View Full Version : First astropics with new DSLR
Andromeda galaxy - a mere 15 million million million miles away. Light reaching the sensor in my camera left it 2.5 million years ago.
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj138/astroman_caithness/M31.jpg
The Great Globular Cluster in Hercules - a dense cluster of hundreds of thousands of stars about 100 times closer than the Andromeda Galaxy.
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj138/astroman_caithness/M13.jpg
The Double Cluster in Perseus - a lovely sight in binoculars or a small telescope:
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj138/astroman_caithness/Doublecluster3.jpg
On a clear dark night you can just see all the above objects with the naked eye.
For an astrophotography opportunity that anyone can try out see http://forum.caithness.org/showpost.php?p=419759&postcount=1 for details of lunar eclipse on the evening of Saturday 16th Aug.
grumpyhippo
16-Aug-08, 20:11
Excellent pictures astroman, can you post some of the technical details about how you took them. I presume you have your camera on a telescope, mounted on some kind of tracking device to follow the stars? Was this a multiple exposure or just one long single one?
fantastic photo,s astroman...keep them coming....hope u have one of saturn for me to see...
How cool Astroman - thank you for posting! :)
Thanks for the kind comments.
Excellent pictures astroman, can you post some of the technical details about how you took them. I presume you have your camera on a telescope, mounted on some kind of tracking device to follow the stars? Was this a multiple exposure or just one long single one?
They were taken with a Olympus E-420 attached using a T-thread mount to a 102mm diameter, 500mm focal length short tube Skywatcher refractor (http://www.sky-watcher.net/swtinc/product.php?id=40&class1=1&class2=105). The telescope was on a EQ5 equatorial mount equipped with tracking motor.
The photos were single exposures ranging from 15s at ISO 800 for the Double Cluster through to 60s at ISO 800 for the Andromeda Galaxy. The best I could get with my previous digital camera was 16s at a very noisy 400 ISO, so I'm quite delighted with the initial results. Looking forward to taking more in the coming clear, dark nights.
fantastic photo,s astroman...keep them coming....hope u have one of saturn for me to see...
Here's one I took last year.
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj138/astroman_caithness/SaturnMay9th.jpg
The tilt of its rings is changing and will become edge on next year, so we won't get a very good view of them from Earth for a few years. You can get a better view here though:
http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/solar_system_collection/
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Cassini-Huygens/SEMV75HHZTD_0.html
A couple more quick snaps taken last night....
Last quarter Moon.
You can see the mountain range Montes Apenninus forming a bright arc from the top of the photo. They're 1000km long and over 5000m high. Admitedly they don't look very big in the photo!
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj138/astroman_caithness/LastQuarterMoon23Aug08.jpg
The Ring Nebula in Lyra - the bluish ring in the centre of the photo is a planetary nebula formed when a star threw off a shell of hot gas in the process of dying.
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj138/astroman_caithness/M57-RingNebula.jpg
Amazin moon pic! Kinda sad the description of the dyin star! :(
Amazin moon pic! Kinda sad the description of the dyin star! :(
They will have lived a very long time and many will leave something of great beauty behind to be remembered by - see http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/nebula/planetary/results/50/.
I only hope I fair so well :)
They will have lived a very long time and many will leave something of great beauty behind to be remembered by - see http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/nebula/planetary/results/50/.
I only hope I fair so well :)
Thanks astroman! :)
northener
24-Aug-08, 00:33
I'm impressed, Astroman. Please post some more if you get time.
I'm impressed, Astroman. Please post some more if you get time.
Here's a few from earlier this week:
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj138/astroman_caithness/M34.jpg
An open star cluster (Messier 34) covering an area of the sky about the same as that of the Full Moon. It is just visible to the unaided eye as a hazy patch from a dark viewing site.
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj138/astroman_caithness/M11WildDuckCluster.jpg
A dense cluster of about 3000 stars known as the Wild Duck Cluster (Messier 11). The ducks eyes are the 2 bright stars to the bottom left of the cluster - can you see the duck in flight?
Imagine how spectacular the night sky would look if you lived on a planet in the middle of this cluster!
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj138/astroman_caithness/M38NGC1907crop.jpg
This open star cluster (Messier 38) is located in Auriga the Charioteer. The brightest star in the cluster is almost 1000 times as luminous as our Sun, but is quite faint due to its great distance from us.
From Earth, Messier 11 lies towards the center of our galaxy (the Milky Way) whereas Messier 38 is situated in the opposite direction, out towards the edge.
The Moon was close to the horizon, making the view a little less sharp than if it was higher in the sky.
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj138/astroman_caithness/GibbousMoon11thSept08.jpg
Looking forward to better viewing opportunities in a few months time and the chance to get more detailed views with a longer focal length scope.
The very bright star-like object just above the south/south-west horizon after dark at the moment is the giant planet Jupiter.
If you point a tripod mounted camera with a reasonable zoom (250mm equivalent or more) at it and take an exposure of around 1-2 seconds you'll see that the bright point of light is actually a disc and there are 4 small points of light in a line around it that change position from one night to the next...
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj138/astroman_caithness/Jupiter4GalileanMoons.jpg
The four points of light are the largest moons orbiting Jupiter (Io, Callisto, Ganymede and Europa) discovered by Galileo 400 years ago.
Faszinating astroman! You should contact Thurso Camera Club to get a speaker space (no pun intended) for next seasons programme!
Totally amazing as usual astroman - thanks so much and keep posting yer pics and comments! :D
Thanks for all the comments/feedback. I'm glad people are finding the photos interesting.
There are much better astrophotos out there taken by amateur astronomers, but as a beginner I'm fairly happy with the results I'm achieving using basic (and much cheaper!) equipment than most. Not that I would mind having a much bigger scope and cooled CCD camera worth thousands (I think the OH might have something to say on that front though:().
Anyone wanting to give astrophotography a go can find a wealth of information here - http://www.astropix.com/INDEX.HTM. You'll be surprised what can be achieved with nothing more than a DSLR and tripod (http://www.astropix.com/HTML/I_ASTROP/TRIPOD/TOC_TRI.HTM)
Faszinating astroman! You should contact Thurso Camera Club to get a speaker space (no pun intended) for next seasons programme!
Next year is the International Year of Astronomy with events being organised all over the world. A group of local people including myself are currently making plans for local events including talks, observing sessions, competitions etc. Who knows, a basic astrophotography talk could be amongst these? I'll post details of the events in due course, but if anyone wants to know more they can PM me or speak to the Thurso Camera Club Treasurer as he's one of the group involved in making the plans.
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