
One of my better M51 images from back in the day.
This was taken with my Meade SN-8 and a modified Canon 350XT. I have three detail views from this. Here’s a close-up of the Owl Nebula. Here’s the detail view of M98. Finally, I have a detail view of a compact galaxy group called, Hickson 50. Those smudges of light are galaxies that are over 2 billion light-years away!
What can you image with just a camera with a wide angle lens and a tripod? The Milky Way, that’s what! I just love taking images like this. I was in the process of upgrading my telescope mount and had taken my C-8 off the old mount and moved it to a new one. Unfortunately, I was lacking the hand-paddle/computer for the new mount and I could not do any imaging with it. Not to be stopped by a little problem like that I used my camera on a tripod and obtained the image above.
This was taken way back in 2005 with my then, brand new Canon Digital Rebel (the old 300D,) which was my first digital SLR camera. It was a 25 second exposure at ISO 400 with a 28-70 Sigma zoom lens set at the lowest focal length and ratio.
Since this image was taken, the trees have grown considerably and the light pollution is twice as bad as it used to be. Oh, well. At least I still have the original RAW image files to play with. lol