This evening was very special because the Seeing was very good (air turbulences in the atmosphere were very weak). The image in the eyepiece was therefore razor sharp. I had never experienced this before. I will not forget this evening so quickly.

This is the best rotation shot so far. The Seeing at the observatory was perfect. With the eye, even the smallest storms on the surface of Jupiter, were seen through the eyepiece. I have never experienced this in my life.

When Jupiter is in opposition (Sun, Earth, planet in one line) it looks very large. Perfect conditions to photograph it. That evening I was also very lucky with the weather. The air was very calm and the view clear. To the right of the Great Red Spot you can see 2 moons. The lower one is Io, the upper one Europa.

I could not observe meteors for a long time. Now I was finally lucky with the weather. This night I have seen certainly more than 20 shooting stars.

Last year I could only photograph the Horsehead Nebula in RGB because it is very close to the horizon and I had not so much time. This year I collected more RGB data and also 2 nights of H-alpha. With the H-alpha channel, many new structures are now visible.

Here you can see how the moon moves in front of the sun. I was not sure if we are lucky with the weather in Germany. But around noon it actually cleared up. For 30 minutes you could see the partial solar eclipse before it started to thunderstorm. It was a very nice day, especially because we could set up the telescopes at the Observatory Gönnsdorf. Due to the lockdown I was not there for a long time. (Time lapse from 62 frames)

The Andromeda Galaxy is probably one of the most famous objects in the sky. So this is not the first picture of this galaxy I upload. But with experience you realize that you can always do something better. With my current setup I can finally photograph the whole galaxy. This was not possible with my Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope and the long focal length. The refractor on the other hand is perfect for these extended deepsky objects.

Finally there were some clear nights in Germany and I could collect data again. This time I wanted to photograph the Crescent Nebula. In 2018, when I started with astrophotography, I had already pointed my telescope at NGC6888. Even then the nebula inspired me. With my current telescope, a 80mm refractor, I finally have a larger FOV. Therefore I could now capture the outer nebula structures. It is interesting to know that inside NGC6888 is a Wolf-Rayet star. With its very strong stellar winds it ejects its outer hull into space.

This project started rather unplanned. Actually I wanted to shoot the Crescent Nebula in RGB but due to the moonlight I switched to H-alpha and IC 1396. The Elephant's Trunk Nebula has always attracted me and I had no H-alpha data from it yet. With the RGB data it is one of my favourite pictures until now.

This planet (29% illuminated) has been on my mind for a long time. Now there was full moon and the conditions for deepsky were bad. So I got my C6 out and went planet hunting. The seeing wasn't good but it wasn't bad either.

Actually I wanted to record a HaRGB but the weather in Germany is unpredictable. Because of the missing time it is unfortunately only an RGB but I am still very satisfied.

In the center of the image is M106 and the long lines are Starlink satellites. At the moment this is a very hot topic. There are a lot of discussions in the media and now I want to share my opinion with you.
In general I am neither opponent nor supporter of the satellites. I am aware of the influence the satellites have on our observations, but I am very curious about the potential of these.
In my opinion more time should be spent on the development of the Starlinks to prevent reflections (that's what we are doing at the moment). For photographers like me there are some tricks how to create high quality images despite the line traces. All you have to do in DeepSkyStacker is select the Kappa-Sigma Clipping method and the problem is solved.
If you take nice pictures of the Starlinks you can upload them to Anecdata.org for NASA researchers (under Satellite Streak Watcher). This way the increasing influence of artificial objects in the sky is documented.
Radio Astronomy has real problems in the meantime, because the dense network of Starlinks create interference signals which will have an influence on the measurements on the ground.
In general I hope that the work on compromise solutions will continue and that no institution feels restricted in its work.

This project was my biggest so far. With 22,5h RGB I went to the limit of the 80mm refractor. I have uploaded M106 several times but I still found small errors in the editing. Steps I could have done better. Now I have invested time again in the editing and have come to this final version.

Bode's Galaxy was one of the first galaxies I had ever exposed. But at that time (2018) I only had a planetary camera and a small Schmidt-Cassegrain. With my new refractor and my cooled camera for astrophotography as well as my experience I can now set completely new standards for myself. The project took 3 whole nights and now I am happy. Especially I like the H-alpha regions (red areas) in the galaxies. My hint to you is: H-alpha is not only something for a nebula, also galaxies have small areas that stand out in the end.

If you observe the stars in the northern hemisphere, they circle permanently around a center. This center is approximately the North Star. But even this one rotates slightly. When you set up your telescope you orientate on Polaris to find the actual celestial pole with a pole finder. Only when you has found it, the observation night can start.
This picture is a total exposure from many 30 seconds single exposures which were automatically stacked in the camera. The image is not further processed.

