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Brad Sherman

@ancientlight_astro

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Exploring space through astrophotography

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IC 1318B the Gamma Cygni Nebula

IC 1318B Gamma Cygni Nebula, also known as the Butterfly Nebula or Sadr Region, is named after the bright star Sadr, or Gamma Cygni. This star is much closer to Earth at 1,800 light-years, while the emission nebula behind it is about 4,900 light-years away. Cygnus hosts some of the most active star-forming regions in our part of the Milky Way galaxy. IC 1318 is often overlooked when compared to other well-known objects in Cygnus like the North America Nebula and the Veil Nebula. Several other interesting structures can be seen such as the open cluster NGC 6910 as well as overlooked emission nebulae such as the filamentary structures of VdB130 which I call the Falls of Cygnus which looks like an aerial view of a waterfall. Many dark nebulae can be seen crossing the field including a dark rift of dark dust bisecting the two lobes of IC 1318B.

#astrophotography #space #astro #astronomy #nebula

Image Acquisition details
- Telescope: William Optics GT81 WIFD (478mm focal length, 81mm aperture, f/5.9)
- Accessories: ZWO AM5, ZWO EAF, William Optics Flat 6AIII 0.8x reducer/flattener (380mm focal length, f/4.8 )
- Camera: ZWO ASI2600 MC Duo
- Filters: Optolong L-Ultimate 3nm Ha-OIII dual-band filter, Askar Colour Magic D-2 6nm OIII-SII dual-band filter.
- Location: Bellefonte, PA
- Sky conditions: Bortle 4
- Processing: ASIair image acquisition, PixInsight processing.
- Integration time: (L-Ultimate Ha-OIII: 138x300s, Askar D-2 OIII-SII: 74x300s)

17 hours, 40 minutes

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Full Mineral Harvest Moon, captured on the morning of 27 September 2026 (a 2-panel mosaic)

High resolution version coming to my website soon! Link in bio!
(www.CVZastro.com)

Bortle 5

My setup:
🔭 Askar 103APO
⚙️ Sky-Watcher EQ6-R
📸 ZWO ASI2600MC AIR
🌌 No filters

#astro #astrophotography #deepspace #astronomy #youresa

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Messier 27 the Dumbbell Nebula

Messier 27 the Dumbbell Nebula in the constellation Vulpecula. Also known as the Apple core nebula, this interesting object is the remains is a sun-like star that died and shed its outer layers that are slowly spreading across space. At the center of the planetary nebula lies a white dwarf, the exposed core of the star that died. M27 lies at a distance of 1360 light-years from earth making it among the closest of these objects to us. Planetary nebulae are complex objects containing many shells or matter as the star threw off material in its final moments. This material will go on to seed the surrounding interstellar medium with heavier elements than hydrogen such as carbon and oxygen that are necessary for life as we know it.

#astrophotography #space #astro #cosmos #astronomy

Image Acquisition Details
- Telescope: Apertura Carbon Star 8” Ritchey–Chrétien reflector (1600mm focal length, 200mm aperture, f/8)
- Accessories: ZWO AM5, ZWO EAF
- Camera: ZWO ASI2600 MC Duo
- Filters: Optolong L-Ultimate 3nm Ha-OIII dual band, Askar Colour Magic D-2 6nm OIII-SII dual band
- Location: Bellefonte, PA
- Sky conditions: Bortle 4
- Processing: ASIair image acquisition,
- Pixinsight Processing.
- Integration time: (L-Ultimate: 49x300s, D-2: 75x300s)

10 hours, 20 minutes

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Full Mineral Harvest Moon, captured on the morning of 27 September 2026 (a 2-panel mosaic)

High resolution version coming to my website soon! Link in bio!
(www.CVZastro.com)

Bortle 5

My setup:
🔭 Askar 103APO
⚙️ Sky-Watcher EQ6-R
📸 ZWO ASI2600MC AIR
🌌 No filters

#astro #astrophotography #deepspace #astronomy #youresa

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SH2-129 Flying Bat and Squid Nebula

SH2-129 The Flying Bat Nebula, is an emission nebula located 2300 light-years away in the constellation Cepheus. Hidden within this HII region lies an interesting object known as Ou4 The Squid Nebula, which is a bipolar outflow nebula with the triple star system HR8119 (HD 202214) at its center. These stars produce violent stellar winds that ionize oxygen atoms within the nebula, which produces an ethereal blue shell that appears to float among the red hydrogen emission of SH2-129. most sources place Ou4 within SH2-129 which would make the Squid Nebula around 50 light-years in length.

This data will be used in an upcoming project with Overall Photons this fall.

