Bintel 本月照片

Winner of the BINTEL Photo of the Month for April 2025 is Andrew Amiet. It's quite a unique image. We often view or take photos of Saturn through a telescope and the planet's wide rings are one of the most remarkable sights in the night sky.  Andrew captured Saturn during the recent ring crossing - this was a period when its rings were edge on as seen from Earth. Saturn, like the Earth, orbits the Sun at a slight tilt. There are times of its "year" when its northern hemisphere is pointed towards the Sun and at other times, the southern parts of Saturn do so. This gives Saturn seasons like we experience here on Earth. When it's halfway between seasons during equinox, the rings as seen from Earth disappear! You can read more about this in a blog article here.  To capture this rare event, Andrew used: Celestron Evolution 9.25" SCT Telescope ZWO ADC Tele Vue 2.5x Powermate ZWO IR-cut filter ZWO ASI224MC camera 30,000 frames captured over 5 minutes at 100 frames per second.  The image was stacked in AutoStakkert, sharpened in Registax and finished in Photoshop. Taken on the 12th of April 2025, he commented that it could possibly be the "first colour image taken of Saturn edge-on with the rings not visible [for this ring crossing]. This is composite image of a ringless Saturn and (top to bottom) Rhea, Dione, Tethys, Enceladus and Iapetus."  Congrats on the great result Andrew!

Winner of the March BINTEL Photo of The Month competition is Damian Humm with his stunning image of M42 -  The Great Orion Nebula. He used a Sky-Watcher Esprit100ED APO telescope on a HEQ5 mount. Sixty exposures of  180 seconds each was captured using a ZWO ASI2600MC Pro guided with a ZWO ASI220MM Guide Camera with an off-axis guider, controlled with a ZWO ASIAIR Plus.  Damian commented to BINTEL:  "One of my favourite deep space objects, the Orion Nebula, shot directly from my own back yard, here in Miners Rest VIC." I have been working on building a decent setup over the past 2 years and with the fantastic help from Jack and the Bintel team, I can finally create amazing captures! Always been somewhat of a passion for me but I have accelerated that passion into reality by now being able to image things I never knew where out there 👍" If you'd like to see your image featured, simply click here.. 

Congrats to Douglas Cooke for being the winner of the BINTEL Photo of the Month for February 2025 for his image of The Tarantula Nebula. Equipment used: Celestron C8 telescope with a HyperStar 8 V4 Celestron Advanced VX mount ZWO ASI585MC Camera Alinta Triband RGB filter A total 4 hours 29 minutes of one shot colour exposures Processed in PixInsight What's in the image: Douglas tells us: "Tarantula Nebula (NGC 2070) region. Image data was collected from my backyard in central Canberra in the last fortnight. I noticed this object was referenced in your Introductory Guide to Deep Sky Objects (Nebulae) published this week, so I thought you might appreciate a recent image. " There's also a bit of story about Douglas and his astronomy journey: "I've had a life-long interest in astronomy. I had a 60mm refractor when I was a teenager growing up in the 70s (I've still got it). However, life intervened and more than 40 years passed before I had the time to continue my journey. I bought my kit 12 months ago and have been pursuing astrophotography ever since (I've always wanted to own a Celestron SCT ... and the kit that's available now for amateurs like me is just amazing!). It often feels like 'two steps forward and one step back, but I'm pleased with my progress to date. I know I have a long way to go and am continuing to enjoy the challenge (and the rewards!)." Thanks for sending us your image Douglas! We really appreciate you taking the time to tell us how you got into astronomy and look forward to seeing more of your images.