Image Gallery for March, 2007
The Owl Nebula & M98 Galaxy
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!
Image Gallery for February, 2007
Image Gallery for January, 2007
Milky Way in Sagittarius
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.
M64, The Black Eye Galaxy
This image of the Black Eye galaxy was one of my better ones taken with my Celestron C8 that I’ve been having since 1983. It won a contest on the astro forums I frequent back in 2006.
Mars Oct 24th, 2005
One of my better Mars images from the 2005 apparition.
The Milky Way From My Backyard
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
Comet Hale-Bopp on April 6th, 1997
Comet Hale-Bopp in April 1997. This image was taken with a piggy-backed Nikon FE2 film camera and Kodak Royal Gold 1000 film and a Nikor 300mm F/4 lens. Exposure was about 10 minutes.
I have a quite a few images from back then. A few more are below:
Comet Hyakutake, March 23, 1996
Probably the biggest comet I’ve ever seen, Comet Hykutake in 1996 was truly something extraordinary. I remember being at a rest stop that was being constructed on I-49, north of Opelousas, LA. It was a perfect place since it was so dark. But, a few people would drive in and pass by me. A couple cars stopped and asked what I was seeing. I told one group to get out the car and look up. Hyakutake stretched half-way across the sky – a huge comet with a tremendous tail. It was breathtaking from a dark sky location. They were dumbstruck after seeing it, not realizing that a magnificent comet was right over their heads and they never noticed it.
Here’s a few more images: