Cosmic Window

You've come to a page dedicated to photographs and information of some of the most beautiful objects in our night skies!

08/10/2023

The North America and Pelican Nebulae

Astrophotography has been a difficult endeavor this year. Between Canadian wildlife smoke, atrocious weather, and a ridiculous work schedule, I’ve not gotten out to shoot the night sky but a small handful of times.

But, finally the stars aligned (😏) and I took the opportunity to get a shot of the night sky! Surprisingly, I’ve never shot these nebulae before, so I wanted to do something special. This is a two-panel panorama of the nebulae, and I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out!

It is a total of 4 hours, 2 hours per panel. I used my William Optics Z73 with the and 268C camera.

Of course, I’m open to any and all suggestions and criticisms! I’m still learning but love the power within it!

05/07/2023

I have been meaning to post this for a while, but have been so ridiculously distracted by life, astronomy has taken a backseat. However, this is likely my favorite nebula photo yet. This is the Seagull Nebula, some 3600 light years distant in the constellation of Monoceros. I love the brilliance of this hydrogen region, and had no idea how awesome the “little” ball of gas and dust on the far right looked! (I can’t find an official designation for it, but it must have something? If anyone knows, feel free to share with me!) Another favorite it is the bow shock near the bright star in the middle of the image. I imagine it’s likely caused by the stellar winds from the star interacting with the nebular gases.

I chose this orientation of the photo, mainly because IG cuts it off if I go portrait. 🙄 But, I’ll pu it on my site with a few different options. Each one brings your focus to different parts. It’s really an incredible region of space!

03/01/2023

Messier 1 - The Crab Nebula

BOOM! I mean literally in a sense we can’t wrap our minds around. What you’re looking at is the glowing gases leftover from an exploded star some 6,000 light years from Earth.

Chinese astronomers documented a bright “day star” in the year 1024 AD which is believed to be when this star went supernova. Since that time, it’s expanded to about 10 light years across. That’s more than twice the distance to the nearest star to us! That matter is moving!!

It’s moving so fast, in fact, that in my lifetime a visible difference has been made. That’s kind of exciting to see the gases expanding. So exciting that this is my 3rd year in a row photographing the Crab Nebula. My plan is to continue to photograph it and see if or how it changes over time.

For the geeks:
Telescope Celestron 8SE
Mount Skywatcher EQ6-R Pro
Camera QHY 268C cooled (-15 C)
Filter Antlia ALP-T

36 x 300s exposures (3 hrs total)
Processed in PixInsight, Photoshop, Deep Sky Stacker, Topaz DeNoise AI

02/23/2023

IC 1848 - The Soul Nebula

I’ve had a few attempts at this one, but never really seemed happy enough with it to post. But I think looking back at this now, it’s at least good enough for IG? I’m rather stalled on a project at the moment (thanks, clouds) so I’m going through older data that I haven’t posted yet.

Does anyone else see this as a bison 🦬 running toward the right? Just me? Either way, I captured this beautiful nebula back in the fall using my and ALP-T filter. I’ll likely repost this later with more data that I acquired last year trying out some new techniques with PixInsight.
This photo was processed purely in Photoshop, as it was before I tried the PI world. Hope you enjoy. Keep your eyes open for a few more pics soon!

01/30/2023

C/2022 E3 (ZTF)

I can finally join the Green Comet club! This is the result of only 48 minutes of exposure time taken from my light polluted backyard on 01/26/23. To avoid the impending clouds, I had to shoot the comet as soon as it cleared my house…resulting in it being lower in the sky than I wanted.

Still, though, the ion tail is faintly visible streaking to the right. The anti-tail is also visible directed toward the bottom left of the photo.

I hope to get another chance to shoot this comet. I learned a lot about comets, and anti-tails, as well as a ton about photographing and post processing them!

Equip/stats
William Optics Z73
Skywatcher EQ6-R Pro
QHY 268C
Optolong L-Pro

16 x 180s exposures
PixInsight, Deep Sky Stacker, Photoshop, Topaz DeNoise

01/16/2023

IC 443 - The Jellyfish Nebula

Here’s my latest attempt at the Jellyfish Nebula, an supernova remnant in the constellation Gemini. It’s nearly 5,000 light years away and about 10 light years across. The SNR is actually only the “bulby” bit at the top of the picture. The other is an emission nebula in the background.

