Astronomy
I'm getting better and better .... at least in my own humble opinion. The new Atik 314L+ camera I am using now to image greatly helped, then add in my new wedge and that has helped bumped up my imaging possibilities another level. I have also been tweaking my Actions to get some better results (and also confirming the usefulness of many of them) in processing in a shorter amount of time spent by me behind the computer processing. I still have minor tweaking with my polar alignment and at some point I hope to get a working autoguider both to increase exposure time but I am pleased with the improvement I have had in a short time. Last night I imaged M51, the Whirlpool Galaxy late into the morning as weather forecasts for the next week are not favorable to imaging.
I am still learning the advantages/disadvantages of "binning", so for last night's M51 I just left the bin at 1x1 ... the data for the image is:
Camera: Atik 314L+
Scope: Orion EON80ED piggybacked on Celestron CPC800
Astronomik LRGB filters: 84:30:39:30
180 sec subexposures
Acquired in Artemis Capture, Stacked in Nebulosity, Processed in Photoshop CS2 with "Annie's Astro Actions"
- Iris Nebula
I have been wanting to do some dark nebula imaging for a while, but had read about how difficult processing would be for such images so I held off for a while until I had the means to do longer subs. Now that I have an autoguider my sub length is sufficient...
- First Bicolor Narrowband Image
I have imaged various objects in just Ha before, but just got to use my OIII filter for the first time and am attempting my first bi-color processing. I am hoping to get more hours of both Ha and OIII in the coming days or weeks (whatever the weather...
- First Image In England And Of 2011
Despite a lot of rain and clouds I have gotten a couple (literally, only 2 since we moved here in December) of clear nights to image. Using my new autoguider (Starlight XPress Lodestar) I am now able to get much longer exposures. I kept these at 10 min...
- Ngc 3718 ... The Comparison Of Dark Versus Urban Skies
My latest project was to test the limits of imaging a) in the city and b) without an autoguider on my wedge-mounted scope. I chose NGC 3718 as I dont see many pictures of it and I think it looks cool and it has not only the main galaxy but alot of faint...
- More Polar Alignment Fun
Spent another night working on my polar alignment - its getting better. Finally was able to get an unguided 85sec image (keep in mind I did short sets of only 30min per channel as I was just testing my alignment) of M51 "Whirlpool Galaxy". I still have...
Astronomy
Every day in every way ....
I'm getting better and better .... at least in my own humble opinion. The new Atik 314L+ camera I am using now to image greatly helped, then add in my new wedge and that has helped bumped up my imaging possibilities another level. I have also been tweaking my Actions to get some better results (and also confirming the usefulness of many of them) in processing in a shorter amount of time spent by me behind the computer processing. I still have minor tweaking with my polar alignment and at some point I hope to get a working autoguider both to increase exposure time but I am pleased with the improvement I have had in a short time. Last night I imaged M51, the Whirlpool Galaxy late into the morning as weather forecasts for the next week are not favorable to imaging.
I am still learning the advantages/disadvantages of "binning", so for last night's M51 I just left the bin at 1x1 ... the data for the image is:
Camera: Atik 314L+
Scope: Orion EON80ED piggybacked on Celestron CPC800
Astronomik LRGB filters: 84:30:39:30
180 sec subexposures
Acquired in Artemis Capture, Stacked in Nebulosity, Processed in Photoshop CS2 with "Annie's Astro Actions"
- Iris Nebula
I have been wanting to do some dark nebula imaging for a while, but had read about how difficult processing would be for such images so I held off for a while until I had the means to do longer subs. Now that I have an autoguider my sub length is sufficient...
- First Bicolor Narrowband Image
I have imaged various objects in just Ha before, but just got to use my OIII filter for the first time and am attempting my first bi-color processing. I am hoping to get more hours of both Ha and OIII in the coming days or weeks (whatever the weather...
- First Image In England And Of 2011
Despite a lot of rain and clouds I have gotten a couple (literally, only 2 since we moved here in December) of clear nights to image. Using my new autoguider (Starlight XPress Lodestar) I am now able to get much longer exposures. I kept these at 10 min...
- Ngc 3718 ... The Comparison Of Dark Versus Urban Skies
My latest project was to test the limits of imaging a) in the city and b) without an autoguider on my wedge-mounted scope. I chose NGC 3718 as I dont see many pictures of it and I think it looks cool and it has not only the main galaxy but alot of faint...
- More Polar Alignment Fun
Spent another night working on my polar alignment - its getting better. Finally was able to get an unguided 85sec image (keep in mind I did short sets of only 30min per channel as I was just testing my alignment) of M51 "Whirlpool Galaxy". I still have...