This solar prominence image is submitted by French amateur Jérôme Grenier. Jérôme has been using DMK 31AF03.AS astronomy camera for 3 years to image celestial bodies. Some of his Sun images are extraordinary. Jérôme took the following Sun image on 16th of March, 2010.

You can open the original 1153px × 753px Sun image by clicking on it.

Here is part of his email translated from Fench:

The sky was a little milky resulting in a loss of contrast and there was some turbulence.
120 mm SKYWATCHER telescope and CERF 110 mm filter
DMK 31AF03 camera and treatment with Registax 5 + Photoshop.

Thank you Jérôme!

After German amateur Oliver Stiehler sent us the stunning Mars Image in late February, he accomplished another at the beginning of March. For almost two years, Stiehler has been using DMK 21AF04.AS astronomy camera for his Astrophotography.

Mars

I translate his email as below:

On Monday, 1st of March, 2010, I made another beautiful Mars image. This picture is a RGB picture. The equipments include a Meade 12″ Schmidt-Cassegrain with approx. 9m focal length in the Burgsolms observatory. I used Astronomik Interference filter and DMK 21AF04.AS to capture the video. Exposure time of 3000 Frames was 1/45 sec (it was 1/30 second for the blue channel). All the color channels were averaged and slightly sharpened in Giotto. Further processing work was done with Fitswork and the color Mars image was created in Photoshop with zoom of 160%.

Danke Sehr Herr Stiehler! Tolles Bild!

Messier 82, or Cigar Galaxy, is a starburst galaxy 12 million light-years away in Ursa Major. It is five times as bright as the whole Milky Way. Californian amateur Ralph Ford recently captured a spectacular view of this galaxy and sent the image to us.

At the end of a viewing session, I connected a DBK21AU camera to my 16″ F/46 telescope.  The telescope is mounted on an equatorial platform and I had pretty good polar alignment.  I was able to take 3 second exposures while keeping round stars.  This image is a stack of 76 exposures.  The FOV is only about 6.5′ X 5′.

Ralph has been photographing night sky with his DMK 21AU04.AS for nearly two years. Click here for more of his works on this blog. Thank you Ralph!

We received the following Sunspot image from Australian amateur Trent McDougall. Trent took this picture with his DBK 31AU03.AS in Sydney earlier today. This is also the first astronomy image he has ever sent to us.

He included some tech details in the email:

Image featuring:        Sunspot AR 1054
Location :                 Sydney, Australia
Time:                       15 March 2010 at 1030am local

Equipment:
Camera:              DBK 31
Telescope:          Coronado PST
Mount:               HEQ5

Image:
Capture time:       1min45
Frame rate:          1/3333 sec
Brightness and gain was adjusted for best results

Software:
IC Capture.AS  2.1
Registax v5
Adobe CS3

It is a great picture! Many thanks to Trent!

The AOAsky is an astronomy event organized by Astro Optik von Bergen, one of our Swiss resellers. It is going to take place in Langis, Glaubenberg, between 19 and 21 March, 2010.

The altitude of Langis is 1440 meters above sea level. Observers will be able to set up their equipments on the parking ground of Berghotels Langis. The organizer also recommend a tour daytime in that region – the landscape seems fascinating.