Category: Member Blogs

The pages below are maintained by members of the Black Hills Astronomical Society. The areas of interest and expertise vary widely, but the common themes are a passion for the night sky and desire to share what they’ve learned (and are still learning!). Please visit their pages to learn more about this wonderful hobby, feel free to ask questions or post a note in the comment section, and if you’d like to learn more about becoming a member please visit the Membership page.

Hank’s Astrophotography Blog

I purchased my 8″ Celestron Evolution HD telescope with StarSense in the spring of 2020. About the same time I got interested in using a Revolution Imager video camera to take photos of the moon, planets and deep sky objects. The Revolution Imager was designed to be a night security camera and while the photographs were not very high quality, they sure got me interested in taking photos. By late summer I had a Mallincam DS10c video camera and Starizona Hyperstar that allowed me to take high quality images with a wide field of view. By the fall of 2020 I had an outdoor observatory set up close to our home in Custer, South Dakota, that allowed me to control the telescope and camera from inside our home when the weather turned cold. The telescope and camera are computer driven. I currently use a laptop computer and two monitors to run the telescope and camera. The telescope is aligned for each viewing session using StarSense; a special camera on the telescope that can locate where it is and align it with the stars. The telescope is controlled via WiFi using a combination of CPWI (Celestron’s telescope control software) and Stellarium, a free planetarium software that helps me find what I want to see and it sends the telescope to that location. I use SharpCap software to control the video camera over a USB3 cable. This software can take a series of video images and align them to create one image. …

Welcome to Hank’s October 2025 Astrophotography Blog. We were traveling for much of the first half of the month, but before we left, I was able to get almost 10 hours of light from the Fireworks galaxy. It’s about 25 million light years away and got its name because of the high number of supernovae, or stellar explosions that have been observed in its arms. At a BHAS Star Party event at our Hidden Valley Observatory, I was using my Seestar telescope and checked out Saturn. Saturn is looking different than you might expect at this time as the ring that goes around it is edge on with the Earth, meaning that it doesn’t look like a donut around the planet, but more like a ball with a skinny line through it. The Seestar camera sensors doesn’t have many pixels, so the image doesn’t show much detail. The first image shows just Saturn. In the second image I increased the exposure/gain and was able to pull out blurry images of a couple of Saturn’s moons, to the left. Close to Saturn, on either side, appear to be two other moons, but their positions didn’t line up with what the Sky and Telescope Saturn’s Moons graph indicated where they should have been. If you’ve ever been curious about where Saturn’s moons may be at any given time, you can go to https://skyandtelescope.org/wp-content/plugins/observing-tools/saturn_moons/saturn.html and it will show you where five of Saturn’s 274 moon’s might be. You’ll need to convert your time/date…

Jim’s Intro

Ever since walking the sands of Seven Mile beach in New Jersey as a teenager I have loved looking at the night sky. A friend showed me the moon and planets from his 4” table top scope. I remember seeing comets from the dark pine lands forests. After moving to the dark skies of South Dakota I did some primitive astrophotography with a camera, spotting scope and some zoom lenses. My interests originally were for visual observing but my eyesight and ignorance of the heavens soon led me to EAA and GOTOs. That is Electronic Assisted Astronomy and computerized “GoTo” telescopes for finding objects. I have never been talented or patient enough to do the astrophotography like my fellow amateurs produce. As you will see in my blogs I progressed from digital cameras and birdwatching scopes to to larger and more sophisticated gear. I have also enjoyed the gadgetry of telescopes, computers and remote controlled mounts. EAA allows me to see and record the skies in near real time and natural color. Traditional astrophotography requires 30 minute or more exposures and hours of processing afterwards. The following blog describes the different processes I have tried. MY BLOG: https://sdbhas.org/blogs/members/jimg-blog/

In early 2024 Rod M., a member of BHAS, took part in an international effort by amateurs to generate a long-exposure image a section of the sky thought to be ’empty’, similar in nature to the original Hubble Deep Field. After discussing the project at a BHAS meeting this planted a seed, interest grew, and soon plans were underway for the contingent of imagers within BHAS to take on a similar group imaging project. The first project, the spiral galaxy Messier 101 (M101), completed in August 2024 was a wonderful learning experience enjoyed by all and produced a result that greatly exceeded expectations. This blog is an attempt to present publicly the background information and results of the original project, as well information and progress on future projects already in the planning stages. We hope you enjoy the results!