Mack Murdoc Photography

"The Wizard Nebula" This one i've been sitting on for a few weeks making small tweaks and changes feeling like it just wasn't ready... but sometimes its smart to just put your pencil down, call it a day, post it and just hope for the best. The Wizard Nebula also known as NGC 7380 lies in the constellation Cepheus about 7,000 light-years from Earth within our vary own Milky Way Galaxy. Now heres a fun fact, Sure when you look up at the sky you cant see the Wizard Nebula... but... if you could see it this big and bright, from our perspective here on earth it would pretty much be the exact same size of the moon. The thing that most people dont realize is the majority of the objects I shoot are just as big as, if not bigger than the moon from our visual perspective. Infact some of them are like 5-6x bigger than the moon from our perspective... you just cant see them. And yea... dont ask me why they call it The Wizard Nebula... Some people see it... some dont... i dont. Photo Details: Camera: ZWO ASI2600mm Cooled Monochrome Lens: Explore Scientific 127mm Carbon Fiber Refractor Focal Length: 952mm Mount: SkyWatcher EQ6R-Pro Guide Camera: ASI 120mm Planetary Camera Guide Scope: ZWO OAG Filters: Chroma 3nm Ha, Sii, Oiii Narrowband filter set Focuser: Optec Quicksync FTX30 Shutter Speed: 50 x 10min exposures on Ha, Sii, Oiii. Total Exposure time: 25 hours Aperture: F7.5 Gain: 100 Offset 20 Calibration frames: 30 dark, 20 bias 20 flat Imaging Software: Sequence Generator Pro Guiding Software: PHD2 Stacking Software: Deep Sky Stacker Editing Software in Adobe Photoshop & Pixinsight Stacked as SHO See more

The Bubble Nebula With my newest deep space image I’d like to present The Bubble Nebula also known as NGC7635. This beautiful cosmic space bubble lies 11,100 light years from earth in the constellation Cassiopeia. The bubble is created by an energetic flow of gas known as a ‘stellar wind’. Which comes from the massive star a million times brighter than our own sun. The pressure of the stellar wind coming off this star pushes on these gasses outward, exciting them and maki...ng them glow along with creating its bubble form. The bubble keeps growing at about 62 miles per hour as the winds keep pushing upon the insides of the bubble. Based on the rate the star and it’s expending energy, scientists estimate in 10 to 20 million years it will explode as a supernova. And the bubble will succumb to a common fate: It’ll pop. The amount of energy that this star and stars around it give off energize the gases around the bubble causing them to glow. This was such a fun target to shoot, and if I'm being honest, its been a goal of mine to try and shoot this target since I started shooting deep space. The Hubble Space Telescope shot this target in 2016 and produced something so spectacular that my mind has always been fascinated with it. I knew I would never be able to produce Hubble like quality, but if I'm being real, I didn’t expect to get something this high quality either. It really is amazing the things we can shoot from our own backyards with the right knowledge, gear and most of all time. This image took me 25 hours to shoot over a period of a month. Little bits and pieces each night making sure I could get the best photographic data possible to do it justice. All shot from the rooftop of my apartment building right in the center of my Bortle 9 light polluted skies in Los Angeles.Enjoy Photo Details: Camera: ZWO ASI2600mm Cooled Monochrome Lens: Explore Scientific 127mm Carbon Fiber Refractor Focal Length: 952mm Mount: SkyWatcher EQ6R-Pro Guide Camera: ASI 120mm Planetary Camera Guide Scope: ZWO OAG Filters: Chroma 3nm Ha, Sii, Oiii Narrowband filter set Focuser: Optec Quicksync FTX30 Shutter Speed: 50 x 10min exposures on Ha, Sii, Oiii Total Exposure: 25 hours See more

