Image Gallery
How to submit your images
TAAS members wishing to submit images for consideration can send JPEGs to taasimagesubmissions@gmail.com. Images should be no larger than 1000 pixels on the largest side and must have the following information:
Object name
Location where the image was made
Optical equipment used (scope size, model)
Camera
Mount
Number and duration of sub-frames
Processing details such as software-used

The sun, captured at approximately 10:00 MDT from Albuquerque, NM, using a 60mm Lunt Hydrogen alpha telescope and an ASI120M video camera. A video stream was made at 0.8 ms exposure and another, for the prominences was made at 3.2 ms exposure. Both streams were processed using Registax 4 and combined and processed in PS CS2. Color was added for aesthetics. This image was captured just a few hours before a large solar flare erupted and headed towards earth.

A planetary nebula in the constellation Aquarius, approximately 700 light years from earth. Planetary nebulae are the remains of modestly sized stars, similar to our sun, which, having expended their nuclear fuel shed mass and collapse to white dwarfs. The Helix Nebula, because it is relatively close to earth--compared to other planetary nebula--appears very large, approximately one half the diameter of the full moon.

The sun, captured at approximately 10:00 MDT from Albuquerque, NM, using a 60mm Lunt Hydrogen alpha telescope, a 2x barlow lens and an ASI120M video camera. A video stream was made at 5ms exposure and another, for the prominences was made at 20 ms exposure. Both streams were processed using Registax 4 and combined and processed in PS CS2. Color was added for aesthetics.

The brightest galaxy in this group, NGC 7331, is a spiral--thought to be very similar to the Milky Way--approximately 40 million light years away in the direction of the constellation Pegasus. Interestingly, the central bulge of NGC 7331 is thought to rotate in the direction opposite that of the rest of the galaxy. The mechanism by which this counter rotation was established is currently unknown. In addition to the two bright, and much more distant, galaxies NGC 7335 and NGC 7337, a number of other, more distant galaxies can be found in this image.

A face-on spiral galaxy located about 32 million light years away in the constellation Pisces, M74, while relatively large, has a rather low surface brightness, making it a difficult target for amateur astronomers and for astro-imagers in particular. This image was captured at GNTO on 10-25 and 26 of 2014 using a Celestron 11 Edge OTA, mounted on a Losmandy G11. An SBIG ST4000XCM camera was used. 30 x 5 subframes were captured before the object transited. After transit, another 12 x 10 subframes were captured. All subframes, together with dark frames and flat field frames were combined using DSS and further processed in Photoshop CS2

The Crab Nebula is a super-nova remnant located in the direction of the constellation Taurus. The actual super-nova was observed by Chinese astronomers in 1054 CE from a distance of about 6,500 light-years. The nebular region is approximately 11 light-years across, subtending an angle of 7'. The bluish light in the center is synchrotron radiation—broad spectrum radiation emitted by electrons travelling around magnetic field lines at relativistic speeds.

Details: Objects: Moon & Mars Location: Casa Conejo, Arroyo Hondo Rd, Santa Fe, NM Optical equipment: Celestron 925 EdgeHD telescope Camera: ZWO ASI294MC Pro camera Mount: CGEM II Number and duration of sub-frames: 196x2ms (~1.48 s cadence) Processing: AutoStakkert!3, RegiStax6, SiriL, SER-Player, Photoshop

Details: Objects: Moon & Mars Location: Casa Conejo, Arroyo Hondo Rd, Santa Fe, NM Optical equipment: Celestron 925 EdgeHD telescope Camera: ZWO ASI294MC Pro camera Mount: CGEM II Number and duration of sub-frames: 196x2ms (~1.48 s cadence) Processing: AutoStakkert!3, RegiStax6, SiriL, SER-Player, Photoshop

I consider this my first successful nebula shoot other than Orion nebula mages. Here I used my R6, my Canon EF 200mm fixed lens, and step down rings. This was just shy of 2 hours of integration. Background neutralization Histogram Transf. (mid=0.005, lo=0.002, hi=1.000) SCNR (type=0, amount=1.00, preserve=true)

130,000,000 light years away in the direction of the constellation Aries. This huge galaxy--200,000 light years across--thats twice the size of the Milky Way, is approximately 130 million light years away in the direction of the constellation Aries. It is referred to by some authors as “The Nautilus Galaxy.” Its unusual shape is caused by gravitational distortion due by the much smaller NGC 770 galaxy immediately above and to the right. There are an astounding number of other galaxies in this image as well. It is probably the most distant object I've ever tried to image. Captured at the General Nathan Twinning Observatory in Belen, New Mexico on October 25 th and 29 th using a C11 HD with f/7 focal reducer, an ASI1600mm camera, ASI L, 7 nm R, G and B filters and a Losmandy G11 mount. 24 x 300” luminance subframes and 12 x 300” each or R, G and B were combined using PixInsight and further processed in PS CS2.

Solis Lacus, the "Eye of Mars" to the lower left of center, and the bluish north polar hood' Equipment: C14 with 3x Teleview Barlow and ZWO ASI 224MC CMOS color video camera, Acer Aspire 5 laptop (AMD Ryzen 7 chip, backlit keyboard!) Processing for each image: ASICapture (2 x 5000 video frames, 17 ms exposures, gain 220) => PIPP ( best 2000 frames, cropped centered on planet)=> AutoStakkert!2 (best 25% stacked first image, 15% second) => Registax (wavelet sharpened)

NGC1333 Acquisition and Processing: Nikon 300mm (fl), f2.8 lens with a 2x teleconverter – effectively 600mm fl at f5.6; ASI2600MC-P (APS-C sensor, OSC), 23x5min subs; Ioptron SmartEq Pro mount; RPi running KStars/Ekos and LinGuider on the mount; Celestron 9x50 guide scope with QHY5L-IIM camera; Siril; StarNet++; Photoshop CS5; exposures were recorded off E County Rd 1598 (about 35 miles south of Socorro) on 12/16/2022

Acquisition and Processing: Nikon 300mm (fl), f2.8, lens; ASI2600MM-P camera (narrowband images); ASI2600MC-P (rgb star field – 25x60s); Astrodon 5-nm H-alpha filter (15x5min); Chroma 3-nm OIII filter (12x5min); Ioptron SmartEQ Pro mount; RPi 4 on mount running Kstars, Ekos, and PHD2; Celestron 9x50 guide scope with QHY5L-IIM camera; recorded from the Albuquerque foothills