September 2026

Welcome to Hank’s September 2026 Astrophotography Blog.  The Black Hills Astronomical Society had our big star party of the year at the Custer State Park Corrals on the 4^th.  We again had a great turnout and the skies were beautiful!  I had my Seestar S50 and was sharing views of a couple of galaxies and nebulas that I was photographing.  The beauty of the Seestar is that as light is collected, it is plate solved (aligned with the previous image) and stacked (adding to the brightness and detail that is shown).  Here are the galaxies and nebulas I was showing that night.

I wanted to capture the last one shown, the Crescent Nebula, as I have been working on that image with data I received from Telescope Live that was taken in Spain, so I could compare the two telescopes. As I suspected, there is no real comparison. Professional telescopes in dark sky areas wins hands down. Here are 3 images that I saved from the Telescope Live data. The last image highlights an unexpected “bubble” in the nebulosity, along with the Crescent Nebula, too!

On the 15th I wanted to set up the Seestar at home as the Moon was looking interesting, so while I had it out, I thought I’d take a look at SH2-108, a nebulosity area by the star Sadr in the constellation of Cygnus. Cygnus is really a cool galaxy, with lots of stuff to check out!

Moon

The Telescope Live catalog of images shows a sample of what you get, but often it is cropped or changed so it’s hard to tell exactly what an amateur like me might be able to bring out in the data. This month I was working on another set of images taken in Cygnus, that included the Tulip Nebula, and some other surprises. The first shows the entire image, the rest are cropped parts of that image, to try to bring out details of what is there in the nebulosity and the Tulip Nebula. The last image was a face in the nebulosity that jumped out at me! Can you see it?

Until next time, Clear Skies! -Hank