"Jupiter, The Great Red Spot, And its Moons" So I decided to give Planetary Photography one more attempt and try to get Jupiter and some more details than my last shot, get the Great Red Spot, and capture its moons. While its not as good as clean and sharp as i wanted, I still consider the shot a success. The Great Red Spot is a massive hurricane with winds and deadly gasses that travel up to 450mps. This giant Tornado Hurricane is quickly dying and used to be the size of 3-4... Earths when we first discovered it, Then in the 70's it had shrunk about half its size, and since the 70 its only about 1 earth large. Scientist and Astronomers Predict that the Great Red Spot might last another 10-15 years at its current rate of reduction. Crazy to think that This hurricane has been going on longer than ive been alive, my dads been alive, my grandpas been alive and even before my grandpas grandpas were born (its been around for 350 years) and it comes to die in my lifetime. And unlike our day which is 24 hours for our planet to fully rotate, Jupiter, even though its much bigger rotates every 9 hours so... The Great Red Spot comes into view for about 3-4 hours every 5 hours or so, at least a good view of it at least. You also see its moons here, Europa, Ganymede and Io. These were the first moons we ever discovered that showed us that other planets had moons besides us in the 1600s. Jupiter is the biggest planet in our Solar System. Its enormous!!! Let me give you an idea how big it is. You can fit 1300 earths inside Jupiter, and you need 1000 Jupiters to fit inside the Sun. CRAZY! Infact Jupiter is so big that if it had grown about 13x larger the mass of it would have imploded and exploded, ignited and turned into a second star in our solar system. And if it was 13x bigger... well it would look about the same size of the moon and would light up our whole sky at night. Anyways, Sure your bored of the space facts, Enjoy :) Shot on a Explore Scientific 127CF/EQ6R-Pro/ASI533/UV-IR/4x Powermate See more

Ehh, another attempt at shooting saturn. With my telescope I dont think ill be able to really get the details and clarity that I really want. But... hey, it was worth a try. #astronomy #galaxy #telescope #solarsystem #space #outerspace #astronomyfacts #galaxies #cosmos #astrophysics #universe #constellations #spacewalk #blackhole #meteorshower #astronomer #astronautlife #spaceman #spaceart #astronaut #stars #kidsinspace #meteor #spacenews #milkyway #blackholes #nightsky #spcacescience #spaceisforeveryone #spaceenthusiast

Not incredibly proud of this one, but its also not to bad for a real first attempt with effort on planetary. but im posting it anyways so i can come back in the future and say this was a my first decent attempt. This was taken last night on Jupiters Opposition

The Lagoon Nebula (M8) WOW, This is super sentimental for me to shoot this target, because this was the very first deep space target I ever tried to shoot before I ever had a telescope in 2017. And then it was the very first target I shot when I bought my first telescope in 2018. So, its amazing to me to see the progression I’ve made on the same target in the last 3 years. Ill post those other 2 up in the comments. Progression is everything to me. Its one of the most importan...t things in my life, to make sure I'm always pushing forward and being better than I was yesterday. Ill never be the best and frankly I never want to be, because having people that are better than you always gives me a new level to strive and work for. If anyone knows me well, they know I'm a big fan of recording data and writing everything down. I log every workout and rep I do, time them and log how much weight, In my Parkour days I used to measure my jumps and wall climbs and number of tricks. In photography, I feel like logging data to track progression is really just visual. Its shooting the same target and comparing. So its moment like this when I finished capturing and editing this target, that I can sit back and be proud of myself and see, through visual physical data that Ive improved every year. Moments like this make me excited to know what my images will look like in 5 years from now. Will I one day look upon this and say MAN, I SUCKED!. I’ll always be proud of my images because of the countless weeks I spend on each them without giving up. Each photo from start to completion is really a full project, but even though I'm proud, I do hope to look back at this and say it sucks because that will just mean I got better, Anyway what you are looking at here is down a cone of cosmic gases and galactic dust that make up the Lagoon Nebula also known as M8 located in the constellation Sagittarius only 4.100 light years away from Earth. It’s what is called as an emission nebula, which means its gasses are so ionized and excited that they glow and emit its own light. Enjoy Photo Details: Camera: ZWO ASI2600mm Cooled Monochrome Lens: Explore Scientific 127mm Carbon Fiber Refractor Focal Length: 952mm Mount: SkyWatcher EQ6R-Pro Guide Camera: ASI 120mm Planetary Camera Guide Scope: ZWO OAG Filters: Chroma 3nm Ha, Sii, Oiii Narrowband filter set Focuser: Optec Quicksync FTX30 Shutter Speed: 50 x 10min exposures on Ha, Sii, Oiii. Total Exposure time: 25 hours Aperture: F7.5 Gain: 100 Offset 20 Calibration frames: 30 dark, 20 bias 20 flat Imaging Software: Sequence Generator Pro Guiding Software: PHD2 Stacking Software: Deep Sky Stacker Editing Software in Adobe Photoshop & Pixinsight Stacked as HOO See more

