The Astro-Imaging Thread

[Green Baron]

On 03/09/2017 at 2:43 AM, Epox75 said:

I hope you like it and I take the occasion to state something: If no one else posts pictures here I will probably stop too. It would be nice to see someone else's work and talk about it... don't be shy! The summer is almost over and I didn't see any deep sky picture besides mine. 

I would if i could, believe me ! I mounted everything several times in the past weeks. But either clouds came in, there was too much dust, gusty winds rattled the setup (like >50km/h) or a windshear mixed up the air. Right now it is too dusty, i can hardly see the mountain top 3-4km away. Tomorrow they say 20-30 knots in free air, which could mean hefty gusts again here on the leeside.

Last time (thursday) it looked like a clear sky i had an fwhm of 3.5 at best. That isn't really a good database for sharp photos, or is it ?

I do admire your work and that you've mastered the hubble palette and narrowband and all ! So, if you decide you don't want to post here any more i'll be sure to visit your astrobin pages. I am also astonished about the outcome, given you live in a brightly lit metropolitan area.

It just seems that you are the crack here right now we can only "like" it, until we have caught up to discuss with you :-)

 

[Epox75]

1 hour ago, Green Baron said:

I would if i could, believe me ! I mounted everything several times in the past weeks. But either clouds came in, there was too much dust, gusty winds rattled the setup (like >50km/h) or a windshear mixed up the air. Right now it is too dusty, i can hardly see the mountain top 3-4km away. Tomorrow they say 20-30 knots in free air, which could mean hefty gusts again here on the leeside.

Last time (thursday) it looked like a clear sky i had an fwhm of 3.5 at best. That isn't really a good database for sharp photos, or is it ?

I do admire your work and that you've mastered the hubble palette and narrowband and all ! So, if you decide you don't want to post here any more i'll be sure to visit your astrobin pages. I am also astonished about the outcome, given you live in a brightly lit metropolitan area.

It just seems that you are the crack here right now we can only "like" it, until we have caught up to discuss with you :-)

 

Thank you and don't misunderstand me, I am not planning to stop posting DSO pictures here right now but I might if I'll keep posting alone. I appreciate that you like my work but I'd like to have the chance to appreciate the work of others too. 

Also that collaboration we spoke of: I have an hard disk full of data waiting to be shared if needed. We need a sharing platform and well... active sharers  Winter is getting closer here, and a lot of cloudy nights are waiting for me, it would be nice to have some fresh data to work on even on those days.  

About astrobin, are you a user? If so what's your user name? 

[Green Baron]

I am actually putting my hope in later this year.

Yes, i have an account on astrobin (Green_Baron) but haven't posted anything yet. My tries on Andromeda galaxy and Orion nebula aren't really that sophisticated yet :-)

 

[Epox75]

On 9/5/2017 at 10:06 AM, Green Baron said:

I am actually putting my hope in later this year.

Yes, i have an account on astrobin (Green_Baron) but haven't posted anything yet. My tries on Andromeda galaxy and Orion nebula aren't really that sophisticated yet :-)

 

You should post your pictures, don't mind how sophisticated are they. One of my best learning tools is to throw my pictures to the lions, I have tons of critics on my back  

I've learnt how to derotate planets by posting my pictures on astrobin. On cloudy nights I learnt a lot about the exposure times of my camera from the comments of my first pictures. I can go on with the list... I am subscribed to an Italian astrophotography forum as well and no matter how good your pictures is.. there will be always be somebody saying:  "it looks very nice! But...". 

Anyway, I am opening my Flickr account! 

https://www.flickr.com/people/141331914@N07/

[_Augustus_]

Went and redid my old Jupiter animation.

http://www.astrobin.com/312313/?nc=user

[PakledHostage]

You guys may be getting tired of photos of the ISS transiting various solar system bodies but I had an opportunity to photograph the ISS transiting the moon this morning, right from my porch, so I couldn't pass it up.

I think it would have been a better image if the moon had been closer to full, because I suspect that the ISS' solar panels were aligned towards the Sun so they weren't as prominent in this composite as they were in my picture from the other week of the ISS transiting the Sun. Also, if the moon had been closer to full, I'd probably have had a better angle on the illuminated face of the solar panels so they'd probably have shown up better in the photos. That said, timing the shot of a lunar transit is a lot easier than a solar transit because you can see the ISS coming with the naked eye, a long time in advance.

Anyways, here's the photo:

 

[ProtoJeb21]

Oh my god I am missing out so much here. I wonder if I can modify my 8" Dobsonian to track objects so I can actually get good images. 

[_Augustus_]

1 hour ago, ProtoJeb21 said:

Oh my god I am missing out so much here. I wonder if I can modify my 8" Dobsonian to track objects so I can actually get good images. 

