January 28, 2016December 27, 2020 chesterastroblog

Orion Nebula 27th Jan 2016

Used a mono ATIK-16ic-s CCD camera coupled to the William Optics 102 mm f/7 to take some photos of the Orion Nebula. For one of the images I used a focal reducer from ModernAstronomy. For both final images, individual frames (approx 40) where aligned, stacked and processed in Nebulosity v4. Exposure times were approximately 10 seconds (when focal reducer used) and 20 seconds (without focal reducer).

Orion 27 Jan 2016 Processed William Optics 102 mm f/7 refractor with mono Atik-16ic CCD and focal reducer

Orion 27th Jan Processed Without the focal reducer

28th Jan 2016

January 27, 2016December 27, 2020 chesterastroblog

Equipment

I have three main telescopes for observing/astrophotography. The telescopes can all be put onto a Losmandy G11 equatorial mount.

IMG_1003_small

Onto the above equatorial mount, I can use either a William Optics 102 mm f/7 refractor, or a 12″ (300 mm) f/4 Newtonian reflector from Orion Optics, or an OMC 140 (a Matsukov-Cassegrain relector) from Orion Optics (this has a mirror diamter of 140 mm, and a focal length of 2000 mm, f/14). These telescopes are shown below:

William Optics 102 mm f/7 refractor (focal length 714 mm)

Orion Optics OMC 140 Matsukov Cassegrain reflector (focal length 2000 mm)

Orion Optics 12″ f/4 Newtonian reflector (focal length 1200 mm)

The OMC 140 is best used for planets and the moon, due to the long focal length, whilst the 102 mm refractor is best used for wide field views of deep space objects. The 12″ reflector can be used for either.

27th January 2016

January 24, 2016December 27, 2020 chesterastroblog

Chester Astro Photography: Introduction

I started up in astrophotography back in 2001. At that time I used a simple Philips Vesta webcam to take lunar and planetary images. These would have been taken using an Orion Optics 8” f/6 Newtonian telescope on a simple GEM1 equatorial mount. Some examples of images obtained between 2001 and 2003 are shown below:

Jupiter

Saturn

The Moon

I then moved onto a SAC-7 CCD colour camera which was capable of longer exposure times. At this time I was using a HEQ5 equatorial mount, which had RA and DEC motors so the mount could track the stars reasonably accurately (once the mount was polar aligned). Some pictures taken with the SAC-7 camera are shown below (taken in 2004-2005):

I then moved onto a more sensitive ATIK 2HS modified webcam, which I coupled to a Skywatcher ED80 telescope. This enabled me to achieve better results, some of which are shown below (taken in 2006):

I subsequently sold my HEQ5 mount and in 2009 bought a Losmandy G11 mount (non-GOTO). In addition, I acquired an ATIK 16ic color CCD and started using an unmodified Canon 350D camera.

Some more recent photographs with this set of equipment, taken in 2009, is shown below.

I have now moved onto a Canon 7D (unmodified) and also have a William Optics Megrez 102 mm f/7 telescope – which has better optics than the Skywatcher ED80. A test photo of the Orion Nebula using this set-up is shown below (from 2016), together with a picture of the moon using the same set-up.