Author Archives: mj

Lunar Eclipse 2025

astrofotografie, astronomie, astronomy, astrophotography, cologne, deutz, eclipse, finsternis, innenstadt, inner city, köln, lunar, lunar eclipse, lvr tower, mond, mondfinsternis, moon, solar system, sonnensystem, stadtbezirk 1 - innenstadt
Total Lunar Eclipse 07 Sep 2025, Cologne 3

After a looong time, a total lunar eclipse was visible from Cologne, Germany. The last time I photographed a lunar eclipse was back in 2019!

Nach laaanger Zeit war endlich wieder eine totale Mondfinsternis in Köln sichtbar. Das letzte Mal habe ich eine Mondfinstern 2019 fotografiert.

Local circumstances (local time = CEST):

20:01 Moonrise
20:11 Max eclipse
20:35 First sighting in Cologne, above a layer of light cirrus clouds
20:52 End of total eclipse
21:56 End of partial eclipse
22:55 End of penumbral eclipse

Continue reading →

A New Silver Dollar

12-inch lacerta remote, NA, astrofotografie, astronomie, astronomy, astrophotography, bildhauer, galaxy, hakos, hakos guest farm, ias, ias observatory, ias observatory hakos, khomas, namibia, ngc, ngc253, sculptor, sculptor galaxy, sculptor-galaxie, silberdollar-galaxie, silver coin galaxy, silver dollar galaxy, spiral galaxy, world
NGC 253 – Sculptor Galaxy – LHaRGB v1

Has been quite a while since I last imaged this large, beautiful spiral galaxy in the southern constellation of Sculptor, NGC 253 known as the Silver Dollar Galaxy, Silber Coin Galaxy, or just Sculptor Galaxy.

A lot of H-alpha data has been used, thus the rendition is different from the DSLR attempts back in 2016.

More Details at Astrobin.

Continue reading →

Cometary Globule CG 11

12-inch lacerta remote, NA, astrofotografie, astronomie, astronomy, astrophotography, cg11, cometary globule, hakos, hakos guest farm, ias, ias observatory, ias observatory hakos, khomas, namibia, sagittarius, world
CG 11 – Cometary Globule in Sagittarius – LHaRGB v1

Continuing the with the cometary globules, here comes CG 11, also part of my growing catalog of CGs here at Gallery > Photography > Astrophotography > Cometary Globules.

More details at Astrobin. Also posted to Spektrum Leserbilder Astronomie.

Continue reading →

Photobook Texas

Photobook Texas – Austin, Houston, Galveston

The photobook of the Texas – Austin, Houston, Galveston series is now readily available at my Blurb bookstore. Even if you don’t want to buy it, paging through the preview gives a good impression of the book, which I think turned out rather well.

Die Serie Texas – Austin, Houston, Galveston is jetzt als Fotobuch bei Blurb verfügbar. Auch wenn man es nicht kaufen will, kann man beim Durchblättern in der Vorschau einen guten Eindruck gewinnen. Ziemlich gut geworden, finde ich.

Toes of the Lagoon

12-inch lacerta remote, NA, astrofotografie, astronomie, astronomy, astrophotography, emission nebula, emissionsnebel, hakos, hakos guest farm, ias, ias observatory, ias observatory hakos, ic, ic1274, ic1275, ic4685, khomas, namibia, ngc, ngc4995, reflection nebula, sagittarius, world
IC 1274/1275/4684/4685, NGC 6559 – Nebulae in Sagittarius – SHO w/RGB Stars v1

An assortment of nebulae in Sagittarius, very close to the well-photographed Lagoon, thus sort of completing the Lagoon footprint, which made me come up with this nickname.

This is a narrowband (SII, H-alpha, OIII) plus RGB image. For rendering the NB data, I used the “Foraxx” palette described in The Coldest Nights blog along with other techniques. Worked rather well, a pure SHO approach would yield a very green image. Stars are color-calibrated RGB.

Emission and reflection nebulae in this field: IC 1274/1275/4684/4685, NGC 6559

The strange object below and right of NGC 6559 is the planetary nebula PN M 1-41
(RA 18 09 30.10, DEC -24 12 26.0).

More details at Astrobin.

Continue reading →

Texas – Austin, Houston, Galveston

TX, US, US-TX, USA, houston, texas, united states, united states of america, vereinigte staaten, world
Houston, Texas – Downtown, McKinney St, made in TEXAS

Nach 2017 brachte uns wieder eine Sonnenfinsternis über den großen Teich in die USA, im April 2024. Die Wetteraussichten favorisierten Texas, daher ging’s dann dort auch hin. Das mit der Sonnenfinsternis wurde noch spannend, aber zunächst einmal standen die Städte Austin, Houston und Galveston auf dem Programm, deren Portrait sich in dieser ersten Bilderserie findet.

After 2017, another total solar eclipse brought us back to the US, in April 2024. The weather forecasts favoured Texas, thus that’s where we went. Things turned out a bit differently with the eclipse, but the first part was a visit to the cities of Austin, Houston, and Galveston, portrayed in this first series of images.

Komplette Serie / complete series: Gallery > Photography > USA > USA 2017 – Texas

Continue reading →

Night in Namibia 2023-2025

Watch this video on YouTube.
(Klicken, um YouTube-Video zu laden. Siehe auch Datenschutzerklärung.)

Two years in the making, here comes a new Night in Namibia time-lapse video.

Special thanks to:
Internationale Amateursternwarte e.V. https://www.ias-observatory.org/

Locations: TimBila Camp Namibia, IAS Observatory Hakos and Hakos Astrofarm, Namibia

An mj’s photography production https://photo.m-j-s.net/

Time-lapse photography Copyright (C) 2023-2025 Martin Junius
Music “Sequenced Variations 1” Copyright (C) 2025 Martin Junius
(Home-made in my studio, hopefully avoiding Youtube Content-ID hell)

Omega Centauri

20-inch ak3, NA, ak3, astrofotografie, astronomie, astronomy, astrophotography, centaurus, globular cluster, hakos, hakos guest farm, ias, ias observatory, ias observatory hakos, khomas, kugelsternhaufen, namibia, ngc, ngc5139, omega centauri, star, star cluster, stars, stern, sterne, sternhaufen, world, zentaur
NGC 5139 – Omega Centauri Globular Cluster – OSC v1

And one more. ;-) Of course, Omega Centauri aka NGC 5139 is a jewel in the southern sky and a go-to-target. So Omega Centauri’s photons were the “first light” for the ASI 2600 MC Duo on the AK3 astrograph, but I messed up focussing and had to redo it later.

All three globular clusters here in the blog were processed in PixInsight and Lightroom with the same color calibration and processing steps. Interestingly enough, their appearance varies quite a bit!

Also compare this with be previous image of Omega Centauri.

More details at Astrobin.

Continue reading →