General

The Messier catalog are a set of 110 astronomical objects catalogued by the French astronomer Charles Messier in his catalogue of nebulae and star clusters. Because Messier was interested only in finding comets, he created a list of those non-comet objects. This list, which Messier created in collaboration is now known as the Messier catalog. This catalog is one of the most famous lists of astronomical objects, and many objects on the list are still referenced by their messier numbers. The catalogue includes most of the astronomical deep-sky objects that can be easily observed from Earth’s Northern Hemisphere and are popular targets for amateur astronomers.  The Messier Catalog is a good way for beginners to start observing the nighttime sky and learn about the type of object each one is.

Planning My Photography

I have used several telescopes to photograph these objects.  They range from a 50mm to a 20-inch aperture using either a CCD camera or Canon DSLR/Mirrorless camera. 

Recently I have been using the ZWO Seestar S50 with a Sony color sensor, It is completely automated and does a good job on capture the object.  I overall plan for this web page is to put all Seestar S50 images posted here.

Post Processing

I do most of my post process with PixInsight, but more recently with Astro Pixels Processor.  Both these programs calibrate, register, and create a stack image of many exposures. I import the photo image into Adobe Lightroom Classic for initial post processing and the rest in Adobe Photoshop.  Also, use plugins such as Astronomy Tools, Astro Flat, and Topaz Photo AI.   I also use Russel Crowman plugins for Photoshop.