Image Gallery

The images below were created by members of TAAS. You can simply click on an image to see a larger version

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

NGC 891--The Outer Limits Galaxy - A. V. Ley

Captured at the GNTO 1.4h exposure

NGC 2244--The Rosette Nebula - A. V. Ley

NGC 7000 North American Nebula - Joey Troy

Albuquerque Partial Eclipse - Mike Kernodle

Waxing partial phase of the August 21, 2017 Solar Eclipse - Melissa Kirk

Object: Comet Hayakutake Location: Deming, NM Camera: N/A Mount: N/A Frames: single frame Kodak 400 ISO film. Exposure time was seven minutes. Processing: N/A

The Sunflower Galaxy is a small galaxy of about 10 billion solar masses, located about 60 million light years away in the direction of the constellation Canes Venatici.

M 13, A Globular Cluster in the Constellation Hercules

M 13 is an immense globular cluster, located on the west side of the constellation Hercules. It is approximately 25,000 light years away, 150 light years in diameter and contains approximately 300,000 stars. Images fail to do it justice; it is best viewed in a large diameter telescope.

Messier Object #3 (M3) Taken in Albuquerque's light-polluted NE Heights. (there is hope) Using a Celestron C14 Schmidt-Cassegrain OTA, Canon T1i DSLR modded for astrophotography.

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.

NGC 2174 Monkey Head Nebula by Richard Shagam

IC 434-The Horse Head Nebula - Dale Murray

M31--The Andromeda Galaxy - Shane Ramotowski

A pair of interacting galaxies in Canes Venatici--near the handle of the big dipper

Witch Head Nebula IC 2118 - Ken Greenberg

Object: Witch Head Nebula (IC2118) Location: E Co Rd 1598 (about 35 miles south of Socorro, NM); 2/24/2022

M 45 Reflection Nebula - Shane Ramotowski

NGC 2264--The X-mas Tree Cluster - A. V. Ley

The "base" of the Christmas Tree Cluster along with the Fox Fur nebula make a colorful picture in Monoceros, near the Cone nebula.

2017 August 21 TSE Diamond Ring - Dale Murray

NGC 6992--The Veil Nebula - Rick Thurmond

2017 August 21 TSE Wide Field Composite - Steve Riegel

The imaging equipment was a Canon 60Da SLR with a Nikon 180mm fl, @ F2.8, piggybacked on a Televue SDF refractor, on a Losmandy G8 mount. The field of view is approximately 8-degrees on the diagonal.

A large planetary nebula, often referred to as "The Eye of God." Someday, our sun will look something like this to astronomers far away. By then, earth will no longer exist.

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.

NGC 7380--The Flying Horse Nebula, or The Wizard Nebula--in the

NGC 7380 is a young cluster dominated by bright O and B type stars. The HII region is excited by the the eclipsing binary star at the base of the "horse's" tail.

This was taken at the GNTO.

NGC 6946--The Fireworks Galaxy by A. V. Ley

A beautiful un-barred spiral galaxy about 28 million light years away in the constellation Virgo.

M42--The Great Nebula in Orion - Dale Murray

Shane Ramotokwski by CTB1 Supernova Remnant

M 16--The Eagle Nebula--in the constellation Serpens

M 16 is a an open cluster, surrounded by nebulosity, in the constellation Serpens

The Cocoon Nebula, IC 5146, in Cygnus

M42--The Great Nebula in Orion - Dan Richy

NGC 7331, NGC 7335 and NGC 7337: The Deer Lick Galaxy Group

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.

NGC 2903 in Leo

Partial Eclipse in Hydrogen Alpha - R. Brown

The Triangulum Galaxy, captured in Belen, NM at the General Nathan Twinning Observatory, using a an AT65 APO refractor, an SBIG ST4000XCM. The mount was a Losmandy G11. At total of 180 minutes integration.

M74--a face-on spiral galaxy in the constellation Pisces

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

August 21 TSE, Corona and Prominences - Kevin McKeown

M20 is a combination of an open cluster, a red (HII) emission nebula and a blue reflection nebula located just above The Lagoon Nebula in the constellation Sagittarius

The Flame Nebula, located near Alnitak in Orion's Belt

The Christmas Tree Cluster and the Fox Fur Nebula in Monoceros

The "base" of the Christmas Tree Cluster along with the Fox Fur nebula make a colorful picture in Monoceros, near the Cone nebula.

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.

2017 August 21 TSE Corona composite - A. V. Ley

Jupiter, 6-9-2017 Skip Dearing - Skip Dearing

Saturn captured at GNTO on 7-25-2014 using ASI120mm.

Here is one I have been working on the last couple of weeks. 212 five minute subs 80mm refractor at f4.8 Optolong dual band 3nm filter 2600 MCP camera Losmandy G11 mount Driveway location in Santa Fe County Ken Greenberg helped me with the processing and quality control.

The Ghost Nebula, Sh2-136 - Ken Greenberg

A large complex of dusty clouds can be observed when looking toward the Iris Nebula (NGC7023) in the constellation Cepheus

Captured on May 20, 2017 with a Canon 5D Mk ii and a Canon 16' 35 mm lens at f/4, 68 x 3' exposures at ISO 400, Processed in Lightroom and StarStax.

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)

Lucky capture of the moon Sept. 8th 2022 from GNTO 3/4 moon.

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

The Bubble Nebula is 7 light-years across – about one-and-a-half times the distance from our sun to its nearest stellar neighbor, Alpha Centauri – and resides 7,100 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cassiopeia.