Original images of Deep Sky objects.
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
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 …
I took this image of M42/M42/NGC1977 on January 12th after re-remembering how to accurately align a mount that isn’t permanently installed. I took about an hour and a half of subs with several having to be rejected for one reason or another. I still am having a problem with my serial shutter cable which I …
While it can be demonstrated that any mount with the proper equipment and gobs of patience is capable of long exposure astrophotography it can be difficult and extremely challenging. For your pleasure is the following comedy of errors. This image of M27 was taken on my first outing to a dark sky site. We dodged clouds until midnight, I took forever to get my alignment done, I forgot my focus masks and I forgot to reset the ISO on the camera before beginning my test exposures leading to a 10 minute exposure for a single frame. It was then that all my batteries decided they’d had enough.
M42 taken December 2008 from Dallas, TX. While the local skies aren’t the worst I’ve seen in a city they’re still far from perfect. The large population of high pressure sodium and mercury lamps from city streets and local shops floods out most of the stars. M42 is only visible with the naked eye on …