Deep Sky Astrophotography

[scyrene]

Finally I have something I don't feel too embarrassed to post. Here's my Orion Nebula...

This is a shade under 90 minutes' integration. Actually it's an unorthodox combination of 400mm and 500mm shots, as the Affinity stacking is pretty good at lining things up and rescaling. I started at 400mm (the 70-200 + 2x), then tentatively tried my 500 on the same mount, which worked fine.

I got the Star Adventurer, and it seems mostly what I wanted: easy and quick to set up, and with the weight capacity I needed. It's not go-to, but my go-to mount rarely went-to where I wanted anyhow, I never could figure out why.

80x30secs + 81x25secs both at 400mm, and 62x15secs at 500mm with an Astronomik LP filter (which fits in the 500L's drop-in filter), all ISO 3200 I think (all wide open, so f/5.6 and f/4 respectively). Preprocessed in Lightroom, stacked and normalised in Affinity, finished back in Lr.

We only get one clear night in maybe two weeks here, so it'll be slow progress, but I do still love it.

 

[Click]

Nice picture. Well done, scyrene.

 

[scyrene]

Nice picture. Well done, scyrene.

Thanks as always, Click

 

[telemaq76]

mosaic of 2 pictures done with 500mm

32x4 min for each in h-alpha

 

[Click]

Very nice B&W picture, telemaq76.

 

[rpt]

Nice picture. Well done, scyrene.

+1

 

[rpt]

Very nice B&W picture, telemaq76.

Nice!

 

[alexthegreek]

Hi fellas!Of these 2 light pollution maps, which one do you think is more reliable?http://darksitefinder.com/maps/world.html or https://www.lightpollutionmap.info ?

 

[jrista]

Hi fellas!Of these 2 light pollution maps, which one do you think is more reliable?http://darksitefinder.com/maps/world.html or https://www.lightpollutionmap.info ?

The former is a Bortle Scale map. The bortle scale is a simple way to gauge site darkness based on visual cues. Great for visual, but if you aim for a Bortle blue or darker you could be driving for hours before you get to the dark site, and for imaging you don't necessarily need to go that far.

The latter is a map based on actual satellite measurements of light emissions from the ground. It is VASTLY more accurate than the Bortle scale, and while it may not help you find the best visual observing dark sites, anything on the latter map that is cyan or darker is usually EXCELLENT for imaging. Green is good for imaging. Anything yellow through red is poor for imaging.

 

[alexthegreek]

[/quote]

The former is a Bortle Scale map. The bortle scale is a simple way to gauge site darkness based on visual cues. Great for visual, but if you aim for a Bortle blue or darker you could be driving for hours before you get to the dark site, and for imaging you don't necessarily need to go that far.

The latter is a map based on actual satellite measurements of light emissions from the ground. It is VASTLY more accurate than the Bortle scale, and while it may not help you find the best visual observing dark sites, anything on the latter map that is cyan or darker is usually EXCELLENT for imaging. Green is good for imaging. Anything yellow through red is poor for imaging.
[/quote]

Thanks for the reply jrista!It just seemed very optimistic (looking at the latter map) that I live in a red area and a cyan or even better area is just 20-30 min drive!

 

[telemaq76]

a try on ic443, not an easy target



63*3 minutes +23 darks, + flats and offsets
canon 700da+500f4 is+neq6pro

 

[Click]

Very nice B&W. Well done, telemaq76.

 

[chrysoberyl]

a try on ic443, not an easy target

63*3 minutes +23 darks, + flats and offsets
canon 700da+500f4 is+neq6pro

Nice clouds! Thanks for your inspiring posts.

 

[JOSH1992]

Mesmerizing photos !! Loving them

 

[East Wind Photography]

Jon i have been circling back around and working on comets again using the new subtraction functions within the comet align module. I still need a comet integration to subtract from the lights but ending up with faint trails in the comet integration image. Actually windsor sigma is removing the stars but there are halos i guess that are not being removed and are showing up everywhere.

Whats the best way of getting rid of these? They end up in the comet tails and so cloning is not very effective.

Comet Lovejoy C/2014 Q2


I don't get to do comets often. They aren't in the sky that much, and even when they are, they are often low to the horizon during sunrise. Terry Lovejoy, comet-finder extraordinaire, discovered another comet in August 2014. It finally drifted into the northern horizon skies on December 24th, and I've been wanting to get some comet photons ever since. Finally got a chance last night:

In my haste to get some data before the moon came up, I ended up underexposing my subs. That resulted in the heavy banding of the 5D III showing through. I managed to eliminate most of it, but some is still visible in the coma. This was my first tracked comet image, and I managed to get some detail on the tail, which I'm fairly happy about. Hoping I get another opportunity to image this again, and get some better data.

Really nice. And very nice you have dark skies! I'm going to try the 600 tonight but I'm not expecting much. What was your integration to get this?

This was a really short integration. I had some connectivity problems, so I went with 30x30s ISO 1600 subs. I tried to get 50x45s ISO 800 subs...not sure if they turned out (that data is still on my laptop.) I actually got about 8 to ten galaxies in the frame, at full size.

 

[telemaq76]

long time nobody posted anything
here is ngc 4565, 35*600sec with 21 darks, flats and 200 offsets

 

[chrysoberyl]

long time nobody posted anything
here is ngc 4565, 35*600sec with 21 darks, flats and 200 offsets

Thank you. Is that a protostar?

Binged it - a galaxy with a central bulge. Very nice shot!

 

[Click]

Very nice picture, telemaq76. 8)

 

[rpt]

Very nice picture, telemaq76. 8)

Lovely picture telemaq76!

 

[scyrene]

long time nobody posted anything
here is ngc 4565, 35*600sec with 21 darks, flats and 200 offsets

Lovely work