Images
The images I take are primarily for me. I cannot and don't want to compete with the many great astro imagers. The observatory embedded in a heavily light polluted area where the Sky Quality Meter rarely gets darker than 19.6 m/arc sec^2. I am also stymied by very unsteady air which means bad seeing.
The images I take are primarily for me. I cannot and don't want to compete with the many great astro imagers. The observatory embedded in a heavily light polluted area where the Sky Quality Meter rarely gets darker than 19.6 m/arc sec^2. I am also stymied by very unsteady air which means bad seeing.
So the solution is to use narrow band filters, The image at the left is the Horsehead nebula (Barnard 33) with a 1200 second exposure using the Hydrogen alpha filter. The camera was cooled to -20 Degrees Centigrade3 to reduce the thermal noise.
Image taken March 7th, 2016.
Here is M17 or NGC 6618. I imaged about 20 one minute exposures in each Red, Blue and Green filters. on August 4th 2023.
Here is M17 or NGC 6618. I imaged about 20 one minute exposures in each Red, Blue and Green filters. on August 4th 2023.
And M8 also known as "The Swan" in Sagitarius. I imaged the nebula using the "Hubble Pallete" which uses my H Alpha, Oxygen III and Sulphur II filters. Each exposure was 120 seconds long and repeated 10 times for each filter.
And M8 also known as "The Swan" in Sagitarius. I imaged the nebula using the "Hubble Pallete" which uses my H Alpha, Oxygen III and Sulphur II filters. Each exposure was 120 seconds long and repeated 10 times for each filter.
Now this is a "raw" image on June 2, 2023. No processing applied. You can barely see the faint spiral arms of the spiral galaxy M 101 also called NGC 5461 . The arrow points to a "new star", a supernova, SN 2023ixf.
Now this is a "raw" image on June 2, 2023. No processing applied. You can barely see the faint spiral arms of the spiral galaxy M 101 also called NGC 5461 . The arrow points to a "new star", a supernova, SN 2023ixf.
Professional observatories normally take raw images. Raw images that are probably less than 30 seconds long and typically only have 'flats' applied to them to compensate for sky gradients.
The supernova was at magnitude 12.3 3 minute image using a clear filter.
The above image shows what my night sky looked like on June 2nd with all the haze and bright moon. So you see why my image on the left was so poor. Its amazing I was able to see anything.
The above image shows what my night sky looked like on June 2nd with all the haze and bright moon. So you see why my image on the left was so poor. Its amazing I was able to see anything.