The Heart of the Heart (Melotte 15) I still can’t believe I can stare at the stars and take pictures like this for a living. This is my newest deep space image and the longest project I’ve done to date. Just for fun I decided to time myself on how long it takes to take an image like this from beginning to end, including the image capturing, focusing, stacking processing, calibration frames, and basic troubleshooting, and in total it comes out to 49 hours taken over the last ...month. And I've loved every second of the journey and anticipation of completing such a big project, especially a project that has such emotional meaning to me which ill get to in a bit. This beautiful star forming region called Melotte 15 is located in the heart of the Heart Nebula in the constellation of Cassiopeia 7,500 light years away from earth and sculpted by stellar winds and radiation from its hot stars creating these beautiful galactic cosmic clouds. I decided to use a color pallet made famous by the Hubble Space Telescope called the Hubble Pallet where Hydrogen Alpha is placed in the Green Channel, Sulfer is put in Red and Oxygen is Blue. This photo has a big significance to how im feeling for a few reasons. 1. 2 years ago I chose this target as my first target to shoot Narrowband for the first time, and my first time with an astronomy camera. So its always amazing to see a 2 year progression on how far I’ve come. And second, because I’ve been going through a rough time lately, and this target makes me remember that every night there will be a morning to shortly follow. The sun will still rise, the moon will still set, the stars will still shine. Life moves on but even though that won’t change, i'm so blessed to have the fans and friends that have reached out and shared their love with me. You guys are the heart of everything like this is the heart of the sky. Thank you everyone for being who you are. For being a great support system. Id like to give a special dedication to 2 people in particular for being such a bright light and giving me a massive amount of hope Mike Leiter @leiterphotography and Amber Marie @astro_amber . Major thanks! This one is for you. Cheers See more

Yesterday while shooting the Wizard Nebula, I looked up at the moon and thought it was just too beautiful to not take a picture of. So I pointed the telescope over and heres what I got.

"The Pillars of Creation" This is the biggest project I've ever worked on. With 25 hours of exposure time taken over the last month. I challenged myself with shooting the most famous object in space captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. I might not be able to ever beat Hubble... but for just some average dude with a telescope on his roof id like to say it was a worthy effort. This is a small part of a much bigger picture of the Eagle Nebula where the Pillars are located in ...the center. I'm sure I'll release that photo sometime soon The Pillars are located in the constellation of Serpens around 7000 light-years away from earth. There's a good chance these pillars don't exist anymore because this area is highly active and a giant star-forming region constantly birthing new stars which give off massive amounts of galactic radiation which over time will flow these pillars made of thick dust and gasses away. Luckily enough for us, light takes 7000 years to get to us and will be many thousands of years for us to see a change. Photo Details: Camera: ZWO ASI2600mm Cooled Monochrome Lens: Explore Scientific 127mm Carbon Fiber Refractor Focal Length: 952mm Mount: SkyWatcher EQ6R-Pro Guide Camera: ASI 120mm Planetary Camera Guide Scope: ZWO OAG Filters: Chroma 3nm Ha, Sii, Oiii Narrowband filter set Focuser: Optec Quicksync FTX30 Polar Align: Polemaster Shutter Speed: 50 x 10min exposures on Ha, Sii, Oiii. Total Exposure time: 25 hours Aperture: F7.5 Gain: 100 Offset 20 Binning 1x1 Calibration frames: No calibration frames Imaging Software: Sequence Generator Pro Guiding Software: PHD2 Stacking Software: Deep Sky Stacker Editing Software in Adobe Photoshop & Pixinsight You can find all of this gear and more at OPT #moodygrams #master_gallery #amazing_longexpo #longexpo_addiction #longexposure_shots #longexpoelite #allbeauty_addiction #igtoday #expofilm #theimaged #nightscaper #master_gallery #ourmoodydays #hubs_united #ourplanetdaily #nightphotography_exclusive #nikonnofilter #wonderful_places #theglobewanderer #ourplanetdaily #earth_shotz #randommagazines #ig_bliss #fatalframes #bigsur #california #OPTEAM #pnwwonderland #milkyway #stargazing

