Commentary on things related to astronomy, astrophysics, astrophotography, equipment, design, processing techinques, people, places, events, etc. and other such things that may not fit well elsewhere.
Messier 27, the Dumbbell Nebula, taken from suburban Dallas on a night with 80% – 90% humidity with the object in the light dome of a massive shopping complex just a mile away. Yes, you can practice astrophotography in the city! This image was built from 41 minutes worth of 60 second sub-exposures stacked …
Read more “Through the Soup: Messier 27 on a humid night over a brightly lit city”
Caldwell 49, the Rosette Nebula, shot from Ft. Griffin State Historical Area near Albany, TX on March 14, 2013. Two hours of 5 minute subs. Meade LXD 75 Meade SN6 (sloppy focuser, out of focus in the corners) Canon 20D Baader MPCC Hutech IDAS-LPS (forgot to take it off)
The Leo Triplet as seen from Allen, Texas on Feb 2, 2013. 30 subexposures of 5 minutes. Meade LXD75-SN6 Canon Digital Rebel (300D) Hutech IDAS Light Pollution Suppression filter Baader MPCC Guided with Orion StarBlast 4.5″ reflector and Meade DSI Pro
OK, I have heard many times about BackyardEOS for controlling Canon EOS cameras used in Astrophotography. Unfortunately my 1st generation Digital Rebel (300D) with its now ancient DIGIC-I processor is not a supported platform. Even though it does have USB and you can trigger the shutter through that you can only use the predefined exposure …
Read more “BackyardEOS, the next best thing to sliced bread.”
Shot from the backyard in Allen, TX on 2013-01-20 @ 2300 CST. The seeing was pretty darn good, humidity was high as was the light pollution but it was bearable for my first time seriously out with the scope in a while. Camera control was through BackyardEOS which I’ve decided is the bee’s knees. If …
After seemingly unending weeks of temperatures over 100F during the day and 85F at night with at least 60% humidity we get some relief. It came in the form of Tropical Storm Lee which pummeled the East Coast with rain for days on end once again flooding large portions of Tennessee but the break in …
It’s been oppressively hot here in Tejas recently but I’m starting to get the itch to play under the stars once more. I needed to give my declination axis a tune so I did that last week hoping to use it when it was actually looking like it might get into the 70’s overnight. Granted …
Leo Triplet from Allen, TX on 2011-02-12
I was digging through some old data and thought I might reprocess my M13 data from three years ago. Man, what a difference! Some of it is software, some of it is technique, some of it is experience. The old M13 on the left, the reprocessed data on the right:
Messier 44, The Beehive Cluster, Praesepe. This is one really large object. It is 95 arc minutes (a bit more than 1.5 degrees) in angular size. It’s big enough that it won’t fit in a single frame on my Canon 300D with my f/5 Schmidt-Newtonian scope. That officially makes M44’s dimensions Big by Large! Located …