Astrophoto thread (your own photos please)

[ghostrunner01]

I just started snapping shots of space. I got this nice shot of the moon!

Edit: Just thought I'd share this:

I took this by placing my Droid Incredible's Camera to the lens of my XT 4.5 Dobsonian and took this.

My little telescope: http://www.telescope.com/control/telescopes/dobsonian-telescopes/orion-skyquest-xt4*5-classic-dobsonian-telescope

 

[george7378]

Hi everyone,

I just made a video containing most of the photos I have taken this year, to look back on my first year as a 'proper' amateur astronomer, and my first year in astrophotography:

 

[george7378]

This evening gave me a beautiful clear sky, with not a cloud in sight. It was very nice to see the perfect sky with the glow of the sunset in the west, the Moon and Jupiter close to eachother in the southwest (with the Moon exhibiting the best display of Earthshine I have ever seen), and then the ISS shooting out of the blue to cross the gently glowing sky. The first photo shows it crossing close to the Moon and Jupiter, and the second and third show it setting behind the trees. All are 30 second exposures:

 

[george7378]

Hi everyone,

Last night was a great opportunity to do some lunar observing, and to get some afocal images. These are all stacks of about 360 frames done in Registax (my photobucket is still down, so I will need to use Flickr):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/georgekristiansen/5440034832/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/georgekristiansen/5439431565/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/georgekristiansen/5439453245/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/georgekristiansen/5439452893/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/georgekristiansen/5441264206/

 

[Notebook]

Very nice! The Moon has been looking good the last few nights, when the clouds clear.

N.

 

[george7378]

Thanks - I agree about the cloud - it was not very clear last night either. Here's a video of the Moon I took alongside these pictures:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arC22a-ZwYM"]YouTube - The Moon through my telescope[/ame]

 

[JEL]

Thanks george, for the registax recommendation, it's really able to enhance the level of detail in photos of this type

I made a side-by-side comparison of a video sequence I did an then ran through registax.
The image on the left is a still-frame taken directly from the video, and the image on the right is the registax composite made of the full video-sequence.
It really does a good job filtering the grain away and bringing the actual average image out.
(and registax version #6 is soon arriving the website says)

 

[JEL]

Kappa Lyrae - (k Lyr, HIP 89826, HD 168775, SAO 66869, HR 6872):

1:1 pixel size.

Stack:
4 light @ 4 seconds (with automatic dark subtraction)
F Number: 5.6
ISO: 6400
Focal Length: 300.0 mm (In 35mm Format: 450 mm)
---

Vega - (alpha Lyrae, HIP 91262, HD 172167, SAO 67174, HR 7001):

1:1 pixel size.

Stack:
4 light @ 4 seconds (with automatic dark subtraction)
F Number: 5.6
ISO: 12800
Focal Length: 300.0 mm (In 35mm Format: 450 mm)

This one I wavelet-decomposed in GIMP and did some manual adjustments to. I can't tell if the blue corona is the actual dust-corona around Vega or if it is just a light-bloom effect by the lens, but I'm guessing it's the latter.
---

Both taken march 7th, 2011.

These are my first attempts at some more serious astro-photography. The main thing I learned during this first attempt is that it is hard!
No scope used, just the camera and it's attached lens.

 

[Nazban]

wow! those are some really cool photos!!!
im buying a Celestron Nexstar 130SLT by the end of this month, im really hoping for some good images! once 1 get them, 1st thing ill do is post them on this thread!!

 

[george7378]

Nice images JEL - I love seeing stars up close. GIMP is also my tool of choice for processing.

Here are some images of Mercury near Jupiter (Mercury is on the lower right) tonight - the first time I have ever seen planet Mercury, believe it or not! It has always eluded me until tonight - it was amazingly obvious once I had seen it.

---------- Post added 15-03-11 at 17:09 ---------- Previous post was 14-03-11 at 18:56 ----------

... and here are some images I took on the 13th. Each photo is 380 frames of HD video stacked, taken with my Lumix and Sky-Watcher 250PX. The results just seem to get better every time I do an imaging run on the Moon - I'm really pleased with these, considering the fact that they are just straight through the eyepiece:

 

[JEL]

@george; Wow :speakcool: The moon up close like that is just brilliant.