HEY EVERYONE! The most requested video is here! Every time I've made a video on the Northern Hemisphere targets, I get tons of requests to do the Southern Hemisphere, I listened, Did tons of research, and here we are! While it's summer on the north side, here's a video of 10 of your top winter targets in the Southern Hemisphere, what focal lengths to shoot them at, and which filters could help. Enjoy! Big thanks to my brotha Rafal for some amazing editing, And Sarah Longcor and Dylan O'Donnell for fact-checking my work. It's one thing to look in books and the internet, but southern Hemisphere astronomers are the real deal! https://youtu.be/oHJVkhk9k8E

Hey There, my wonderful space and Astro nerds! Summer is here, and that means Milky Way season is among us. So I made a list of my personal Top 15 Summer Targets you can shoot during Milky Way season, along with fun facts, what focal lengths, filters, and much more to shoot them with. Don't forget to support the channel by smashing that like button! :) This is perfect for people who have never shot anything in deep space before who are interested all the way up to expert photographers so I hope you all enjoy and learn something cool. https://youtu.be/N_n2Y9HKhSw

"The Search" Milky Way season has started again! And I couldn't be happier to get out and shoot it. This was taken on a beautiful night out in the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes out in Death Valley. As I raised my hand up in the pitch back darkness and activate the flash to light my foreground you realize its a metaphor for how we are. We all cary our own light to guide us in the darkness and light our way to a better place. This shot it a symbol of us, in our home The milky way ga...laxy. Its our place in the universe, our galactic address, and even though we are already home as the sun sets and the Milky Way rises we get engulfed with darkness. It can seem scary at times. Whether we are wondering the endless desert in the darkness, or being lost in our own life we always have something in us or on us that can help guide our way back. Sometimes it takes a little soul searching but i promise you we all have something in us to keep us going. No one is alone even though we might feel like it, no one is truly lost in the darkness without hope. So search for that light inside you, and use it to guide your way. Camera Details Camera: Canon 6d Lens : Canon 50mm F1.4 @F4 pano Exposure Time: 120 seconds Focal Length: Sky: 50mm FG:14mm ISO 6400 Apature: F4 Foreground 14mm #universetoday #milkyway #nightsky #longexposure #stars #astronomy #space #nightphotography #universe #nature #night #nightimages #landscape #cosmos #sky #galaxy #astro #milkywaychasers #beautiful #longexposure_shots #science #astrophoto #nightscape #nightscaper #natgeospace #milkywaygalaxy #stargazing #longexpoelite #astrophotos #starrynight

Hey there my lovely Astro Nerds! I've been getting a bunch of questions about electronic focusers and if they are useful. So I figured id break it down for you all, and tackled the fear of dismantling your telescope in order to install one, which I know many people stress about if they haven't done it before. In this video, I chose to use the new Radian Electronic Focuser as an example, not just because I think it's an amazing focuser, but also I think it's the closest to how the majority of focusers are installed. That being said, each focuser is different and might require different steps. AS always if you enjoyed this video, consider hitting the like button and feel free to follow me on Instagram @mackmurdoc , Im always down to help :) https://youtu.be/TN5hnE2UnbU