Orion Nebula Core Area. 32 frames, 350ms each frame, taken with an Aptina AR0130 Color Imager/Guider camera and a 6″ F/8 Newtonian on a Dobsonian mount.
Here’s one for the personal record book – shooting the Orion Nebula with a scope that has no tracking whatsoever. It was on a Dobsonian mount.
I used an eyepiece camera in video mode and just let M42 drift through the field while I tried to get the most video frames possible. I think I got between 35 and 70 frames for each video. Out of 8 or 9 videos taken, two of the AVI files were good enough to try stacking select frames for a better image.
I used 16 frames from one video and 16 from another video. Each set was stacked in IRIS with the planetary work process for AVI videos, then the two images were combined in PS.
The results are poor compared to what is possible with a tracking mount. But, I knew it could be done with the right technique and I just had to try. 🙂
Three first light images of the moon taken with new guider/planetary camera.
A new camera was used to take these new images of the moon. A six inch Newtonian on a Dobsonian mount was used, so there was no tracking. The camera used was an Aptina-based, AR0130 1.2Mp sensor eyepiece cam. It has good low-light capability and a wide exposure range.
I hope to use it as a guide camera on a tracking mount and do double duty as a planetary/moon camera when hooked to one of my bigger scopes. I can also use it to take some deep sky images with various other lenses or smaller scopes. With the right scope, these types of cameras work great for small objects like planetary nebulae and small galaxies.
The Waning Crescent Moon on September 25, 2016. 6 in F/8 Newtonian, 25mm Plossl, HTC 3.2 megapixel camera phone.
I took this shot on the morning of September 25, 2016. I was trying out my new Smartphone Digiscoping Adapter, which is a mount for most kinds of camera phones to a telescope.
The adapter was hooked to a 6″ F/8 Dobsonian with a 25mm Plossl eyepiece. This device just clamps onto the barrel of any eyepiece and gets the lens of the camera phone centered right over the Continue reading Crescent Moon, Sep 25, 2016→
The Moon on Sep 18, 2016.The Moon on Sep 18, 2016, version 2.
This is an afocal eyepiece projection image using a 25mm Plossl eyepiece, a 6 inch F/8 Newtonian and a HTC 3.2 megapixel camera phone. The first image was sharpened in IRIS, then exported into PS and sharpened/enhanced some more. The second image is maxed out sharpening, slightly overdone, perhaps. lol
M63 Spiral Galaxy. 35×180 sec @ ISO 800, Meade SN-8 at F/4, Hutech Canon 350XT.
Here is a makeover of M63 from data taken in 2007. I boosted the color saturation and decreased the star brightness slightly. Plus, I worked on the star-shapes to get them more round. This was pretty decent data for ISO 800 and 35 subs.
NGC 891. Combined data from two telescopes and 3 data sets – a C8 image and two SN6 images.
Finally, I think I got the data blended for this image as best as possible with the least amount of artifacts. Two images from a 6 inch Schmidt-Newt were combined with one of my more recent C-8 images of the galaxy. I used Registar to scale and align each of the 3 images and then blended them in PS manually.
Orion Nebula & The Running Man Nebula. TV-85 for the base image and a C-8 image for the core. Darker version.Orion Nebula & The Running Man Nebula. TV-85 for the base image and a C-8 image for the core. Lighter version.
The Lagoon and Trifid Nebulae. Wide Field image taken with 200mm F/2.8 Canon telephoto.The Lagoon and Trifid Nebulae. Wide Field image taken with 200mm F/2.8 Canon telephoto. Object-centered crop.
Here’s a rework of an image with data from higher resolution images overlayed on a base image that was taken with my 200mm F/2.8 Canon telephoto lens. The overlay images were closeups of M8 and M20 taken with the TV-85 telescope.
The Orion Nebula – reprocessed image of data taken with a Celestron C8.
Here’s a reprocess of data taken on Nov 28, 2014. This was 24×60 sec and 27×300 sec @ ISO 1600 taken with a C8 at F/6.3, an IDAS-LPS filter and a Canon T3 (modified.)
Comet Lovejoy & the Little Dumbbell Nebula on Feb 20, 2015, 01:08 UT. 45×60 sec @ ISO 6400, TV-85 at F/5.6, IDAS-LPS, Canon T3. StarFreeze version.
Comet Lovejoy & the Little Dumbbell Nebula on Feb 20, 2015, 01:08 UT. 45×60 sec @ ISO 6400, TV-85 at F/5.6, IDAS-LPS, Canon T3. StarStreaks version.Comet Lovejoy & the Little Dumbbell Nebula on Feb 20, 2015, 01:08 UT. 45×60 sec @ ISO 6400, TV-85 at F/5.6, IDAS-LPS, Canon T3. Comet Only version.Comet Lovejoy & the Little Dumbbell Nebula on Feb 20, 2015, 01:08 UT. 45×60 sec @ ISO 6400, TV-85 at F/5.6, IDAS-LPS, Canon T3. Negative view.
A closer pairing of Comet Lovejoy and the Little Dumbbell Nebula on the night of Feb 20, 2015, plus another tail disruption event was in progress.
Images of Comets, Nebulae, Galaxies and Star Clusters