At an astronomical meeting I had the chance to take pictures with a friend's camera. I fell in love immediately and now I bought my own. It can stack internally, track stars automatically by moving the chip and and and ...

That night I wanted to photograph the Orion Nebula. But I had to wait a while until it was visible. Therefore I took a picture of the moon (35.8% illuminated) and tried to bring out its real colours.

The Orion Nebula is very bright and therefore a popular destination for photographers. But especially the brightness makes it difficult to get a decent picture. Therefore you have to expose the core and the outer structures separately and combine the images. Furthermore an H-alpha filter makes sense to photograph the fine nebula structures. I hope you like the picture.
I think this object is often underestimated in its difficulty. It took me several years to be able to create a realistic HDR from such raw data. I like the intensity of the nebula and especially it's H-alpha parts. The image is a HaRGB and taken with my 80mm Refractor from Meade and a ZWO ASI1600MC Pro cooled.

Finally I tried out my new 80mm Meade APO Refractor on a deep sky object. I chose the Pleiades on the first of the year because they were very close to the zenith. The power and sharpness of the telescope is incredible and I am super happy with the image. Even the faint galaxy UGC 2838 can be seen. With a brightness of 17.8mag I did not expect this.
What I like most is the color of the fog and its fine structures. I find the contrast between the bright stars and the fine nebula to be the most challenging. When recording, I would have liked to use a higher gain value but the stars don't allow this because otherwise everything would burn out.

Finally I tried out my new 80mm Meade APO Refractor on a deep sky object. I chose the Pleiades on the first of the year because they were very close to the zenith. The power and sharpness of the telescope is incredible and I am super happy with the image. Even the faint galaxy UGC 2838 can be seen. With a brightness of 17.8mag I did not expect this.
What I like most is the color of the fog and its fine structures. I find the contrast between the bright stars and the fine nebula to be the most challenging. When recording, I would have liked to use a higher gain value but the stars don't allow this because otherwise everything would burn out.

At the moment there is propably nothing more impressive than the comet NEOWISE. After a very nice party with friends I drove with the car to a viewpoint near to me. I will never forget the impressions and the wonderful view of the comet. The single exposures were 25 seconds long. I took 182 frames (F/3.5) with ISO 1600 and a focal length of 16mm. I took the first picture 0:46 am, the last one at 2:16 am.

Here you can see how the mount compensates the rotation of the sky during the night.

You can see the Starlink satellites lined up over Germany. The overflight of all satellites takes about 10 minutes. With the wide angle lens of the ASI178MC I was able to take pictures of them. I had to expose a bit longer so you can see the small satellites as short lines. Hopefully they will not have too much influence on astrophotography in the future.

Here is my first picture of a deep sky object (Flaming Star Nebula ) through my new 80mm Meade refractor. It's black and white because I could only take pictures in the H-Alpha channel until now. I hope the weather will be good soon, then I can hopefully add the RGB channel. In total I exposed for 5 hours. The single images were exposed for 122 seconds.

Here you can see the course of Mercury transit through my 80mm Meade refractor. Every 55 seconds I took a 150 pictures video and stacked it. If you put everything (every third picture) on top of each other this is the result.

Here you can see the course of Mercury transit through my 80mm Meade refractor. Every 55 seconds I took a 150 pictures video and stacked it. If you put everything (every third picture) on top of each other this is the result.

I hope you find the picture as impressive as I do. The refractor is borrowed from a friend and the image quality is perfect. The single images are exposed for 6min each, only this way you can take pictures of the outer structures. In the first picture I combined the collected data with old data from 2017 to avoid burning out of the core. At that time I had photographed at f/10 and with a small planetary camera. With this aperture ratio and the chip size I had just been able to take a picture of the core of M31 (see next picture).

This picture shows you all image sections of M31 I have ever photographed. The innermost picture was taken in 2017 with a 6 inch SC and the ZWO Asi 178 MC at f/10. The middle one 2018 with the 6 inch SC and the ZWO ASI1600 and the outer one 2019 with the borrowed refractor.

I took this picture a while ago but now it was printed in an astronomical magazine. Seeing my ISS Transit in the most famous astronomical journal (VdS) here in Germany makes me so happy.

Today I installed the "Astronomy Tool" in Photoshop and tried the actions. Especially well you can darken the "small" stars in the image and improve the star colors. I hope you like the result. I can't get enough of this object. With the borrowed refractor, I can finally take good pictures of such large nebulae.