You could get an equatorial platform or build an English yoke mount.

[munlander1]

Doing pretty fantastic on m31 currently

mount was having trouble so close to zenith. Moved on to m42 visible gas near the brighter stars. May try another galaxy later in the night.

Edited September 17, 2017 by munlander1

[Epox75]

Would you like some galaxy? A little preview of what's incoming soon... 

[/img]

 

So.. here's the color version, The Perseus Cluster. The tech card is here: http://www.astrobin.com/313782/D/?nc=user

I definitely need more data, there are a lot of faint details, I bet I missed a lot of them because of bad transparency. I had mist both nights

 

Edited September 27, 2017 by Epox75

[Scarecrow]

I haven't done any astrophotography for some time now, but here's a couple of images I took a few years ago.

 

 

Enhanced colour moon.

 

Orion nebula

 

 

[Epox75]

Are you into Astrophotography and good music? You may like this video, a certain guy I know just made it...   

 

[_Augustus_]

Apparently a Raspberry Pi is sufficient to use for planetary captures as it has no background stuff to eat processing power. I sold my 8" SCT but I am getting started on an 8" Dall-Kirkham to use for planetary imaging in time for the Mars opposition next summer.
 

[Rareden]

Couple of my more recent shots
 

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

 

 

[PakledHostage]

 

I had another opportunity to shoot an ISS transit of the Sun today. I still didn't get the timing exactly right so I only captured 5 frames and missed the first 1/3 of the transit. You can see two faint sunspots (2686 and 2685) in the top-right section of the image. The ISS is a bit smaller in this image than it was in my attempt from August because the Sun is lower in the sky now, so the ISS was further away from me during the transit (the prediction website says that it was ~830 km away at the time that the photo was taken).

I am beginning to think the prediction website that I am using (http://transit-finder.com/) is out by ±1 second or so. That's still pretty good, but my camera can only manage a high speed burst for about 2 seconds, so I can't just start early or I'd miss the end of the transit (a full transit of the Sun's disk takes about 1 second).  Maybe there will be a transit close to the summer solstice next June and I'll have the bugs worked out of my timing by then so I can catch a full transit while the ISS is as close to the zenith (and as close to me) as possible. Supposedly it is as large as 60 arc seconds across when it is directly overhead.

Edited October 29, 2017 by PakledHostage

[_Augustus_]

Afocal shot of the Moon with my homemade 6" f/4.5

Edited November 1, 2017 by _Augustus_
better version

[LaydeeDem]

The Montes Alpes range and surrounding craters on the Moon. Taken last month with my phone and a 114mm Newtonian. Stacked in Autostakkert! 2, wavelets in Registax and stitched in Photoshop.

Annotated:

Edited November 7, 2017 by Nutt007
forgot a thing

[munlander1]

Great idea for he group project,

messier 42. Super bright and not a terrible size.

[_Augustus_]

On 11/7/2017 at 5:31 AM, Nutt007 said:

The Montes Alpes range and surrounding craters on the Moon. Taken last month with my phone and a 114mm Newtonian. Stacked in Autostakkert! 2, wavelets in Registax and stitched in Photoshop.

Annotated:

These images' fuzziness even with stacking correspond to your scope being out of collimation. I think you could get a lot better than this if you tried collimating your scope. If you don't have a collimation tool, try defocusing a star at high power and adjusting the primary until the secondary shadow is centered.

[Rareden]

2 hours ago, munlander1 said:

Great idea for he group project,

messier 42. Super bright and not a terrible size.

not entirely sure what you mean?

[munlander1]

5 minutes ago, Rareden said:

not entirely sure what you mean?

Ok, so earlier around June this year, we were plannning to do a group astrophoto. Everyone would submit all their frames and they would all be processed together.

I kind of glazed it over though.

But I was thinking M42 would make a great target for it.

[Rareden]

1 minute ago, munlander1 said:

Ok, so earlier around June this year, we were plannning to do a group astrophoto. Everyone would submit all their frames and they would all be processed together.

I kind of glazed it over though.

But I was thinking M42 would make a great target for it.

sounds good, im currently imaging it

[RoadRunnerAerospace]

45 minutes ago, munlander1 said:

Ok, so earlier around June this year, we were plannning to do a group astrophoto. Everyone would submit all their frames and they would all be processed together.

I kind of glazed it over though.

But I was thinking M42 would make a great target for it.

Well... This is awkward...

My scope can barely make out m42 :b

[Green Baron]

You can see it with the naked eye, the blob under Orion's girdle. Most scopes will need a reducer to get the whole thing.

It was my first try 1 year ago. So, that's mow an excuse to get back at it. Next week ... :-)

Edited November 22, 2017 by Green Baron

[munlander1]

7 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

Most scopes will need a reducer to get the whole thing.

Smaller or larger than m31?