I’ve been into amateur astronomy off and on since I was a kid. Technology has changed an incredible amount since then. Computerized GOTO scopes are a great benefit to those who want to explore the heavens. There are old-timers who say that the GOTO scopes will prevent you from learning your way around the sky, but I don’t really agree. And there is a huge benefit to being able to find and view 2-3 times the number of objects in a night than you could fumble around trying to find manually. And I think they help you learn the sky. I can always look to see where the scope is pointing at and say “oh, that’s where that thing is!”
Astrophotography has been revolutionized too in the last decade with the advent of DSLRs (For deep sky) and high quality webcams (Yes people are using modified webcams for excellent planetary photography), along with sophisticated software available to manipulate the images.
The two pics I linked were made with a camera that is basically a very high end webcam.
The concept behind this kind of photography is that instead of taking 1, or a couple of long exposures (like for a deep sky object), for planetary targets its best to take hundreds or thousands of very short frames at as high a rate as possible to capture those fleeting moments when the air turbulence settles down. The individual frames look horrible, but with software (
http://www.astronomie.be/registax/html/v4_site.html) you can sift through them and pick out the best of the lot and then align and statistically average their pixel values. This will tend to reinforce the image and decrease the noise. Eventually you get a good enough image to apply some aggressive processing techniques to without bringing out too much noise. Both that Jupiter and Moon shot were stacked from about 600 1/20 sec sub-frames.
My pics are just the first try with my first night with the new camera, still I was able to get decent results. Even so, 15 years ago, a picture like that of Jupiter, could only have come from a multi-million dollar institutional observatory or a space probe. The fact that a bone head like me can produce that is mind boggling. It’s a great time to be an amateur astronomer.
I have a LOOONG way to go, but if the freakin clouds ever clear again, I get much better with practice.
Just look what these guys can do…
http://www.damianpeach.com/index2.htmhttp://higginsandsons.com/astro/http://www.avertedimagination.com/best_1.htmThese guys are my benchmark. That’s what I’m eventually shooting for.
I eventually decided if I was going to get serious into astrophotography it’d be really nice to have a permanent setup. So I bought 15 acres out of town abit and I’ve been building an observatory. It’s been slow going, working on the spare weekends, and as a software guy I’m pretty dangerous with power tools, but at least I haven’t lost any fingers or toes (yet ;o)).
Here are some pics of the progress over the last year….
http://jasonirby.net/personal/photography/observatory/phase1/http://jasonirby.net/personal/photography/observatory/phase2/I’ve done a lot since then and need to put up some new pics. The roll-off roof/observing half of the building is complete and operational (just waiting for clear skies). I’m working on finishing up the control room half.
Hey, ETX’s can do good work too, especially with webcams because the short exposures greatly decrease the polar-alignment, tracking accuracies needed.
Here are some examples:
http://www.weasner.com/etx/guests/2007/guests_planets.htmlp.s. yeah Moon landing sites would be WAY too small for me to see anything. I think about 1/2 mile scale is smallest resolution I could make with my local air turbulence. But I could image the general area. ;o)
Since I now know some of have an interest in this stuff, I’ll burden you with more pics when I can get some clear skies again. ;o)
Regards,
Wab
