Galaxies up close

[Mystical Potato Head]

Last night was a rare clear night but despite the wind managed to get a couple of
good images of 2 Galaxies.

M33,Andromeda galaxy.
10x120s,5x150s and 5x180s exposures ISO800 stacked and tweaked in photoshop.
Canon350d,Orion Europa 150mm scope,HEQ5 motorised mount.

http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/2411/m31cpylf4.jpg

M33,Triangulum Galaxy,a face on spiral.

http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/74/m33cpyfilteredxt2.jpg

[astroman]

Absolutely stunning photos MPH!! All the more impressive considering how windy the conditions were.

I was down south at an astronomy event yesterday (thick cloud :~(), but noticed how clear the sky was as I drove back into Caithness late at night. I was so impressed with the clarity of the sky and how clear the Milky Way was that I just had to make a couple of stops to have a look & take photos.

The one below shows the constellations of Orion & Taurus above the North Sea rigs visible from Latheron....
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj138/astroman_caithness/OrionOilRigs.jpg
It was taken simply with a Olympus E-420 DSLR on a photographic tripod (40s, f3.5 at ISO 800 through 28mm equiv lens).

[Mystical Potato Head]

Lovely image,widefield views are my favourites because it gives a real perspective to size,close ups on the other hand give excellent detail.
I've just bought a canon 75-300mm lens so that should give me a good range of widefield.
Another advantage of widefield is i can easily get a 5-6 min exposure without any trailing but at prime focus i can get 3 with very good drift alignment,have to get into computer guiding some day.

Managed to squeeze in one of good old M45
5x90s,5x120s and 5x150s ISO 800.
Not enough time really but i lost a lot of images with the wind as it got up quite a bit later,the nebulosity is just starting to show and about twice as long image time would have made all the difference,still theres a whole winter untouched,plenty of time to get the 7 sisters.(weather permitting that is)

http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/4552/m45filteredym4.jpg

[wifie]

Love these - thank you both! :D

[astroman]

Another fantastic photo MPH!

I've yet to try long exposures (>1 min) with my newly acquired DSLR. Looking forward to giving it a go over the winter months - weather permitting and assuming I have success with more accurate polar alignment than I've had cause to use in the past.
Do you use a polarscope to align your mount? - I was thinking of investing in one (much cheaper than any autoguider), but don't know how good an alignment it would help me achieve.

[trix]

amazin pictures guys, really fantastic...

[Mystical Potato Head]

Astroman,i used the polarscope on the mount to roughly align to polaris then use the drift alignment method using an illuminated crosshair eyepiece.I have my R.A pretty good with no noticable movement over 30mins.My altitude starts to drift after 15 mins so i will adjust it gradually every time i'm out till it is spot on too.
I made an adapter for the mount which sits on a pier so everytime i replace the mount it is in exactly the same position as used previously.3 holes in the pier are used to locate 3 screws in the adapter,works a treat so now i dont have to waste an hour every time i'm out drift aligning.

http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/1726/img4072cpyje3.jpg

[Deemac]

OK I admit I know nothing about this area and some of the technical jargon is flying over my head (though it sounds good stuff!!).

Why 3 sets of 5 different exposures? I assume to build up a very weak single very long exposure. Just curious.

[Raven]

Stunning images from both of you guys! That field of photography is completely unbeknown to me and it seems very interesting!

[Mystical Potato Head]

Deemac,the 3 sets of 5 exposures could be any number really.Its as many as you want to take .The more time you have in total then generally the better the image will be but obviously the longer the exposure the brighter the faint objects will be.
Because of the different levels of light in a galaxy you take different lenghts of shots,if i took say,15x180secs then the faint outer arms of the galaxy would show up well but the
center would be over exposed so by varying the times then stacking them seems to level things out.There is also less noise when stacking several images.
Computerised guiding means you can take 3 x15min without any drifting which is better than 15x3 unguided.
Mine are unguided which means i have to align my scope to a star over a period of time and then adjust the scope till i get no or hardly any "drift" over 30 min period.The more accurate the alignment the longer the maximum exposure time before the stars start to trail
The experts say that for faint galaxies and nebulae you need at least 1hr of exposures or "data" as they call it.Some imagers have taken images of the same galaxy over a period of years and keep on stacking up each new images to the previous ones,the detail in these is breathtaking.
Below is an image of M63(Sunflower Galaxy),NOT taken by me and is a combination of 10min,6min and 4min exposures totalling 9HOURS!!!! You cant get better than this really.

http://img360.imageshack.us/img360/2417/celescopem63ll0.jpg

[wicker05]

Fasinating MPH :) Great shots

[astroman]

Thanks for the alignment info MPH. You've obviously put quite a bit of effort into your set-up - and the results are very impressive.
I don't have a pier to mount my scope on, so have to set up alignment for each observing session. Not an ideal situation for someone wanting to try out taking longer exposures - we'll see how things go this winter. I'm worried an hour accurately aligning the scope could mean frostbite sets in before I've even taken a photo :eek:.



Stunning images from both of you guys! That field of photography is completely unbeknown to me and it seems very interesting!

It's amazing what can be achieved with amateur equipment these days - even relatively basic equipment can capture stunning images that would have been difficult for many professional setups to achieve a few decades ago.

I'm definitely a beginner when it comes to astrophotography, but even I can achieve satisfying results. As with photographing "normal" subject matter it is important to choose the right equipment & settings and carefully consider composition and the best time and conditions for taking the photo. With astrophotography, the specialist part is having the knowledge of where to point the camera/ scope to capture the object of interest :)

For example, those with a keen eye will notice that at the top of my photo is the Pleiades star cluster (also known as M45), which is shown in beautiful close-up detail in MPHs third photo.

[Deemac]

Thanks for the reply chaps, all good stuff. The technique is similar to HDR (High dynamic range) photography where multiple different exposure times are layered to give a broader exposure range. (Only your dealing with minutes and hours instead of fractions of a second!!)

Keep up the good work and post your wonderful images.

Do you have any sun spot images?

[Raven]

Here are some really good photos to look at....

http://www.fotocommunity.de/pc/pc/channel/7/cat/1002

[astroman]

Do you have any sun spot images?

Because of the intense radiation emitted from the Sun, observation of it is difficult and can be dangerous (see http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/objects/sun/Viewing_the_Sun_Safely.html).

Mylar film or similar can allow safe viewing/ photography (few examples below), but use of special (& expensive!) filters can reveal the Sun in all its glory. See http://www.sungazer.net/index.html for stunning examples.

Below is part of an article I produced for Bill Fernie a few years ago for putting on Caithness.org, but it never got published. It contains a few photos of the Sun taken through relatively inexpensive Mylar film. The Venus transit was captured using a standard video camera and Mylar filter (I didn't have a telescope at the time).

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj138/astroman_caithness/SunInfoArticle.jpg

Solar activity is quite low just now, so there are not many sunspots or aurorae to see as a consequence (see www.spaceweather.com (http://www.spaceweather.com) or http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime-images.html for updates on Sun activity and other astronomy news).

[Deemac]

Raven, thanks for the link. You on here?

[Raven]

Raven, thanks for the link. You on here?

Yes, now and then... ;)