The 2024 Astrophotography Contest

RASC Mississauga Centre

The contest is divided into Master Class, General, and Youth divisions.

Master Class Division:

Master Class Division is open to members who have won a category in a contest previously.

Master Class Category: Solar System

Winner:

Photo by: Shakeel Anwar

Object: ISS Transit of the Sun in H-Alpha

Date Taken: August 14, 2024

Location: Oshawa, Ontario

Equipment: LS80THa Lunt 80mm Solar Scope, AM5 mount, ASI290MM camera, UV/IR cut filter

Processing: The transit was captured in a 60 second video, which was processed using Autostakkert!4, Registax and Photoshop. I used the ASI290MM camera with an UV/IR cut filter at prime focus on the solar scope. Two videos were used to create the final image as the full solar disc did not fit in the field of view of the camera. The images were combined in Photoshop to create a full disk view. The sensitivity of the 290MM allowed me to capture the ISS along with beautiful prominences on the solar edge, including delicate streamers which can be seen where the ISS is exiting the solar disk on the left, and on the right of the image where the streamers reach high above the solar disk.

Second Place

Photo by: Shakeel Anwar

Object: Jupiter, Saturn and Mars in 2024

Date Taken: 9, 2024 (Saturn), December 14, 2024 (Jupiter & Mars)

Location: Mississauga, Ontario

Equipment: Celestron C11, Televue 2.5X Powermate, ZWO ADC, ASI224MC (Jupiter & Mars), Uranus-C (Saturn), UV/IR cut filter

Processing: For all three images, the usual software suspects were used – Firecapture, AutoStakkert!4, Registax, Winjupos and Photoshop. The top two images of Jupiter are both stacks of the best three images each, each taken from 60 second videos stacked and processed in the abovementioned software. The image of Saturn is a stack of the best two images taken a day after opposition.

Honourable Mention

Photo by: Michele Rainville

Object: Sol featuring monster Solar Region AR3615 (Aurora Maker) rotating to Limb. (Two panel Mosaic)

Date Taken: March 28, 2024

Location: Mississauga, Ontario

Equipment: Lunt MT60 B600 solar scope

Processing: Imaging 500 frames @ 62fps. Player One Mars MII. Processed in Autostakkert!, Pixinsight and Photoshop
(Two panel Mosaic)

Master Class Category: Deep Sky

Winner:

Photo by: Michele Rainville

Object: Cygnus Wall Complex (part of NGC 7000)

Date Taken: July 18, 2024

Location: Mississauga, Ontario

Equipment:
Skywatcher Quattro 150p Newtonian with ZWO ASI294MC Pro, Antlia ALP-T Dual Band NB filter

Processing:
9 hours of 300 sec sub exposures. Processed in Pixinsight and Photoshop. Cropped image for composition improvement.

Second Place

Photo by: Dennis Gasparatto

Object: M8 and M20

Date Taken: Taken August 7 & 8 2024 at Starfest

Location: Mt. Forrest, Ontario

Equipment:
SV bony 102ED with 0.8x reducer flattener and ASI2600MC pro camera and using Optolong LQuad LP filter

Processing:
Processed in Pixinsight stretched, colour corrected, curves, star reduction, bluX and Noise X.

Honourable Mention

Photo by: Shakeel Anwar

Object: Andromeda HaRGB

Date Taken: RGB – Aug 9, 2024 / Ha – Oct 22, 23, 2024

Location: Ayton, Ontario / Ha – Mississauga, Ontario

Equipment:
Canon R, Radian 75mm Petzval Refractor, ZWO 30F4 Mini Guide Scope, ASI224mc camera (guide camera), AM5 mount, ASIAir Plus, NBZ narrowband filter

Processing:
17 X 5 minutes of RGB data on Andromeda. For acquisition I attached my astro-modified Canon R directly to my 75mm refractor, with ISO set to 1600. In October, I acquired Ha data using the same equipment but this time with an NBZ narrowband filter for the Ha and Oii data. I acquired 102 X 2 minutes of data. Both were first stacked in DSS, then processed in SiriL and finally combined and finalized in Photoshop.