I’m still auditioning PixInsight, and finally feel like I’m getting a workflow that yields results. I wanted to attempt an HaRGB image with some data I acquired in dark skies in Colorado in late 2021. I had some 8 hours of usable data. The Ha data came from 3 hours I got from my backyard using the ALP-T dual narrowband filter.

I do plan to shoot this one again this year if I ever get clear skies… until then, I’m continuing my reprocessing mission!

Nerd Stuff:
William Optics Z73
QHYCCD 268C
Skywatcher EQ6-R Pro
Antlia ALP-T Dual Narrowband filter
Processed in PixInsight, Photoshop, with help from Deep Sky Stacker and Topaz DeNoise AI

01/07/2023

IC 405 & IC 410
Flaming Star Nebula and Tadpoles Nebula

It’s been far too long since I’ve been able to get fresh data, so I’ve been trying PixInsight and reprocessing some data. I’m getting better results with practice, I think. I'm of course open to some suggestions with this image!

These are some pretty nebulae I think. The left is Flaming Star Nebula, and the right is Tadpoles Nebula. Although they look like they’re right next to each other, the Tadpoles Nebula is nearly 8 times more distant. (12,000 ly).

I love the textures in IC 405 as its illuminating star, AE Auriga, erodes the gas and dust with its intense radiation and stellar winds. I also just learned, thanks to NASA’s APOD site, that AE Auriga is really just passing through. It was likely ejected from near the Orion Nebula (source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap161201.html )

Nerd Stuff:
William Optics Z73
Skywatcher EQ6-R Pro
QHY 268C
Antlia ALP-T Dual Narrowband

360s x 50 frames totaling 5 hrs
Shot from my backyard in KC, Bortle 7.

Processed with PixInsight and Photoshop. With help from Topaz DeNoise AI and Deep Sky Stacker.

12/14/2022

Here’s a little re-process of one of my new favorites: The Crescent Nebula in Cygnus.
I love the hydrogen alpha region behind the nebula itself. There is just so much good stuff in this area of space!!
This will be heading to the site Cosmicwindow.space soon with all the juicy info!

I’m working on a project that includes a large chunk of the Cygnus region, including this photo. Can’t wait to share it!

Stats:
William Optics Z73
QHY268C
Antlia ALP-T filter
EQ6-R Pro
36 x 300 s totaling 3 hrs of exposure.

#

11/24/2022

Happy Thanksgiving 🦃
No, it’s not a turkey nebula. It’s the California Nebula from two nights ago. It’s been on my list of things to photograph, so I’m glad I could finally get a picture of it. It’s only about 3 hours worth of exposure so there’s some room for improvement. But I’ll take it for now!
I’ll post it on the site, www.Cosmicwindow.space soon with some more detail about the nebula and acquisition details!

11/16/2022

I went on FB live back in September while I obtained all this data. I said I would post it in a day or two... 🤷‍♂️So I'm a little late.
Anyway, enjoy my favorite picture of Saturn!

11/16/2022

Since it's time for Orion to dominate our night skies, here's a photo of the Orion Nebula (Messier 42) I took last Christmas from dark skies in Colorado. Be sure to check out the full(ish) image at https://www.cosmicwindow.space/m-42-the-orion-nebula

11/16/2022

Welcome to Cosmic Window dot Space! It's officially LIVE: The website, the Instagram page, the page...EVERYTHING!! I'll certainly be adding more to all of these places as they come in.
Please, feel free to follow this page, as I'll constantly be updating it with new blog posts, videos, and photos as I get them.
Be sure to check out www.cosmicwindow.space as well for any updates, see stunning space photos*, as well as sign up to be notified when I add posts! You can also contact me for use of my property, or for prints!
Thanks for stopping by!

Keep looking up,
JK

*All photos posted here are taken by me unless otherwise stated in captions.

P.S. This is my newest favorite space photo--the Elephant Trunk Nebula. It's a breeding ground for new stars. Check out the site here for a full description: https://www.cosmicwindow.space/ic-1396-elephant-trunk-nebula

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