Joe Golias

Do your best with what you have and you may just make a masterpiece

James Guilford , , , ,
Photo: IC 434 & B33, The Horsehead Nebula - by Joe Golias
IC 434 & B33, The Horsehead Nebula – by Joe Golias

The Cuyahoga Astronomical Association has a number of members interested in and skilled at astrophotography – an activity that is both similar to and different from traditional terrestrial photography. One of our skilled practitioners is Joe Golias, owner of Astrozap.com – local maker and seller of telescope accessories. Golias was in attendance at a winter star party in Florida when he made the remarkable image seen above.

“Conditions were pretty good throughout the week with the exception of one strong storm that hit mid week,” Golias wrote. “Otherwise is was clear, calm and warm most of the time. This was not my intended target but had some issues with a dead battery the first night in my mount which killed my go to capabilities. I had to pick an object that I could easily see through my spotting scope and just decided to concentrate on this object the rest of the week.”

Technical Information:

Object: IC 434 & B33 – The Horsehead Nebula
Acquisition Data: The Florida Keys, February 2017
Telescope: Takahashi FSQ-106EDX IV @ f/5.0
Mount: Losmandy G-11
Camera: SBIG STT8300 with self-guiding filter wheel.
Exposure time: 12 Hours using the following filters. HA, Red, Blue & Green.
Processing Software: Images Plus and Photoshop 7.0.

The Beautiful “Gulf of Mexico”

James Guilford , , , , , , , , , , ,
Photo: four panel mosaic of an area called the "Gulf of Mexico" which is part of a much larger area of nebulosity called The North American Nebula or NGC7000. Image by Joe Golias
“Gulf of Mexico” Region of NGC7000

CAA member and local astronomy business owner Joe Golias has shared a new image with us that, well, all we can say about it is that it’s astounding! Here’s Joe’s description of how he produced his photograph of a region of NGC7000…

This was by far the most challenging imaging project I have attempted to date. It represents a four-panel mosaic of an area called the “Gulf of Mexico” which is part of a much larger area of nebulosity called The North American Nebula or NGC7000. This object is located in the constellation of Cygnus. This four-panel mosaic was acquired over a period of three weeks. Total exposure time was 56 hours. We’ve had a long stretch of clear skies here in Ohio which made this image possible.

Object: Gulf of Mexico | Telescope: Takahashi TOA 150 refractor | Telescope Mount: Losmandy G-11 | Camera: SBIG STT8300 with self-guiding filter wheel | Exposure: 56 hours of combined narrowband HA, OIII & SII filters | Location: “Astrozap Ridge,” Medina, Ohio. | Image processing: MaxIm DL, Images Plus, PixInsight, Photoshop CS6