Astrophotography

[Race]

AKWabbit,
      Whats the black dot at about 350 degrees (about 1.5 inches out on my screen) from the center of M31? It almost looks like a black hole or perhaps an anomaly in the photo process. If its not a photo issue I would be very curious to know what that is. I have a little 100mm Meade that I break out every now and then. The results arent nearly close to what you have due to light polution and my inexperience. Those are some awesome photos! Let me know what you think of that dot on M31 if you get some time.

Race

[CptTrips]

That is odd. I'll check my raw frames tonight to see if it was a processing artifact.

Clear Skies,
Wab

[007Rusty]

wow thanks for sharing 

[CptTrips]

AKWabbit,
      Whats the black dot at about 350 degrees (about 1.5 inches out on my screen) from the center of M31? It almost looks like a black hole or perhaps an anomaly in the photo process. If its not a photo issue I would be very curious to know what that is. I have a little 100mm Meade that I break out every now and then. The results arent nearly close to what you have due to light polution and my inexperience. Those are some awesome photos! Let me know what you think of that dot on M31 if you get some time.

Race

I noticed the same spot in someone elses image:

http://www.astro.artistsloft.com/M31full.html

So I guess its not a processing artifact.  My guess is it is probably a extra dense dust cloud that is getting silloetted and then sharpened further when we do our image deconvolution.

Good catch.

Regards,
Wab

 

[MajIssue]

Got my autoguiding system worked out and decided to give it a shakedown.

I got greedy though and tried to squeeze in 3 different targets in one night, but I should have stuck with just one. All three didn't get quite the exposures I should have. I'll revisit and dedicate an entire night to each in the future. I only got about 1.5 hr on Orion and it really needed about 4hrs, but dawn caught up with me.


M45
21 @ 10min ISO1600 Rebel XTi (modded) TV102mm
http://jasonirby.net/bitbucket/02NOV08/Pleiades_small.png

M31
24 @ 10min ISO1600 Rebel XTi (modded) TV102mm
http://jasonirby.net/bitbucket/02NOV08/andromeda_small.png

M42
30 @ 15sec ISO1600 Rebel XTi (modded) TV102mm
20 @ 3min ISO1600 Rebel XTi (modded) TV102mm
http://jasonirby.net/bitbucket/02NOV08/orion_small.png


Clear Skies,
Wab

Hi Wabbit,

What size and make Telescope are you using? and how many images are you stacking to get the results pictured on the links you provided. I see what you mean about the underexposure... M31 almost looks like an Eliptical Galaxy...
ALSO... Great color on M42. So many "Home" images I've seen are almost monochrome!

Thanks for sharing!!

[CptTrips]

Hi Wabbit,

What size and make Telescope are you using? and how many images are you stacking to get the results pictured on the links you provided. I see what you mean about the underexposure... M31 almost looks like an Eliptical Galaxy...
ALSO... Great color on M42. So many "Home" images I've seen are almost monochrome!

Thanks for sharing!!

These pictures were taken with a Televue 102mm refractor.  You can see it here piggy-backed on my Meade LX200 12” in my observatory:

http://jasonirby.net/Personal/Photography/Observatory/Phase3/pages/DSC00725.htm

It’s an excellent scope for ultra wide fields astrophotography.  The Meade provides the tracking and I have a webcam in it to do realtime autoguiding correction so I can do long exposures with the minimum of trailing.

The camera is a Canon XTi modified by removing the internal IR blocking filter and replacing it with a UV cut-off filter.  This makes the camera excellent for astrophotography by making it more sensitive to the red light that dominates many of the ionized hydrogen nebulas.  The camera attaches to the back of the refracter just like it was a giant telephoto lens.


All image taken with a Canon Rebel XTi (modded).

The exposures were:


M45 (Pleiades)
21  frames of 10min exposure at ISO1600 

M31 (Andromeda Galaxy)
24 frames of 10min exposure at ISO1600

M42 (Great Orion Nebula)
30 frames of 15sec exposure at ISO1600 (for inner core)
20 frames of 3min exposure at ISO1600 (for extended regions)

30 dark frames of 10min exposure at ISO1600,
30 dark frames of 15sec exposure at ISO1600,
and 20 dark frames of 3min exposure at ISO1600 were used for calibration.

Regards,
Wab