Do you just hold the camera up to the eye-piece or is it attached to the scope somehow?

I've read about certain 'webcams' that slide directly into the scope's eye-piece socket and can film directly through the scope that way. They're not HD though but they still get a lot of good comments by users. I was thinking about buying one of those myself if I go ahead and buy a real telescope. For the moment though, I'm still waiting for the t-ring adapter for my camera and spotting-scope connection to see how far I can get with that first though. I really hope I can eventually get some good closeups atleast partially as good as these you have here

 

[Unstung]

My attempt at the supermoon:

Of course, it didn't look any special tonight other than it was full.

And a previous attempt over 17 months ago with a cheap camera: http://unstung.deviantart.com/art/Shading-the-Moon-139119199

Both of these shots were taken with the same pair of binoculars. So, the more recent shot is taken at a focal length of 105mm and the magnification of the binoculars, which I do not know.

 

[george7378]

JEL: I use a cheap bracket which holds the camera up to the scope and keeps it steady. Good luck taking pictures - I can't wait to see them!

Also, here are some long exposures of the Supermoon from last night:

 

[george7378]

Recent sunsets

We have been getting some amazing filtered sunsets recently. I was able to watch the Sun set with the naked eye three days in a row - I could see sunspots too. Here are some images:

More here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/georgekristiansen/

 

[Messierhunter]

I'm probably a day late and a dollar short on this, but here are some photos I shot of Discovery's final launch telescopically. They were shot using an 8" LX200 and Canon XTi. They're all mirrored left-to-right due to the telescope:

Easily the best shots of SRB separation I've ever been able to get.
And here's my latest video tracking of ISS:

 

[george7378]

Here's a picture of the 'Lunar X' I took last night. I just noticed it when I was looking at the Moon (didn't know it was going to be there) so I held up the camera and took a picture:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/georgekristiansen/5609970420

 

[george7378]

Here are some Moonrise shots from the 17th April - it came up just as the Sun was setting, and I tried to get inventive with the scenery:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/georgekristiansen/5632432776

http://www.flickr.com/photos/georgekristiansen/5632431656

http://www.flickr.com/photos/georgekristiansen/5631845941

http://www.flickr.com/photos/georgekristiansen/5632428916

 

[JEL]

I have FINALLY gotten my spotting-scope connected to my camera . A series of random events delayed the needed T2 adapter ring until a few days ago. But now it's here and I've done my first few attempts at digi-scoping.

In this series I concentrated on the bright star VEGA.

I shot and stacked images with various exposure-times (in seperate stackings, not mixing different exposure times) and even some video-sequences that I also tried stacking.
I've uploaded all images from my first real run of this camera/scope combo here:

http://jelair.jelstudio.dk/observatory/VEGA_alphaLyrae_HIP91262/20110422.html

I made the page so that the images automatically stretch to fill out the full width of your browser window. So to re-size the images, simply make your browser wider or narrower



Regarding stacking; I tried using the new registax6 but ended up using registax5 instead. To me it seems that even though #6 is much faster than #5 (muuuuch faster) it doesn't deliver a final image-quality that is as good as #5. Atleast in the tests that I made #6 gave images that appeared more noisy.

I'm not sure if it's supposed to do this and if perhaps it's really an improvement since more detail COULD be mistaken for more noise (in which case #6 would be better than #5). So I'm not able to conclusively say whether or not #6 really IS doing a worse job at stacking than #5. Maybe someone with better images to work on, than I have, can say more about this?

 

[Eli13]

I really wish i had a telescope for stuff like this. Until then, Im down to amazing people by knowing what constellations are there right above us (which really isn't that hard :dry: (com on people!)(not you guys!)) and using google sky map......

 

[Izack]

I really wish i had a telescope for stuff like this. Until then, Im down to amazing people by knowing what constellations are there right above us (which really isn't that hard :dry: (com on people!)(not you guys!)) and using google sky map......

Have you looked in your area for any astronomy clubs? It might be worth it.