Photographing an ISS transit has a lot to do with timing. On this day I managed to expose the ISS in visible light (see photo) and at the same time in the H-alpha range in front of the sun.

The sun in H-alpha is breathtaking. With the ISS in front, this picture makes me even happier.

Actually I wanted to photograph the Perseids but the moon was much too bright. The result is a picture that shows the movement of the stars in the sky around Polaris.

I reworked my Dumbbell Nebula. I took the lightframes at a 16 inch telscope of the Observatory Gönnsdorf and with a plugin for the image processing I get more out of the picture.

I took this picture in the observatory Gönnsdorf with a 16 inch SC. In the attachment you can see the channels. I have separated the original RGB into R, G and B and the example of M57 shows very clearly which areas the individual wavelengths cover in the nebula.

You would not believe how I froze that day (16.07.2019).

At the moment the weather in Germany is very bad and this gives me the opportunity to look through old data. Here I revised my first ISS-Transit. I took this picture the day after a long party and it was really worth it. If you want to photograph an ISS-Transit, go to the website transit-finder.com. There you can calculate all overflights for a specific place. If the transit takes place during the day, make sure that the ISS is illuminated by the sun (you can find this information on the website under the selected Transit). Otherwise you won't see it well.
One day before the transit I had my graduation party with the whole school. I went to bed very late and the transit was in full daylight early in the morning. I was so extremely tired but I couldn‘t miss this opportunity. I didn't know if an ISS transit on the day in front of the moon was even possible but I wanted to try it. Such a transit takes about half a second. So I kept the exposure time as short as possible and just pressed record. Later on the computer, I was finally happy and relieved that I could record the transit so well. Even the colors of the solar panels are preserved.

This was my first picture with the big ZWO (ASI 1600), a camera especially for deepsky astronomy. I was super happy with the result.

These pictures were taken with the camera of my neighbours, because I did not own a DSLR at that time. I find the resulting picture really pretty (21.01.2019).

Finally I could process my raw data for the Mercury transit. I am very surprised about the performance of the small Meade refractor. Unfortunately I could not photograph the whole transit because often trees or houses covered the planet. The few pictures were taken because I took every 55 seconds a 150 pictures video. The 150 pictures were stacked and sharpened. But nevertheless I find the result very successful.

In total, you see the movement of comet C/2018 W2 (Africano) over 138min. That night there was a full moon, which made the conditions more difficult. But I am so happy with the result, look how fast it is!

This timelapse was created at the telescope in Gönnsdorf and shows the typical sequence of an astrophotography night. The 16" Meade is simply an incredibly good telescope and it is fun to take pictures with it. The Timelapse is one of my favorites.

I made this recording with a simple GoPro. You can see how the mount centers the telescope on the object, even when the sky seems to rotate.

To photograph deep sky objects you need a lot of patience. But if you have set everything right, it runs automatically. During this time you can be a little bit creative, especially if you have an astronomical laser with you.

5 of my 276 captured frames. You can see the shadow of earth on the moon while leaving the lunar surface slowly (27.07.2018).

After hours of searching, I finally found the asteroid. You can see its movement because the stars form streaks by stacking all pictures which I have collected over about 2 hours. Each image was centered on the asteroid and there was always a small offset between the stars, that's why the streaks were formed.

For my exam I photographed an asteroid over a period of one hour. This video shows the movement of (41) Daphne.

I was really convinced of astronomy when I first saw Saturn through the telescope with my own eyes. Who has not seen this sight in his life yet, should go to an observatory fast.

This animation is already a bit older. It was my second animation of Jupiter's rotation and I am very proud of the video. It shows how I started my hobby and developed my enthusiasm for astrophotography. At that time I had forgotten the white balance. Now I have edited the data again, so that now the colors are also correct. The video consists of 21 frames, where each image is a stack of about 2500 images which were filmed over 3 minutes. So the animation shows the rotation of Jupiter over a period of one hour.

You can see the 4 brightest moons of Jupiter: Io, Europa, Callisto and Ganymed (left to right).

This picture is a bit older but until now I never had such a good seeing again. I was always annoyed by a "grid" that was over the picture. With a plugin for Photoshop (Fixel FFT Wizard) I could finally remove this grid. I never had such a good seeing as I had that night.

Because of the last partial lunar eclipse, I came across this old data which I photographed on the 27th of July in 2018. But the program PIPP was able to stabilize the individual images better now.

This is what it looks like when I set up the equipment.

Here you can see me when I just started with astrophotography. At that time I didn't know what a big part this hobby will take in my life.