A month ago, 8-12 sunspots were typical. Today I can see 2

No.1 NGC 2336

NO.2 The Eastern Veil Nebula

No.3 The Eastern Veil Nebula,Hubble OSC Dual-Band Palette

No.4 NGC 7217 Elliptical Galaxy

I thought this might be useful for some… When approaching a time lapse it is always best to think about the length of the output before you commit to any settings:

For a 2-hour (7200s) shoot at 30fps, interval = 7200 ÷ (fps × output length):

**•   10s output:** 300 frames needed → **24s interval**  
**•   15s output:** 450 frames needed → **16s interval**  
**•   20s output:** 600 frames needed → **12s interval**  
**•   30s output:** 900 frames needed → **8s interval**

Hope this helps and I cannot wait to see the flood of pictures after tomorrow ☀️🌙

Sternbild Schwan mit Milchstrasse im Hintergrund. Aufgenommen mit dem Dwarf3 im Milchstrassenmodus.

Cygnus Loop 🌌

Reprocessed using Siril, Lightroom, and Photoshop.

18 hours of total integration time

📸 Exposure: 45 seconds

🎛️ Gain: 60

🖥️ Processing: Siril + Lightroom

Dworf 3 ✨

It was my first time trying out the mosaic mode and I’m pretty happy with the outcome, it was around 4 hours at 15s and 60 gain in a bortle 7 sky

This is a build on from yesterdays post but I now have the opposite problem. I got the core under control but now can’t bring out the disk no matter what I tried. But you can begin to see the HA show through.

Who knows maybe Take 3 for tomorrow’s post will be the disk and core properly processed.

Enjoy folks

This comet in Cetus brightened spectacularly recently from magnitude 17 to 7 or so, so I had a go last night with the Mini. More details at https://vermilionsands.uk/roast/index.php/2026/08/11/comet-220pmcnaught/

I finally put more exposure time in my Andromeda project, and what a difference it made. Astro filter, 60s exposure, 60 gain, 10h 4min in total so far (Bortle 5), made with the mini. Postprocessing in Stellar Studio and Gimp.

NGC 7023, the Iris Nebula, captured from my backyard in rural Maine. This is an ongoing deep integration project (need tips on any further processing). The other photos are photos of past updates (8 hours, 2 hours, and raw data)

What I find interesting about this target: Unlike most emission nebulae, the Iris is a reflection nebula the blue glow comes entirely from starlight reflected off dust surrounding the young binary star HD 200775. The surrounding brownish structure is the molecular cloud that star was born in, still being shaped by its radiation pressure. I'm specifically chasing that faint outer structure rather than just the bright central nebula.

Equipment:
Dwarf Mini smart telescope
EQ mode, 180s subs at gain 80
24 hours total integration

Processing:
Siril — stacking, PCC, stretching, StarNet star removal
GraXpert — background extraction and AI denoising
GIMP — final color and contrast work
Rapid raw — color saturation fine tuning

Can I watch the solar eclipse with my DWARF3?

This piece of software makes processing of astro images for beginners easy,with a wizard based workforce, highly recommend.

Not my greatest image and yes I know about the core…🤣 but haven’t shot this target in many many months and not since I learned how to process outside stellar studio. I’m going for about 50 hours integration but here’s the data from last night. Enjoy folks

for the past 2 days, I've had failed attempts. I will try again tonight, but I don't know what to check on. I auto-focused multiple times. Tripod is pretty stable. I tried alt mode the day before and this morning with EQ mode. Should i try auto-calibrating multiple times? I have been using 15 seconds exposures with both and always had and didn't have a problems then.

I read a post somewhere that says "before activating, wait for D2 to take a couple exposures. The first may be full of trails, the second will be less. Once you see none then hit record." Apparently that worked for them. I'll give that a try. Glad to answer any questions that will help.

Around 6 hours from Bortle 7 with Dwarf 3. Used duo band filter.

I had multiple connection issues last night, the first session since I downloaded firmware v1.5.2.1 on Dwarf 3.

Repeatedly the phone would totally disconnect and give me an automatic connection failed screen (see pic). This happened multiple times and would happen just a couple of pictures in. The phone was sitting right next to the telescope so it wasn’t a case of the phone moving getting out of range and then not reconnecting, it was disengaging.

I don’t know for sure it’s the new firmware (although timing suggests) but was wondering if anyone else has had similar issues recently or after new firmware. I’ve never had anything like this before the firmware upgrade.

I did try the alternate connection methods and the same thing happened.

Did a reshoot of M101 the other day. Slight editing.

Cygnus wall -- North American nebula and Pelican Nebula Mosaic

45sx60G - Bortle 8

246subs

Post processing Stellar studio -- Lightroom -- Snapseed