time, however….

Finally, the Big Conjunction event this month was on the 20th, just before sunrise. I thought I had a better chance of seeing it if I got away from the trees, so I drove out on Highway 16A across from the high school and there it was in the east! The Moon in this image is blown out, so it doesn’t look like the waxing crescent that it did on the 20th. But Venus and Jupiter were just to the south of the Moon, and to the north were Castor and Pollux, the Gemini Twins. Neptune was up there too, but too faint to see without a telescope, and Mercury was below the Moon, waiting for the Sun to rise enough to hide its entrance.

Until next time, Clear Skies! -Hank