Your best photos submitted to the magazine this month
PHOTO OF THE MONTH
Pickering’s Triangle mosaic
Paul Ecclestone-Brown, Lichfield, 28–29 August 2021
Paul says: “The Midlands was under almost permanent cloud cover all summer. As I ran out of data to process normally, I decided to experiment. I’ve been fascinated by symmetry and Newton’s colour wheel, so I combined the two concepts in a single image. I took an over-stretched, starless image of the Cygnus Loop and clipped a triangular portion of Pickering’s Triangle from it. I pasted that into Photoshop several times, rotating and reflecting while shifting the hue of each triangle.”
Equipment: ZWO ASI294mm Pro camera, William Optics RedCat 51 refractor, iOptron CEM40 mount
Exposure: Ha 15x 300”, OIII 18x 300”
Software: NINA, PixInsight, Photoshop
Paul’s top tip: “Get confident with dedicated astro-image processors and more general packages like Affinity Photo, GIMP or Photoshop, especially in colour manipulation, layerclipping, rotation and reflection.”
Saturn and its moons
Dan Fleetwood, Rugby, 16 September 2021
Dan says: “I’ve always struggled to capture a crisp image of Saturn, so I was pretty pleased when I realised I’d also captured Dione, Tethys, Rhea and Titan.”
Equipment: ZWO ASI290MM camera, Celestron NexStar 8SE
Exposure: 100fps, best 20 per cent of 20,000 frames stacked
Software: AutoStakkert!, RegiStax, Lightroom
Harvest Moon
Chris Duffy, Wark, Northumberland, 21 September 2021
Chris says: “My equipment is suited to deep-sky imaging, but the Moon was so bright and close to the exact time of being full, I took the opportunity to take a single three-minute video.”
Equipment: ZWO ASI183MM camera, Sky-Watcher Equinox 80ED refractor, Sky-Watcher EQ8 mount
Exposure: 7,000 frames, best 10 per cent stacked
Software: FireCapture, AutoStakkert!, RegiStax
NGC 6820
Bill Batchelor, Coquitlam, British Columbia, Canada, August–September 2021
Bill says: “Because it’s near other enticing targets like the Crescent Nebula, this small emission nebula is often overlooked by imagers.”
Equipment: ZWO ASI1600MM Pro camera, William Optics FLT98 refractor, Celestron Advanced AVX mount
Exposure: Ha 3h, OIII 3h, SII 3h
Software: PixInsight, SG Pro
The Elephant’s Trunk Nebula
Lee Pullen, Bristol, May–June 2021
Lee says: “I like challenging the conventional wisdom that OSC cameras aren’t suitable for use under light-polluted skies. This was taken from Bristol city centre using an L-eXtreme filter.”
Equipment: ZWO ASI2600MC Pro camera, Askar FRA400 f/5.6 astrograph, Orion Sirius EQ-G mount
Exposure: 480x 120”
Software: PixInsight, Photoshop, Lightroom, Topaz DeNoise AI
The California Nebula
Douglas J Struble, Taylor, Michigan, USA, 21 September 2021
Douglas says: “I started capturing this nebula back in January 2018, but finally got round to reprocessing it in the HOO data palette.”
Equipment: ZWO ASI1600MM camera, Stellarvue SV70T refractor, Orion Atlas Pro mount
Exposure: 21h 26’ total
Software: SG Pro, PixInsight, Photoshop
The Iris Nebula
Drew Evans, Flagstaff, Arizona, USA, 9 September 2021
Drew says: “I’ve been striving to capture this object for years. It took some really dark skies, three nights and nearly 18 hours of data.”
Equipment: ZWO ASI533MC Pro camera, William Optics GT81 refractor, Celestron CGX-L mount
Exposure: 17.6h total
Software: Astro Pixel Processor, PixInsight, Lightroom
The Sun in white light and H-alpha
Prabhu, Sharjah, UAE, 21 September 2021
Prabhu says: “This composite in white light (top) and Hydrogen-alpha (bottom) is a collage of 11 panels of 50 stacked frames each.”
Equipment: ZWO ASI294MM Pro camera, Sky-Watcher Esprit 80mm refractor, ZWO IR/UV cut-off filter, DayStar Quark Chromosphere Hydrogen-alpha (Ha) eyepiece, Mylar ND 4.0 filter, Sky-Watcher AZ-EQ6 mount
Exposure: 8.23ms, gain 50
Software: AutoStakkert!, Photoshop
The Andromeda Galaxy
Ed Holt, Beccles, 27 September 2021
Ed says: “This two-panel mosaic is the first image taken from our new home in Suffolk. We were still unpacking, but I couldn’t miss the opportunity of our new darker Bortle 3 skies.”
Equipment: Canon 60D DSLR camera, Sky-Watcher Evostar 80ED, Celestron CG-5 mount
Exposure: ISO 800, f/6.3, 40x 3’, 48x 3’
Software: Astro Pixel Processor, Photoshop, StarNet++
Sh2-115 and Abell 71 in Cygnus – Andre Vilhena, Santa Susana, Portugal, 29 July–19 August 2021 – Equipment: QHYCCD 163M camera, TS-Optics Photoline 115mm refractor, Sky-Watcher EQ6-R Pro mount 
The Elephant’s Trunk, Flying Bat, Squid and Seahorse Nebulae – Callum Wingrove, Stanmore, 17 July–17 September 2021 – Equipment: ZWO ASI294MC Pro camera, Samyang 135mm lens f2.8, Sky Guider Pro mount 
The Andromeda Galaxy rising – Soumyadeep Mukherjee, Kolkata, India, 9 September 2021 – Equipment: Nikon D5600 DSLR, Laowa 100mm f/2.8 lens, iOptron Skyguider Pro mount 
The Bubble Nebula – Rouzbeh Bidshahri, Vancouver, Canada, 2–4 September 2021 – Equipment: QHYCCD 268M CMOS camera, Planewave 12.5-inch CDK astrograph, Astro-Physics AP1100 mount 
The Pleiades, M45 – Mike Read, Corsley, Wiltshire, 8 September 2021 – Equipment: ZWO ASI2600MC camera, William Optics RedCat51 refractor, Sky-Watcher EQ6R mount 
Cygnus region near Sadr – Emil Andronic, Bushey, Hertfordshire, 30 May–18 September 2021 – Equipment: ZWO ASI294MC Pro and QHY294M Pro cameras, TS65 f/6.5 quadruplet astrograph, Sky-Watcher EQ3 Pro and Sky-Watcher EQ6-R mounts 
Deneb – Dan Crowson, remotely via IC Astronomy Observatory, Oria, Spain, June–September 2021 – Equipment: FLI ProLine 16803 CCD camera, Takahashi FSQ-106ED refractor, Paramount MX+ mount 
The Cygnus Loop – Jeffrey Horne, Nashville and Bone Cave, Tennessee, USA, 28 August–12 September 2021 – Equipment: ZWO ASI2600MC Pro camera, TPO UltraWide 180 refractor, Sky-Watcher EQ6R Pro mount
ENTER TO WIN A PRIZE. HERE’S HOW:
Whether you’re a seasoned astrophotographer or a beginner, we’d love to see your images. Email them to contactus@skyatnightmagazine. com. Ts&Cs: www.immediate.co.uk/terms-and-conditions
We’ve teamed up with Modern Astronomy to offer the winner of next month’s Gallery a Hama Lens Pen, designed for quick and easy cleaning of telescope optics, eyepieces and camera lenses. It features a retractable brush and non-liquid cleaning element. www.modernastronomy.com • 020 8763 9953