EAA is "Electronically-assisted" astronomy.  With this type of observational astronomy, the camera substitutes for your eyeballs at the telescope:

• Typically the observer live-streams and stacks together many short-exposure sub-frames of around 5-10 seconds exposure time for each subframe, for a total stack time of 10-20 minutes for each object before moving on in the sky to the next object to be observed.  The full stack of subframes is then saved onto the pc hard drive out at the telescope as a single Master Frame for further basic software processing later if desired.

• You then slew to the next object on your observing list and repeat the process.

• There are several software apps available to automate these EAA routines.  SharpCap is one of the primary apps used to image the objects shown on these EAA webpages.

Click here to go back to EAA home page.

The following objects shown below were imaged and observed from 2/28/2025 through 3/1/2025 using the EAA techniques described above and listed below.

EAA Image Acquisition:

• Telescope:  Vixen VMC260L Modified Klevtsov Cassegrain OTA with Astro-Physics CCDT67 focal reducer, shooting at f/7.8 and a focal length of 2032 mm
  Image Acquisition Software used:  SharpCap latest version
  Mount:  Rainbow Astro RST300, used in Equatorial Mode on Supermount CYG54G carbon-fiber tripod
  Camera:  ASI2600 MC-Pro One-shot-color camera
  Autoguiding:  ASCOM software driver for mount used to connect mount to telescope control pc.  No 2nd camera was needed or used for autoguiding due to the short 5-10 second sub-exposures and precise polar alignment of the mount using the SharpCap Polar Alignment Tool, as well as the tracking quality of typical Rainbow Astro motor drives for short-exposure imaging.

Post-Processing Steps Used:

PixInsight software was used to lightly post-process the accumulated and saved single master frames from each object's image stack.  Typically, the steps used for processing were:

• Removal of light-pollution gradients:  Seti-Astro Auto-DBE script run from inside PixInsight software (1 iteration only)
  Color calibration of the master image:  SPFC and SPCC
  Deconvolution, sharpening, fix star elongation, and Noise Reduction using the RC Astro BlurXTerminator tool from inside PixInsight can also remove star elongation from the final images that was caused by tracking errors or optical errors from focal reducer spacing and minor telescope optical defects such as coma, astigmatism, soft focus, etc...  BXT will also help correct soft focus caused by poor atmospheric conditions or jet-stream turbulence over your observing site.
  Curves Transformation:  adjust image for any remaining residual noise or light pollution gradients, object detail enhancement, color channel or color saturation boosting or reducing of the image, and to adjust the white, mid and black points of the images for best overall appearance on a pc screen.
  Final Noise Reduction:  RC Astro NoiseXTerminator to reduce camera signal background noise or leftover color artifact noise, and clean up the overall image quality of the saved and processed master frames.

NOTE:  the above processing steps for EAA are much less in-depth and very fast compared with full-processing of true traditional long-exposure images.  Again, the goal is to just produce a logbook permanent record of your observing and not to produce publish-worthy pretty pictures.

EAA Objects Observed and Saved for this session:  (all image information and links are courtesy of Wikipedia and NASA).

**Click on any  image to view full-screen**

Image Information: M1, also known as "The Crab Nebula", is the remnant of an exploded star.  The explosion happened approximately in the year 1045 A.D. The nebula lies 6,500 light-years  distant from Earth and is roughly 11 light-years diameter in actual physical size.  The nebula is expanding in size at a rate of approximately 1500 km/second. 8 second livestream exposures x 133 total sub-frames for total exposure time of 17.7 minutes	Image Information: M38 is an open star cluster in our own Milky Way Galaxy.  M38 lies  3,480 light-years distant from Earth and is 13 light-years in diameter.  The star cluster is of intermediate age at approximately 290 million years old and has a population of approximately 100 gravitationally bound stars. 5 second livestream exposures x 240 total sub-frames for total exposure time of 20 minutes
Image Information: NGC 457 is an open star cluster in our own Milky Way Galaxy, located in the constellation Cassiopeiae.  It contains a conspicuous group of bright, young, hot blue-giant stars with a few older red-giant stars.  The cluster is 7,900 light-years distant from Earth and is approximately 21 million years old.   It contains approximately 60-100 stars that are gravitationally bound to each other. 5 second livestream exposures x 231 total sub-frames for total exposure time of 19.2 minutes	Image Information: M42 is a bright emission nebula of hot, ionized gas and dust located in the same spiral galaxy arm as Earth in our own Milky Way Galaxy.  M42 has a total mass of approximately 2,000 times our own Sun's mass.  It is approximately 1,344 light-years distant from Earth and 25 light-years across in size. 5 second livestream exposures x 141 total sub-frames for total exposure time of 11.8 minutes
Image Information: M35 is an open star cluster in our own Milky Way Galaxy, located in the constellation Gemini.  The cluster has a physical diameter of approximately 13 light-years and lies at a distance from Earth of approximately  2,970 light-years.  M35 contains a population of 300-400 gravitationally-bound stars.  The cluster has a mass equivalent to at least 3,200 Suns..  5 second livestream exposures x 139 total sub-frames for total exposure time of 11.5 minutes	Image Information: M36 is an open star cluster in our own Milky Way Galaxy, located in the constellation Auriga.  The cluster has a physical diameter of approximately 30 light-years and lies at a distance from Earth of approximately  3,800 light-years.  M36 is dominated by young, very hot blue-giant stars.  The cluster is approximately 25 million years old.  5 second livestream exposures x 148 total sub-frames for total exposure time of 12.3 minutes
Image Information: M46 is an open star cluster in our own Milky Way Galaxy, located in the constellation Puppis.  The cluster has a physical diameter of approximately 40 light-years and lies at a distance from Earth of approximately  4,900 light-years.  Also in the field of view is a conspicuous planetary nebula (NGC 2438), that is a foreground object and not gravitationally bound to the star cluster. 8 second livestream exposures x 134 total sub-frames for total exposure time of 19 minutes	Image Information: M45, also known as The Pleiades Cluster is an open star cluster in our own Milky Way Galaxy, located in the constellationTaurus.  The cluster has a physical diameter of approximately 40 light-years and lies at a distance from Earth of approximately  444 light-years.  Wispy veils of hot ionized gas are visible in the field of view, energized from the bright blue-giant star Alcyone. 5 second livestream exposures x 116 total sub-frames for total exposure time of 15.5 minutes
Image Information: M41 is an open star cluster in our own Milky Way Galaxy, located in the constellation Canis Major.  The cluster has a physical diameter of approximately 26 light-years and lies at a distance from Earth of approximately 2,300 light-years.  It is estimated to be approximately 190 million years old and has a life expectancy of 500 million years before it has fully disintegrated gravitationally. 5 second livestream exposures x 118 total sub-frames for total exposure time of 9.8 minutes