Astrophoto thread (your own photos please)

[ijuin]

I didn't know the moon had an atmosphere !

It looks like the telescope used for that pic had some chromatic aberration going on.

 

[george7378]

Here are some pictures I took tonight (just pointing my digital camera down the eyepiece of my grandad's telescope):

Jupiter (I could see three moons (three small objects in a row close to Jupiter) and some surface textures with my eye; the camera didn't pick them up):

The moon:

I hope to see Saturn soon too.

 

[Messierhunter]

Did my first test of autoguiding the other night on M27. I think it worked pretty well, though it took me most of the night just to figure out what settings would correct the tracking errors well enough without over-correcting. By the time I got it figured out I only had enough time for a quick pair of exposures. 1x5 minute and 1x2.5 minute exposures at ISO 1600 with an 8" LX200 and Canon XTi. Autoguiding was accomplished with a Meade LPI strapped to my standard 8x50 viewfinder (with the eyepiece removed).

 

[Unstung]

I only have binoculars, heh.
http://unstung.deviantart.com/art/Shading-the-Moon-139119199
I'll get more from that night soon.

 

[Messierhunter]

Added about 35 minutes of light to the M27 image above, now it's much improved:

 

[Messierhunter]

Captured my best image yet of the Orion Nebula on Friday night. I used 9x5 minute and 13x30 second exposures to make an HDR image that captured the detail of the trapezium as well as the rest of the nebula:

For some reason my autoguider (LPI) would occasionally stop delivering images and lock up the guiding software until I unplugged the camera and plugged it back in. If it happened near the end of an exposure it was generally salvageable. I know it's hardware related because even if I closed the guiding software other programs had no luck in getting images from the camera. I'm not sure why that's happening, but it makes any exposure longer than about 5 minutes extremely risky.

 

[RisingFury]

That's a hell of a beautiful shot man!

 

[the.punk]

Wow. Very nice shot.:thumbup:

 

[george7378]

Wow - that's lovely I saw M31 (Andromeda Galaxy) through my 130mm 'scope tonight - it was a sight to behold (even though it only looked like a smudge!). I also saw the Double Cluster. Could you do a photograph of either of these please?

I also hope to see the Orion Nebula soon too.

 

[Messierhunter]

Wow - that's lovely I saw M31 (Andromeda Galaxy) through my 130mm 'scope tonight - it was a sight to behold (even though it only looked like a smudge!). I also saw the Double Cluster. Could you do a photograph of either of these please?

Andromeda has been a difficult target for me in the past because it's so huge. Just to get the main galaxy without either of the satellite galaxies would require me to do a mosaic at least 6 images wide and 2 images tall. For comparison, the above Orion nebula picture is only a 2 image mosaic. I was thinking about trying it though, and it'll probably need to be the first time I create an image using exposures from multiple nights.

The double cluster's also pretty large and would require a bit of a mosaic, and I would need to capture the area surrounding the cluster as well to make it stand out in the image.

I also hope to see the Orion Nebula soon too.

If you liked the Andromeda galaxy you're going to love the Orion nebula.

 

[Arrowstar]

Messierhunter: Wow, that's incredible. Is that a true-color photo?

 

[Messierhunter]

Thank you, yes it is true-color, or at least as close to true as a Canon XTi will get with automatic white balance. I also had to play with the amount of red in the upper half of the image by a small bit to make it match the lower half of the image just before stitching them together. Since it was really a 2 frame mosaic, one image came out a little more red than the other and it didn't look right when stitching them together. The reason for the difference probably has to do with the Canon's automatic white balance making slightly different estimations for the proper white balance of each image.

 

[orb]

White balance is the curse of CCD cameras. Better would be taking pictures in the RAW format, and then setting the same white balance on all photos. Does the program support RAW format?
But the best effect would give RGB filters and 3 monochromatic photos on classical film. That would give the most real true-color.

 

[Messierhunter]

White balance is the curse of CCD cameras. Better would be taking pictures in the RAW format, and then setting the same white balance on all photos. Does the program support RAW format?

Indeed, I used the raw mode but none of the default "scene" settings seem to work as well as auto white balancing (naturally there's no scene setting for "stars and nebulae" lol). Furthermore, the deep sky stacker software I use is unable to change the white balance setting on the raw files, but I suppose that's something I could edit prior to loading it in there.

But the best effect would give RGB filters and 3 monochromatic photos on classical film. That would give the most real true-color.

Very true, monochrome CCDs in combination with RGB filters would also work better. The top of the line astronomy CCDs are monochromatic for that reason, plus you can use narrowband filters and do Hubble-style palletes. The thing about "true color" for any camera, film or CCD, is that the response curve of any detector is going to be very different from that of human night vision, which itself is "greyscale" and more sensitive to green while almost completely insensitive to red. Even "auto white balancing" is pretty close to the true colors we would see if these objects were bright enough to be seen with daylight vision. Maybe one day I'll be able to afford a top of the line astronomical camera, but not any time soon lol.

 

[george7378]

Thanks Messierhunter, I only requested because I have seen them myself My telescope shows the galaxy as a luminous cloud among the stars, and it all fits in the viewfinder at the same time. I'd love to use a 'scope like yours

I think I have seen the Orion Nebula through binoculars, but I couldn't see any detail.

 

[McWgogs]

How's this for camera on tripod only?

Panasonic DMC-FZ8 12x zoom, 3200 iso 45x4s stacked with Deep Sky Stacker
Could be better but fog came ;p
Andromeda Galaxy M31

 

[Messierhunter]

Not bad, I think you can see both of the satellite galaxies as well!

 

[tl8]

Orion 20/11/2009

40 Images with 6x Zoom
With 20 at ISO 200 and 20 at ISO 800
5.33 Second per shot
Canon Powershot A720 IS on a tripod

 

[Zatnikitelman]

Well here's my contribution:
Nikon d80 f/6.3,
ISO 800
Exposure time: 1/4000s
500mm lens

 

[Unstung]

Zatnikitelman, that only took a 500mm (Telephoto?) lense to get such a close-up of the moon?