Mercury is fading away

Mercury is almost invisible and fading away. Venus is getting brighter and moving higher in the sky.

NGC4274 with new setting

NGC4274 is located in Coma Berenices and is about 45 million ly away from Earth. Galaxy NGC4274 was photographed using new settings :
- Low ISO 400 instead of using higher ones I typically use (1600, 3200)

- Total Exposure time 1hour; previous I choose between 30-45minutes

- Exposure time of each picture 60s

- Use of Bias, Darks, Flats and Darkflats 

Instrumentation : Nikon D7500 and TAL200K f/8.5; stacking was done using APP and limited editing with CS4.

Circumzenithal Arc

Yesterday beside a small halo around the Sun I could also observe a circumzenithal arc.

My picture of Mars with M35 published in the latest edition of Heelal

My picture of Mars and open starcluster M35 is published in the latest edition of Heelal magazine (Jaargang 66, nummer 6, juni 2021, p22).

Venus and Mercury low above horizon

Yesterday, but also the next couple of days, Mercury will get closer and closer towards Venus (relativ). Below picture was taken yesterday evening with Mercury very faint north above Venus.

Upcoming MAI-75 SSTV event on June 9 and 10

On June 9 and June 10, Moscow Aviation Institute MAI-75 will be operating SSTV for a few ISS passes that overfly Moscow.

For more information see this link and my first experience MAI-75 early december 2020

New release v3.1.1 of Topaz DeNoise AI

I installed the latest version 3.1.1 of Topaz DeNoise AI. This update is available since this week and should be better and faster. To evaluate the update I used one of my astropictures from Comet Neowise... and let you decide yourself.