#astrophotography #space #astro #cosmos #astronomy

Image Acquisition details
- Telescope: William Optics GT81 WIFD (478mm focal length, 81mm aperture, f/5.9)
- Accessories: ZWO AM5, ZWO EAF, William Optics Flat 6AIII 0.8x reducer/flattener (380mm focal length, f/4.8 )
- Camera: ZWO ASI2600 MC Duo
- Filters: Optolong L-Ultimate 3nm Ha-OIII dual band
- Location: Bellefonte, PA
- Sky conditions: Bortle 4
- Processing: ASIair image acquisition, PixInsight processing.
- Integration time: 77x600s L-Ultimate.

12 hours, 50 minutes integration time.

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The entire Messier Catalogue - 352 hours and 13 minutes total exposure time✨

I can barely believe it myself, but I have actually finished the Messier Catalogue, after deciding a year and a half ago to photograph every single object in it. With a total integration time of 352 hours and 13 minutes! One of the first Messier objects I photographed was Messier 45, back in 2024, when I had just purchased my first cooled deep-sky camera.

Doing this from the Netherlands (N52.6°) was quite a challenge. Objects like Messier 7 sat so low on the horizon that treetops and a farm were visible in every sub frame, which I had to crop out before I could stack the data. For these low objects, I often had to travel to a semi-dark field nearby to get a clear view of the horizon, which meant many nights of sleeping in the car between exposures. Other objects like Messier 13, 31, 39, 51, 94 and 101, were visible from my balcony, so I didn't need to travel for those, which allowed me to gather a bit more data on them.

As you might notice, some images are larger than others, and there's a reason for that too. Those are my favorite images😄, and most of them have a personal story behind how they came to be, which makes the collage a bit more personal and meaningful to me.

In this post, I'm not only sharing the full collage, but also a selection of some of those favorite images I just mentioned.

I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!

Acquisition details

Telescopes:
- Askar 103APO
- William Optics Redcat 51 MK2.5 + SvBony 50mm guidescope

Cameras:
- ZWO ASI2600MC Air
- ZWO ASI294MC Pro
- ZWO ASI533MC Pro
- ZWO ASI224MC (guide)

Mounts
- Sky-Watcher EQ6-R Pro
- Sky-Watcher EQ5 Pro
- ZWO AM3N

Filters:
- Optolong L-eXtreme 2"
- Optolong L-Synergy 2"
- Optolong L-eNhance 2"
- Optolong L-Pro 2"
- Optolong UV/IR Cut 2"

Accessories:
- ZWO ASIAIR
- ZWO EFW 5x2 & EAF

Special thanks to my friend @juul.silv for inspiring me to go for the entire catalogue🔭✨

#youresa #messier #astrophotography #space #telescope

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The Cosmic Photo of the Day — #003

A desert.
A canyon.
A swan, rising.

Cygnus over Glen Canyon, Arizona.
The Moon has set.
The canyon walls hold the last warmth of the day
while the Northern Cross climbs into the dark.

Cygnus flies along the spine of the Milky Way —
Deneb, the Summer Triangle,
and behind them the nurseries we cannot see from here
but know are there.

From Washington to the Arizona desert.
A first night.
A new chapter.

📸 Photograph: @ancientlight_astro
📷 Canon T7 (astro-modified)
🔭 Rokinon 35 mm
📍 Glen Canyon, Arizona

✦ Cosmic Traveler

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NASA vs My Telescope (part 9)✨
Follow for more!

Featuring the following objects:
Messier 16 - The Eagle Nebula & The Pillars of Creation
NGC 6992 - The Eastern Veil Nebula
Messier 17 - The Omega Nebula
Messier 57 - The Ring Nebula

Poll: Would you like to see more parts of NASA vs My Telescope?

#Astronomy #nasa #astrophotography #youresa #space

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VdB 132 reflection Nebula in Cygnus

NGC 6194, VdB 132, and VdB 131 are three bright reflection nebulae in the constellation Cygnus, located around 6000 light-years away. These nebulae are embedded within the Cygnus Molecular Cloud Complex which includes the famous Cygnus X complex and IC 1318 Complex. Reflection nebulae like these result from bright stars illuminating faint dust. The deep red background is caused by hydrogen-alpha emission. Several dark nebulae can also be seen such as LDN 274, LDN 897, LDN 899, and LDN 900, which are clouds of dense dust obscuring the light behind them. One interesting object seen near the bottom of the image is the star V1515 Cyg a FU Orionis-type star which is a pre-main sequence variable star surrounded by a circumstellar accretion disc. Another interesting object can be found near VdB 131. A bipolar reflection nebula can be seen known as Parsamian 22 which is powered by the protostar HBC 694. Protostars often have polar jets of ejected material as material is accreted into the forming star within a circumstellar disc.

