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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. |
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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
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First Light Celestron Comet Catcher
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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: |
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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. |
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The same image as above, but with 10 more 1 minute subs added for a total exposure of 30 minutes |
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on 12/21/05
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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. |
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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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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: |
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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
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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: |
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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
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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. |
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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. |