astrophotography shots, planets, moon, orion nebula

[andrewkw]

Anyone else here into astrophotography? I've just gotten into it, over the last few months. On the one hand it sucks because winter is freezing but my camera is cooled so there is less noise.

Still working on getting the tracking on my telescope mount setup properly but I have been able to do a bit of long exposure photography. The planet pictures are taken with what is basically a modified webcam designed for planetary imaging and the deep space objects are taken with my canon rebel dslr.

M42 - The Orion Nebula

This is a 4 minute 10 second exposure. I took several 30 second shots and several 10 second shots. Combined them using a program called deep sky stacker. Most great astro images you see are stacks of many exposures.

Sirius - The brightest star in the northern hemisphere. The tiny star below may be Sirius b it is a binary star system but I cannot confirm.

The Red Planet - southern polar cap is visable

Jupiter - I don't know how I was able to get such a great shot this is one of my first astro pics. Got the great red spot and all - I can't wait for this planet to come back into view later in the year

Saturn - took this last night after many failed attempts at a decent Saturn image, inspired me to post these photos here

Finally a couple of the moon

taken last night as well using my new 6.3 focal reducer which turns my f10 telescope to an f 6.3

Last a couple of closeups

 

[IPT]

pretty wild.

 

[Recty]

Pretty nice, it makes my attempts pale in comparison This is the best shot I've been able to get of a "galaxy" (I use quotes because I'm not sure what the blurred stuff slightly to the left of center is, I'm assuming a galaxy although it could be a nebula or whatever, I'm not great with space stuff) I'm just shooting through a camera lens, I dont have a telescope to shoot through.

I did get a picture of the moon the other night, I wish I had gone out during the blue moon but oh well, next year.

 

[dogstar74]

You guys are amazing at this stuff! I had no idea this hobby exhisted to this degree! I figured all those "Poster quality" pictures came from NASA or something like that.

Sweet diversion from the reef tanks.

Aaron

 

[palawan]

Cool, what telescope do you have. I have a Celestron Nextstar 8 that I might try doing photography with. I have a Canon XTI rebel too. I still need to get the time to go out of the city lights and fool around with the scope.

 

[andrewkw]

Recty your picture is of the Orion Nebula as well (M42).

Cool, what telescope do you have. I have a Celestron Nextstar 8 that I might try doing photography with. I have a Canon XTI rebel too. I still need to get the time to go out of the city lights and fool around with the scope.

I have a celestron CGEM 800. It's an 8" scope that is probably optically the same as yours, my mount however is better.

Your mount should be fine to do similar photography. I've yet to get to the point where I have done crazy tracking.

All you need is the Canon T ring and T bar, the ring is like 20$ and the bar 25$ with that you could get started. Or if you want to do the planets the celestron neximage is around $100

 

[Kataro]

Try the horsehead nebula =D, or M51 / M101... M27 is also a popular one.

I needa get back into astronomy =(

 

[talon4x4]

WOW!! Andrew those are some beautiful shots!!

 

[Recty]

Recty your picture is of the Orion Nebula as well (M42).

Ah thanks, I didnt even realize what I was taking a picture of. I mainly wanted the Orion constellation and didnt even know there was a nebula down below it.

I took about 60 shots at 5 second exposures with high ISO and combined them myself in Photoshop, I couldnt get DeepSkyStacker to work.

When I tried using it, it kept telling me I had to check some kind of light box? I cant remember the exact error but I couldnt figure out how to get past it. I'll try it again later tonight and see if I can get a better image done up. I did mine on a tripod though so I didnt have any kind of computerized mount that followed the stars, I'm not sure stacking 50 images will work.

 

[Recty]

andrewkw, are you able to change the focal length with that type of telescope? Can you zoom in and out I guess is my question? Or are you stuck at a fixed length?

 

[Beaun]

Those are great shots, the ones of Saturn and Jupiter are great.

 

[andrewkw]

andrewkw, are you able to change the focal length with that type of telescope? Can you zoom in and out I guess is my question? Or are you stuck at a fixed length?

I just got a 6.3 focal reducer. So I can either shoot in F10 or F6.3 The scope's focal length is 2032mm

 

[Recty]

So it is stuck at 2032mm, that's what I was curious about.

Are all the 8" telescopes made by them the same focal length? Or does it vary? I was looking at the cheaper model, the Celestron Nexstar 8, and couldnt find exactly what the focal length was. It's an 8" scope and looks very similar to the one you have, but it's hard to get the exact specs on it.

 

[andrewkw]

So it is stuck at 2032mm, that's what I was curious about.

Are all the 8" telescopes made by them the same focal length? Or does it vary? I was looking at the cheaper model, the Celestron Nexstar 8, and couldnt find exactly what the focal length was. It's an 8" scope and looks very similar to the one you have, but it's hard to get the exact specs on it.

I think the nexstar optically is identical to my scope. I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing the optical tube is just painted different. Of course there could be different coatings.

You can find all the 8SE specs here
http://www.celestron.com/c3/product.php?CatID=13&ProdID=416

I was actually going to buy this scope but I really wanted to get into astrophotography and the CGEM mount allows much longer tracking. It was also $300 off bringing it closer to the 8SE price.

 

[Recty]

How much longer? Like will the mount that comes with the Nexstar 8 allow 30 minute exposures? Or is it's tracking not good enough?

 

[chrishet]

Great start...take your time, these objects will not go away...but be prepared to spend lots of $$$. Money plays a big role in astrophotography.

Can I play?

check out my home page.....

http://hetlage.com

I need to get my tank pics posted to my website soon....I just got a 7D and am having a blast...btw, what is the best way to post a vid???

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cq1GFKP8bzs

 

[TitusvileSurfer]

Wow Chris that is first class work. I love your infrareds of nebula the most.

 

[dogstar74]

Chris, that was an amazing site. Wonderful Photography skills.
Aaron

 

[Ding2daDong]

So what's the cheapest telescope I need to take amazing photos like this? I think this is just neat and interesting. I don't have thousands of dollars to spend on a telescope but hope there is something that will get the job done and be in the technical range of a newb in this, like me. lol

Thanks

-Matthew

Oh and my camera is a canon G9

 

[Recty]

I did a little more work on my images and came up with this...

The Orion area...

And then the nebula, M42...

Now these are not the high quality images seen elsewhere, I openly admit. But I didnt take these shots with this area in mind and with this idea of looking at the nebula. These were just taken with my nifty 50 and I was goofing around doing a time lapse. The next nice clear night I dont mind sitting out in the cold, I'm going to go out with my zoom and get some better shots and see what I can come up with.