Eta Carina Nebula

[robonrome]

Well since there is to be a new Astronomy forum, I thought I had better support it :)

The attached both with Canon 40D.

The first through an 80mm ED scope 5 x 2min exposures stacked in Images Plus.

The second up close on the same nebula (Keyhole area) at prime focus of a Celestron C9.25 with 10x90s exposures.

C&C welcome.

cheers,

[Nighthound]

Beautiful images Rob. I'd love to spend a few hours on this object, maybe one day I'll get south of the equator.

[robonrome]

Beautiful images Rob. I'd love to spend a few hours on this object, maybe one day I'll get south of the equator.


It's well worth the trip:)

These are only a pale reflection of the depth of detail you can see on Eta. I've seen some deep exposures that show incredible detail.

cheers,

[troypiggo]

Stunning. You must be like me - interested in the very close (macro) and very far (astro). :)

[Johnny9s]

Great shots Rob. Is that with a modified 40D?

[robonrome]

Great shots Rob. Is that with a modified 40D?

Thanks Johnny, nah, I'm not convinced that modding provides such improvements as to warrant the effort, cost and loss of ease of use for normal terrestrial stuff. These ones here I simply selected the central area that comes out a little green with the unmodded camera and tweaked to red:)

[robonrome]

Stunning. You must be like me - interested in the very close (macro) and very far (astro). :)

that's me Troy:D

actually I haven't really done much with deep sky astro-photoghraphy until I got the DSLR. My astro think is really planetary stuff with a web-cam, but as that's not Canon related will keep it to myself;)

[Celestron]

Great shot Rob ! Congrats on a job well done !

[Ballen Photo]

Excellent work Rob. :D
Well since there is to be a new Astronomy forum, I thought I had better support it :)
Glad to hear it. ;)
-Bruce

[Coppatop85]

why do you stack multiple exposures? Can you post one of those 5 images you stacked so i can see each of them? Why not just take one longer exposure?

[poppie guy]

Beautiful images. If "my ship ever comes in", I will add astrophotography to my hobbies.

[robonrome]

why do you stack multiple exposures? Can you post one of those 5 images you stacked so i can see each of them? Why not just take one longer exposure?

Three reasons.

Number one is tracking. It is extremely taxing and highly expensive to track with sufficient accuracy to keep the stars as pinpoints. The higher the focal length the harder it gets. I use some pretty sophisticated auto-tracking software to run my computer controlled mount, but even with this I struggle to run much longer than 5 minutes without some trailing or bloating of the star images due to imperfections in the drive train. So to build up a quality long exposure the best way is multiple short exposures - you can also toss out any that are spoiled by trailing.

Number two is the sky has lots of things buzzing around it. More than you'd realise, clouds, satellites, and planes can all ruin your exposure. I'd much rather toss out a 2 minute exposure than ditch one I'd been running for half and hour or more!

Number 3 is noise reduction. Shorter exposures stacked together reduces the noise in the image.

cheers,

[Celestron]

why do you stack multiple exposures? Can you post one of those 5 images you stacked so i can see each of them? Why not just take one longer exposure?

Short reason , stacking images increases the signal and detail of images .

[Coppatop85]

can you post some of the 2 minute exposures non stacked so I can see them?

[robonrome]

can you post some of the 2 minute exposures non stacked so I can see them?

sorry mate, I running short of hard disk space so as soon as I've produced the finished image I've deleted the raw files.:oops: