Astrophotography

Thanks for the comments everyone,

SgWRX, I am very certain the only way I will ever own the astronomy gear I would like to have would be to win the lottery lol, but if I ever do become independently wealthy I think one of my first purchases would be a <0.2 anstrom H-alpha filtered Astro-Physics APO refractor *stops to wipe drool from keyboard*

I don't have any shots of the ring nebula but how about a moddest attempt at M51
and a shot of Orion. I normally image under moderetly light polluted skys so I tend to focus more on objects in our solar system or the larger and brighter DSOs.

Protium, great stuff. I like them all.

What lense did you use for the widefield Orion shot?

That solar photo is excellent! I did'nt know detail like that was visible in a PST. Or Is it not "visible" at the eyepiece and only shows up on the CCD? Is it a stock PST or have you added filters? They seem like a great value at $500, even more so when compared to the price of a larger aperture H-Alpha scope.

Hope I'm not being too annoying with all the questions.

Steve

awesome! hey, is that an NGC galaxy to the right of M51 near the edge of the frame? how long are your exposures?

Thanks Steve, I don't mind anwsering questions at all,
I used a Canon f/1.8 50mm for the Orion shot and I used an unstacked PST for the Halpha image. Quite a bit of detail is visible at the eye piece but you have to keep in mind that the it is PURE red with MUCH lower contrast. I use a few different pieces of software to enhance my PST images, including MaxImDL for deconvolution, PIxInsight for wavelet processing and photoshop for Color and contrast adjustment. So while all the detail is definatly visible it is subtle and can take some time to fully take in.

You can't go wrong with a PST for the price but keep in mind they are not designed with imaging in mind. They have very limited back focus, so an SLR won't come to focus without some modification to the PST or something in between to move the focal point.

Thanks SgWRX, Yes it is definatly a galaxy. I am fairly sure it is NGC 5169.
All my shots are unguided so I keep my exposures short and stack multiple images to bring out the faint detail. The M42 and M51 images are a combination of about 9 or 10 40sec images each and I believe the Orion photo was around a 2 minute exposure with my 300D piggybacking on my scope.

IMHO, the moon shot looks simple, but I think it's the hardest to do well. I know, I tried when I had my Questar. The H-alpha shots are great.

Well done. As always--the Heavens declare!


Jake

Protium wrote in post #2269063
Thanks SgWRX, Yes it is definatly a galaxy. I am fairly sure it is NGC 5169.
All my shots are unguided so I keep my exposures short and stack multiple images to bring out the faint detail. The M42 and M51 images are a combination of about 9 or 10 40sec images each and I believe the Orion photo was around a 2 minute exposure with my 300D piggybacking on my scope.

oh ok. wow it really turned out well.

Very nice photos, i am drawn to the saturn shot

i dont really know what to say ,,,,nice photos

ive just bought a ext90 meade lol and now thinking that i souldnt post any shots i get lol

keep up the good work,,look forward to seeing some more

drdragon666 wrote in post #2275026
i dont really know what to say ,,,,nice photos

ive just bought a ext90 meade lol and now thinking that i souldnt post any shots i get lol

Believe me, there are MUCH better amature images out there then mine but I don't let that stop me from posting. I would like to see what you can sqeeze out of it, probably some good lunar shots

Thanks again guys.

Amazing pictures! The first moon picture is my favorite. Thanks for sharing.