My Deepest Astrophoto So Far

Thanks Alex. You've got a nice collection of scopes and the G-8 is a great platform. I almost got a C9.25 but it's limited diameter back made me decide to go with the LX200R(since sold). There's a lot to be said about a good Grab n' Go set up. When I get an observatory I'd like to have a big light bucket to keep me busy while waiting for long exposures. My 20D is unmodified but has very good red response.

I'll bet you could take a short boat ride to some really remote islands with some scary dark skies. I'd love to spend a week or two under skies like that, wow.

NH

Nighthound wrote in post #3770130
This is The Heart Nebula taken with my Takahashi Sky 90 and 20D. This is a very large nebula, this is almost a full fame at 407 mm FL. At just over 3 hours and 20 minutes of exposure time some of the fainter details are starting to appear. Ideally I'd like to get between 4 and 5 hours this year if the weather permits.

Enjoy.

NH

Beautiful shot! OMG, my neck would be killing me after tracking something for that long!

Nighthound wrote in post #3770130
This is The Heart Nebula taken with my Takahashi Sky 90 and 20D. This is a very large nebula, this is almost a full fame at 407 mm FL. At just over 3 hours and 20 minutes of exposure time some of the fainter details are starting to appear. Ideally I'd like to get between 4 and 5 hours this year if the weather permits.

Enjoy.

NH

Really nice. A lot of work.

troehr wrote in post #17834977
Really nice. A lot of work.

Thanks very much. Here's a more recent attempt, this one was 5 hours of exposure:

Nighthound wrote in post #17835001
Thanks very much. Here's a more recent attempt, this one was 5 hours of exposure:

Beautiful!
The picture taking process and when you finally see the results should feel amazing!!!

I have to get into astro photography.
Screw humans and their portraits!
I am serious

Amazing detail. Well done

Very nice capture and edit Steve . I like these DSO's that need a telescope to get good detail for hard objects .

Spectacular image. Outstanding processing work. Very nicely done.

Amazing stuff. Reminds me of how much I can't wait for JWST!

Nighthound wrote in post #17835001
Thanks very much. Here's a more recent attempt, this one was 5 hours of exposure:

stunning detail, Steve
awesome work

seeing this sort of results inspires me to do better

Dave

Van Gogh wrote in post #17835020
Beautiful!
The picture taking process and when you finally see the results should feel amazing!!!

I have to get into astro photography.
Screw humans and their portraits!
I am serious

Thanks. I liken digital deep sky astrophotography(espec​ially very dim objects) to processing film photography in the dark room. Your first glimpse of what you actually photographed happens much further along in the process from the point of producing the exposure(s). It's even more magical since what you photographed wasn't even visible in the viewfinder. When you finish processing an additional reward of this challenging task is the fact that the dim light you captured left your target and hurled through space many hundreds, if not thousands of years ago. Regardless if the object has been photographed thousands of times by thousands of photographers, the accomplishment and the awe of photographing something so enormous and so ridiculously far away never gets old.

It never hurst to expand our horizons, best of luck in your astro quest. I mix it up between astro & wildlife(hobbies) and portraits/lifestyle(at work).

Miki G wrote in post #17836641
Amazing detail. Well done

Thanks very much.

Celestron wrote in post #17837051
Very nice capture and edit Steve . I like these DSO's that need a telescope to get good detail for hard objects .

Thanks Ron. I agree, the dim ones are especially challenging, but very rewarding.

M_Six wrote in post #17837073
Spectacular image. Outstanding processing work. Very nicely done.

Thanks very much.

nfoerster wrote in post #17839668
Amazing stuff. Reminds me of how much I can't wait for JWST!

Thanks. That's going o be an amazing eye in the sky.

Davenn wrote in post #17839918
stunning detail, Steve
awesome work

seeing this sort of results inspires me to do better

Dave

Thanks Dave. It took many years to get this far. There are many objects that I still haven't succeeded at, yet.

Wonderful presentation. Nice Ha as well@

AMAZING work Steve !!!!!

WildImages wrote in post #17875131
Wonderful presentation. Nice Ha as well@

Thanks very much. No Ha applied, wish I had the filters to be able capture and add to the stack.

scorpio_e wrote in post #17875329
AMAZING work Steve !!!!!

Thank you, much appreciated.

This is stellar work! (Pun intended)

I'm going to have to look through your other posts for more inspiration. I too love astrophotography. I've got a Meade LXD55 SN-6, which has a 762mm focal length and 6 inch "aperture". I've got a mount that allows me to track the night sky as well, although I've never installed batteries and tried that yet.

I see you say it takes you 45-90 minutes to polar align your scope. I would love to read more about your process doing this. If you've already discussed it in the past a link to that information is perfectly fine, you don't have to rewrite it just for me.

My "Mount Everest" of astrophotography is the Andromeda Galaxy. Using the same techniques you've described here: polar align, a Barlow to install the camera using prime focus, I was thinking ~45-second exposures stacked using DSS, dark frames to remove noise from hot pixels, and final touch up edits done in PS.

Based on your experience, what kind of results do you think I can expect from this telescope. I still have a lot of practice to do before I attempt to create this image. I would like to get something that is print worthy to put on my wall one day. In my gallery you can see a moon shot I created using this telescope, a 2x Barlow and a Canon 40D. The moon did not fit in the entire frame (crop body and a 2x Barlow), so that image is actually 7 frames stitched together in PS. It came out quite nice in an 8"x8" print; I'm considering printing it at 24"x24" or even as large as 36"x36". I am especially fond of the terminator in this shot, with some craters disappearing into the shadow and the rim reappearing. That I was able to get it this sharp without using a shutter remote is amazing to me.

Again, that's quite a beautiful image you have created. Thank you for sharing; I can't wait to peruse your other work. Keep 'em coming!