December 2005 Images

Page 1

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Mars on 12/15/05

 

The weather has been poor here in south Louisiana for the month of December.  I have not had a chance to take any more astrophotographs until mid-month.  I managed to get one image of Mars on 12/15/05, despite some thin clouds and bad seeing.   Oh well, you take what you can get at this time of year. 

 


 

Mars on 12/16/05, 3:20 UT (12/15/05, 9:20 PM CST.)   100% of imaged scale.  Click on the image for the 2X enlargement.  C-8, 200mm F/10, 2X Barlow, Toucam Pro in Raw Mode.  850 Frames acquired and stacked in K3CCDTools.   Photoshop for color balance, rotate and crop.  South is up in this image.

 

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The Orion Nebula on 12/19/05

&

First Light Celestron Comet Catcher

 

I arrived home today and found a package at my door.  It was the last items needed to rig up a new imaging scope I just acquired.   I now own a Celestron Comet Catcher, 140mm (5.5") F/3.6 Schmidt Newtonian.  It is a black tube model.   I paid only $200.00 for it plus shipping.

It had been cloudy all day and into the evening until about 8:30 pm.   All of a sudden, it just cleared up after that and by 9:00 pm, I had the scope outside and I was trying to mount and balance my new toy on my C-8. 

I choose the Orion Nebula for my first target and fired 10 exposures off to test the new scope.  Check out the results of my test:

 


 

The Orion Nebula on 12/19/05.  500mm F/3.6 Schmidt Newtonian, Canon 300D and a Deep Sky Filter.     Guided with a C-8, Toucam Pro and K3CCDTools.  Exposure was 10x120 second sub-images at 400 ISO processed and stacked in Iris, with dark, flat and bias calibration.  Photoshop and Noel Carboni's Astronomy Tools for post processing.

 

 

The same image as above, but with 10 more 1 minute subs added for a total exposure of 30 minutes

 

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The Horse Head & Flame Nebula

on 12/21/05

 

Clear skies for the night of 12/21/05 let me do some more imaging with my new Celestron Comet Catcher.  I am still working the bugs out of the system, but it is getting better. 

 


 

The Horse Head Nebula along with the Flame Nebula on 12/21/05.  500mm F/3.6 Schmidt Newtonian, Canon 300D and a Deep Sky Filter.     Guided with a C-8, Toucam Pro and K3CCDTools.  Exposure was 7x300 second sub-images at 400 ISO processed and stacked in IRIS, with dark, flat and bias calibration.  Photoshop and Noel Carboni's Astronomy Tools for post processing.

 

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Saturn on 12/23/05

 

A break in the weather a few days before Christmas gave me cause to celebrate! I had time to experiment a little more with my new Celestron Comet Catcher, as you can see in the images above.  And, as the seeing improved towards the latter part of this clearing spell, I took advantage of it and imaged Saturn again.  I experimented a little with high-pass sharpening for this image.  Seems to do wonders for detail in Saturn's cloud belts.  Check it out:  

 


 

Saturn on 12/23/05, 7:21 UT (12/23/05, 1:21 AM CST.)   100% of imaged scale.  Click on the image for the 2X enlargement.  C-8, 200mm F/10, 2X Barlow, Toucam Pro in Raw Mode.  362 Frames aquired and stacked in K3CCDTools.   Photoshop for color balance, rotate and crop and high-pass sharpening.  North is up in this image.

 

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The Orion Nebula
at Prime Focus
on 12/25/05

Merry Christmas, everyone!   I geared up for some prime focus astrophotography on Christmas before it got too dark.  I have not done any since getting my 102mm refractor.  I planned to use it for the first time as a guide scope, so this was just a test run.  My favorite test subject, the Orion Nebula, was in position just before 10:00 pm and I got 5 good images of it.  As it turned out, the night was one of the best this year in terms of sky transparency.   Check out the image:

 

The Orion Nebula on 12/25/05.  Celestron C-8, F/5.8  focal reducer, Canon 300D and a Deep Sky Filter.     Exposure was 5x300 second sub-images at 400 ISO processed and stacked in Iris, with dark, flat and bias calibration.  Photoshop and Noel Carboni's Astronomy Tools for post processing.

 

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NGC-253
at Prime Focus
on 12/26/05

Galaxies have always fascinated me.  I like observing and imaging them.  Here is one of the closer full size galaxies to our own, NGC-253.  It is about 8 million light years away.  It is nice and big and easy to get a good image of. 

 


 

NGC-253, the Sculptor Galaxy on 12/26/05.  Celestron C-8, F/5.8  focal reducer, Canon 300D and a Deep Sky Filter.     Exposure was 6x300 second sub-images at 400 ISO processed and stacked in Iris, with dark, flat and bias calibration.  Photoshop and Noel Carboni's Astronomy Tools for post processing.

 

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All Images Copyright © 2005 Mike Broussard. All rights reserved.
To send comments or for more information, please email me at
mike@synergyitg.com.

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