Category Archives: Astrophotography

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

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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 v2

[Updated image]

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Flickering Globular Cluster

20-inch ak3, NA, ak3, astrofotografie, astronomie, astronomy, astrophotography, globular cluster, hakos, hakos guest farm, ias, ias observatory, ias observatory hakos, khomas, kugelsternhaufen, m62, messier, namibia, ngc, ngc6266, ophiuchus, star, star cluster, stars, stern, sterne, sternhaufen, world
Messier 62 – Flickering Globular Cluster in Ophiuchus – OSC v2

Another globular cluster, only about 9 degrees from M4 towards the constellation Ophiuchus, Messier 62 or NGC 6266 against the dense background star field of the Milky Way.

More details at Astrobin.

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Spider Globular Cluster

20-inch ak3, NA, ak3, astrofotografie, astronomie, astronomy, astrophotography, globular cluster, hakos, hakos guest farm, ias, ias observatory, ias observatory hakos, khomas, kugelsternhaufen, m4, messier, namibia, ngc, ngc6121, scorpius, star, star cluster, stars, stern, sterne, sternhaufen, world
Messier 4 – Spider Globular Cluster in Scorpius – OSC v3

More processed OSC data with the ASI 2600 MC Duo and the IAS 20″ telescope AK3, featuring the globular cluster Messier 4 aka NGC 6121.

Notable change to my previously shown OSC workflow: I used “K2V star” as the white reference for SpectrophotometricColorCalibration. Standard “Average spiral galaxy” yielded stars, which were too “golden” for my taste, thus this bluer/colder rendition.

See also at Astrobin.

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