My first halfway decent image, LOL

I needed to get out tonight, so I played with my scope and camera for a few hours. Actually got to see Scorpius rise in the spring, and was very pleased with its position. Figured I'd try for the Antares region. Captured with a Pentax 135mm lens on my Canon 40D. Piggybacked on my AT102ED. Only 45 sec exposures, because I just tried drift alignment for the first time. Ended up with 42 minutes of exposures. Stacked in DSS and processed in GIMP. Can't wait to see what it would look like with another hour or two!

very nice would love to image this one day

Lovely!

Thanks for your comments! It sure doesn't hold a light to some of the images I see online, but it sure gives me something to shoot for!

good shot

Sweet fruit of hard labor!

Very good first time for THE RHO-ANTARES REGION - WIDE FIELD MOSAIC in SCORPIUS ! Heres what your shooting for and you'll get there with patience !

LOL, I doubt I'll be able to quite get that good with an unmodded DSLR. But yes, I'd like to get a little bit more improvement. I've spent a good portion of today attempting to eek out more information. I also reduced the noise in the image that I posted, and it looks a lot smoother. My PP skills need to improve about as much as my imaging skills! I can't wait to see how this image would look with 3 minute exposures instead of my 45 second ones. I could have gotten away with around a minute, because noticable trailing wasn't apparent until about 1.5 minutes, so I decided to cut my time in half to help. ISO was VERY high at 3200, and I think my aperture setting was at f/2.8. So all things considered, I think it turned out ok.

drevilsmom wrote in post #9976624
LOL, I doubt I'll be able to quite get that good with an unmodded DSLR. But yes, I'd like to get a little bit more improvement. I've spent a good portion of today attempting to eek out more information. I also reduced the noise in the image that I posted, and it looks a lot smoother. My PP skills need to improve about as much as my imaging skills! I can't wait to see how this image would look with 3 minute exposures instead of my 45 second ones. I could have gotten away with around a minute, because noticable trailing wasn't apparent until about 1.5 minutes, so I decided to cut my time in half to help. ISO was VERY high at 3200, and I think my aperture setting was at f/2.8. So all things considered, I think it turned out ok.

Yeah , well .... it's not as easy as some can do if you don't have all the proper equip. But i don't have a big pocket book or the time anymore to worry about producing the best pict . Besides i'm not going to modify my camera to just take astro images only . I paid too much for my XSi to change it where i can't take normal daytime images either . Besides what i need to do is sell all my equip. and concentrate on daytime images only or short tripod night images . But that pict you got is one i always wanted to get and if i get off my lazy..... some time this yr perhaps i'll get one if it's not too late . I haven't scoped since Jan. and i have a Celestron 8" SCT and plenty other equip sitting around just being wasted of none use . I'll probably retire and sell it all in the near future .

Beautiful area and very well done. I'll be having a crack at it next time I'm at a dark site this winter.

Thanks guys! I discovered Baz's tutorial on DSS, as I had basically done nothing more than plug and stack before, and I was pleased at how much more detail I was able to eek out. I still need a couple of more hours, but I may have an opportunity either tomorrow night or the following night. Hope so! Anyway, do you think it looks better? I sure think so, especially in the dust lanes. Not bad for no darks or flats, either!

I think it looks a whole lot better ! If you get a couple more hours you can add them to this .

Beautiful image ...

That is an Awesome image.
I've attempted that one in the past, however, unfortunately the sky glow and line of trees running along my meridian prevent me from capturing any good image data on that and many others in that proximity of the sky.

Tim, I felt the same way for the longest. However, I was startled at how far it rose towards the east this early in the year. It positioned itself fairly perfectly by about one in the morning, and so I was able to get about 42 minutes worth of data before I pooped out and came home to go to bed. If I was smart, I would have slept for a while in the truck, but it was cold. Normally, when I think of Scorpius, I see it low in the southern sky in the fall, and I run into the same problem that you do. But getting up early in order to image this will be worth it, I think. In a month or so, I may try the same thing with parts of the Sagittarius region.