Horsehead and Flame Nebula 12/25/13
This is a luminance only shot of the Horsehead and Flame nebulas in the constellation of orion. At some point I will take some additional images to add color to this picture, but it will probably have to wait until I venture to Austin again.
M31 9/13/13
This is my first successful LRGB shot using the Atik 383L+ on my 105mm triplet APO at F/7. This shot is the combination of more than 100 individual images through red, green, blue and luminance filters. Compare this with my image of Andromeda from 2 years earlier and it's clear that the quality is much better. Tracking on this shot was almost perfect with the only real flaw being a small amount of misalignment with the red images and the fact that I still need a field flattener to remove the elongated stars at the edge of the field.
M13 9/2/2012
4 x 5min exposures through a 105mm triplet APO at F/7 on a monochrome Atik 383L+. I've wanted to reshoot this target for quite a while now. My skills have improved considerably and my equipment has changed from the original M13 picture I took which I consider to be my first real astrophoto. I ran out of time so I wasn't able to take any color frames to combine with this, but I can take those on another day and add them in later. For a luminance only shot, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out and how much detail there is when you compare it to my original M13 picture at the top of the page. This image is cropped due to size limits on this website, but be sure to click on it to see the higher detail shot.
M42 reprocess 6/10/2012
I've been working on my image processing skills and managed to make some improvements to the M42 image that I thought were worth posting. I've managed to stretch it to show more detail as well as bring out the colors a bit more. The new methods I used preserved the details of the previous image and reduced the noise. I believe in all respects this is a better representation of the data captured.
Transit of Venus 6/05/2012
Here's a single image out of series I took of the transit of Venus. I'm working on processing a series of pictures I took of this event into a small animation, but I wanted to get something up sooner than later.
Saturn 5/14/2012
I was not using the right camera for this job, but since it was in such a great position, I turned my scope to Saturn and shot 100 very short frames and stacked them. I'm impressed at what I was able to get. There were a few artifacts in the stack that were emphasized when sharpening, so I had to paint them out. That's why some of the pixels near the planet may look a little strange if you zoom in, but the detail of the planet itself was unaffected.
M51 retake 5/14/2012
This is 7 3 minute images using 4x4 binning on my 8" SCT and Atik 383L+. Much more detail is present, but the image scale is such that the stars are starting to look blocky. I tried shooting this with 2x2 binning to fix that, but my polar alignment wasn't good enough to get the same level of detail without star trailing. Man it's hard to shoot at F/10 on an 8" scope. I tried for M101 as well, but since that is even dimmer I wasn't able to get anything I felt I could use. Time to go back to my APO, it's much less frustrating even if the subs have to be longer.
M51 The Whirlpool Galaxy 5/10/2012
This is 20 1 minute shots of the whirlpool galaxy through my 8" SCT on an Atik 383L+ monochrome camera. I'm still getting used to shooting through the SCT, so I misjudged how much exposure time I would need to eliminate all the noise. Longer exposures would lower the noise, as would having many more exposures. Still, I think it came out pretty good for a first attempt.
M101 The Pinwheel Galaxy with sn2011fe remnant 5/10/2012
This is 20 2 minute shots of the whirlpool galaxy through my 8" SCT on an Atik 383L+ monochrome camera. Like the M51 picture above, this needed more exposure as well. Longer exposures would lower the noise, as would having many more exposures.
This image is slightly rotated from the one I took last year. The supernova brightness is considerably diminished from my last picture of M101.
This image is slightly rotated from the one I took last year. The supernova brightness is considerably diminished from my last picture of M101.
M45 The Pleiades 3/12/2011
This is ~10 2 minute shots of the Pleiades through my 80mm triplet APO at F6 on a Canon Ti550D DSLR. A longer exposure time is definitely needed for this target, since I know there is a lot more blue clouds in this area than this picture shows.
I will revisit this target in order to get a longer exposure at some point in the future.
I will revisit this target in order to get a longer exposure at some point in the future.
M42 Orion Nebula and NGC 1977 Running Man Nebula 3/12/2012
This is the result of ~20 90 second shots of M42 taken through my 80mm triplet APO at F6 on a Canon Ti550D DSLR. The Running Man Nebula (NGC 1977) is visible on the right side of the image. It almost looks like an upside down person in the blue cloud.
I think this is one of the better shots I've ever taken.
I think this is one of the better shots I've ever taken.
M31 The Andromeda Galaxy 10/12/2011
This is my first serious attempt at The Andromeda Galaxy. This is a combination of 6 10 minute exposures on my 80mm triplet APO at F6 with an Atik 314E camera. There's a lot more to it than even this picture shows, I'm now set up to be able to take a full shot of this, but I have to wait until it's in a good spot in the sky to try again.
You can see M32 peeking into the frame on the far left side of the image.
You can see M32 peeking into the frame on the far left side of the image.
M101 Pinwheel Galaxy w/supernova SN2011fe 9/6/2011
I managed to go out one more time to get a picture of the Pinwheel while supernova SN2011fe was still at it's peak. You can see it is definitely much more pronounced now and looks more like a bloated star than it did in the previous picture.
M101 Pinwheel Galaxy w/supernova SN2011fe 8/25/2011
At the end of the imaging session I decided to try and take a shot of M101 because it was at a good spot in the sky. What I didn't know until later was that I managed to catch a supernova that had just been discovered the day before -- SN2011fe. Unfortunately, light pollution made it very difficult to get usable shots and I ended up with only one usable image. Because I couldn't do any stacking, the result is very noisy, but I stretched it so that you can at least see some detail.
I will make sure to take a longer shot next year in the summer to see how it has changed.
I will make sure to take a longer shot next year in the summer to see how it has changed.
M57 Ring Nebula 8/25/2011
6 60 second exposures taken through my 80mm triplet APO at F6 on an Atik 314E camera.
M13 Great Globular Cluster in Hercules 7/25/2011
20 60 second exposures taken through my 80mm triplet APO at F6 on an Atik 314E camera