#astrophotography #space #astro #cosmos #astronomy

Image Acquisition Details
- Telescope: Apertura Carbon Star 8” Ritchey–Chrétien reflector (1600mm focal length, 200mm aperture, f/8)
- Accessories: ZWO AM5, ZWO EAF
- Camera: ZWO ASI2600 MC Duo
- Filters: Optolong L-Quad Enhance
- Location: Bellefonte, PA
- Sky conditions: Bortle 4
- Processing: ASIair image acquisition, Siril stacking, Pixinsight Processing.
- Integration time: (L-Quad Enhance: 106x300s)

8 hours, 50 minutes

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Messier 16 - The Eagle Nebula and the Pillars of Creation in SHO🏛️

During the nights of 08-12-2026 and 08-24-2026, I headed out with the Askar telescope to capture the second to last Messier object I still needed, Messier 16. I had photographed this object once before in HOO, but now that I have the Optolong L-eXtreme and L-Synergy, I couldn't bring myself to finish the catalogue without an SHO shot of Messier 16. That was also my motivation for sleeping in the car for two nights next to a field, since this nebula isn't visible from my balcony.

It didn't go entirely without a hitch though 😅. During the first night, someone suddenly came speeding up in a car in the middle of the night, even though I've never run into anyone at my observing spot before. I was genuinely scared out of my wits. Luckily it turned out to be a very friendly older lady who wanted to watch the Perseids that night. During the second night it was pretty windy, which eventually forced me to move the telescope to a different spot. About half of the subs ended up with trailed stars because of the wind, so those couldn't be included in the stack.

But in the end. I think I still managed to get a nice image out of it that I'm happy with. I also got to see some beautiful Perseids go by, and luckily Messier 16 isn't going anywhere, so I'll surely be able to get an even better image of it in the coming years!

Bortle: 5

Optolong L-eXtreme lights:
1hr 35min
19x 300sec

Optolong L-Synergy lights:
2hr 30min
30x 300sec

Calibration frames:
20 Darks
20 Flats
20 Dark flats

My setup:
🔭 Askar 103APO
⚙️ ZWO AM3N
📸 ZWO ASI2600MC Air
🌌 Optolong L-eXtreme & L-Synergy 2"

#astro #astrophotography #space #astronomy #youresa

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M20 the Trifid Nebula

Messier 20 the Trifid Nebula. Located in the Sagittarius arm of our galaxy and neighboring the larger and brighter M8 Lagoon Nebula, this colorful object represents all three types of nebulae, an emission nebula composed of ionized hydrogen surrounded by dark dust. Some of this dust is illuminated by the bright stars which cast a beautiful blue glow onto the dust. Other dust clouds appear as dark lanes splitting the nebula in thirds from our perspective. M20 is located 4100 light-years from Earth. From our vantage point, it appears that M20 and M8 are in the same molecular cloud complex but recent studies suggest that M20 is much farther behind M8 based on dust extinction and radio velocity measurement along with new data from the Gaia space telescope. Older studies examining the OB association suggest M20 is closer to M8.

I decided to work spacetime pictures to provide this incredible data to everyone to process for themselves.

#astrophotography #space #astro #spacetimepictures #astronomy

Data available over at @spacetime.pictures
Spacetimepictures.com/datasets/SP_0262

Image Acquisition Details
- Telescope: Apertura Carbon Star 8” Ritchey–Chrétien reflector (1600mm focal length, 200mm aperture, f/8)
- Accessories: ZWO AM5, ZWO EAF
- Camera: ZWO ASI2600 MC Duo
- Filters: Optolong L-Quad Enhance, Optolong L-Ultimate 3nm Ha-OIII dual band, Askar Colour Magic D-2 6nm OIII-SII dual band
- Location: Bellefonte, PA
- Sky conditions: Bortle 4
- Processing: ASIair image acquisition, Siril stacking, Pixinsight Processing.
- Integration time: (L-Quad Enhance: 56x300s, L-Ultimate: 96x300s, D-2: 20x300s)

14 hours, 20 minutes

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NGC 281 - The Pacman Nebula in HOO🕹️

I think this is the third time I've reprocessed this data. And I think this might be the final version, I hope you like it!

Bortle: 5

Optlong L-eNhance lights:
4hr 5min
49x 300sec

Calibration frames:
20 Darks
20 Flats
20 Dark flats

My setup:
🔭 Askar 103APO
⚙️ Sky-Watcher EQ6-R
📸 ZWO ASI294MC Pro
🌌 Optolong L-eNhance

#astro #astrophotography #space #astronomy #youresa

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