Master Class Category: Astroscape

Photo by: Shakeel Anwar

Object: Andromeda Rising

Date Taken: May 31st, 2024

Location: Coe Hill, Ontario

Equipment: Canon t5i, Rokinon 135mm f2 lens @f2.8, iOptron SkyTracker Pro mount

Processing: 50, 1 minute exposures at ISO 1600 were taken of the Andromeda galaxy rising above Wollaston Lake near Coe Hill, Ontario. The images were stacked in Deep Sky Stacker and then processed in SiriL and Photoshop to bring out the details in Andromeda, particularly in the spiral arms. It is quite incredible how much more detail can be imaged under a dark sky with great seeing. The foreground was captured at blue hour and is a stack of 3 images taken at ISO 400. The sky and foreground were combined in Photoshop for the final image.

Winner:

Second Place

Photo by: Shakeel Anwar

Object: Aurora Panorama

Date Taken: Oct 11, 2024

Location: Laurel, Ontario

Equipment: Canon 6D, Sigma 14-24mm f2.8 lens @15mm

Processing: This is a 5 panel panorama of the auroral storm which occurred during the night of October 10/11, 2024. ISO was set to 1600, aperture at f2.8 and I set my intervalometer to 10 second shots. As my camera is astro-modified, it was able to capture the reds, a lot of which were visible visually as well. I processed the images first in Lightroom and then combined and further processed them Photoshop.

Honourable Mention

Photo by: Kai Pettifer

Object: Milky Way and Comet A3 over Elbow Falls

Date Taken: October 22, 2024

Location: Elbow Falls, Alberta Canada

Equipment: Shot on a stock Sony A7Sii with Sigma 24mm F1.4 on a standard tripod

Processing: Image is a 4 panel vertical panorama where each panel is composed of 5 15 second exposures shot at F2.5. Individual panels were stacked with StarryLandscapeStacker, and I used photoshop to create the panorama as well as process the image.

General Division:

The General Division is open to members who are starting out in astrophotography.

General Category: Solar System

Winner:

Photo by: Jo VandenDool

Object: Mineral Moon

Date Taken: May 24, 2024

Location: Toronto, Ontario

Equipment: 127mm Maksutov Cassegrain + DSLR

Processing: Mineralized (saturated) in Photoshop, Denoised with GraXpert, de-fringed with DarkTable

Second Place

Photo by: Melissa Hayes

Object: Solar Eclipse

Date Taken: Apr 8, 2024

Location: Simcoe, Ontario

Equipment: Canon 6D Mark ii; 75-300mm lens; Standard tripod (manually tracked); Camera shutter remote; Daystar White Light Universal Solar Filter

Processing: Minor edits in photoshop: slight exposure adjustment, cropped original photo

Honourable Mention

Photo by: Jake Benbihy

Object: Solar Eclipse

Date Taken: Apr 8, 2024

Location: Johnville, Quebec

Equipment: Canon 1DX Mark 3 with 600mm lens

Processing: Some de-noise with topaz ai

General Category: Astroscape

Winner:

Photo by: Jake Benbihy

Object: Total Eclipse

Date Taken: Apr 8, 2024

Location: Johnville, Quebec

Equipment: Canon 1DX Mark 3 with 11-24mm lens

Processing: Some de-noise with topaz ai

Second Place

Photo by: Omar Alnaji

Object: Galactic Centre

Date Taken: June 25, 2024

Location: Santa Maria, Cuba

Equipment: IPhone 15 pro

Processing : Some contrast tweaking

Honourable Mention

Photo by: Dalisay Perez

Object: Aurora Borealis over City of Toronto

Date Taken: October 10, 2024

Location: Mississauga, Ontario

Equipment: Google Pixel 7 – Night Sight Setting – Astrophotography

Processing : Auto processing

Youth Division:

The Youth Division is open to members who are 25yrs old or younger.

Winner:

Photo by: Logan Shaver

Object: Milky Way Core

Date Taken: Jul 7, 2024

Location: Mew Lake Airfield, Ontario

Equipment: Viltrox 75mm lens; Fugifilm X-T30

Processing: Stacked with DeepSkyStacker, removed gradients + colour balancing in Siril, Stretched and finishing touches in Photoshop.

Second Place

Photo by: Logan Shaver

Object: Sol

Date Taken: Dec 14, 2024

Location: Mississauga, Ontario

Equipment: Lunt LS80 Solar telescope, ASI715mc

Processing: Stacked in Autostakkert, sharpened with Registax and stitched with Photoshop. Solar disk inverted, stretched and had colour added in Photoshop.