Astrophotography

Phobos

Looking for advice?
Willing to share your expertise with other PF members?
Brave enough to share & discuss your own astrophotos?
Then this is the thread for you.
Enjoy!

In all our cosmological discussions, let's not forget to actually go stargazing once in a while!

Thanks to member check for this suggestion!

check

Well since I suggested the thread…
Here’s a crop from my very first astro-pic. It’s not super sharp or of great magnification, but I was pretty happy with my first attempt.

This is a photo of the Moon, southern portion. It shows Crater Calvius near the centre, and Crater Tycho near the top.

Enjoy.

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Phobos

Thanks check. What equipment/settings did you use?

turbo

Here is a picture of the Orion Nebula (always a favorite) that I took through my 6" Astro-Physics refractor about 15 years ago. I used an OM-1 camera body at prime focus (mirror locked up) loaded with Konica ASA 3200 (grainy, but fast) and a 20-minute exposure.

To digitize the picture, I imaged the 5x7 print with a digital camera. Then I applied unsharp masking in Photoshop to bring our the detail in the nebula. If I ever move back out to the country (dark skies) I will build a roll-off roof observatory and buy a CCD camera for my scope. Those cameras are expensive, but the costs of film, development, and printing for conventional photography mount up really fast!

Due to the size constraints (50K) imposed by the BBS, I had to crop the images and reduce their resolutions substantially, but you get the idea...

check

I used a very simple set-up. An Orbiter 3200 reflector telescope, 76mm mirror 700mm focal length, 20mm eyepiece.

The photograph was taken using the afocal projection technique (camera placed in front of eyepiece). The camera was attached to the telescope with a special clamp. I used a digital camera, 4.0 megapixles, normal settings, fast shutter.



Turbo-1, that's a pretty cool photo.

turbo

I'm glad you like it. I've never tried using my digital camera with a telescope - it was hard enough to learn to get acceptable results with film! I will have to make an adapter and try your afocal technique sometime.

Did you guide your moon shot?

check

Nope. Since it was a regular shutter speed exposure and because the moon is so bright there was no need to guide it.

Be aware though, if you're using the afocal technique with manual focus on your digicam, it's somewhat difficult to get good focus if you're looking at the LCD display. So unless your camera has live video-out where you can connect it to a TV (so you can get a clearer picture of what you’re trying to take a picture of) and adjust your focus that way, or unless your camera's viewfinder displays what’s going through the aperture, it might be tricky to manually focus...and sometimes the auto focus is unreliable.

Edit:

One more thing about digital cameras and astrophotography... Typically digicams either automatically set the shutter speed according to lighting conditions or give you a very limited amount of options. My camera only allows a maximum exposure time of 2 seconds.

check

I figure I'd post this. It's a mosaic I made of the moon one night. Took a bunch of photos (I thought I had covered the whole moon, but as you can see I missed some spots).
In this mosaic the moon is about 80cm across. There’s a 15 cm ruler next to it for a sense of scale. Not huge, but it goes to show you one of the many neat things that you can do if u have a printer, a telescope and a digital camera.

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turbo

Here is a little picture of the Lagoon Nebula. I did the same thing with it as the Orion Nebula picture - imaged a 5x7 print with my Olympus, then unsharp-masked it in Photoshop to bring out fine detail in the nebulosity.

sol2

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ima...Eye_hst_c1.jpg




Rings in the Haloes of Planetary Nebulae
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0401056



One has to know, in what context the challenge is being made and answered. Those "rings" to me, look like tree rings?

http://web.mit.edu/8.03/www/walter-ring-sm.jpg

http://web.mit.edu/8.03/www/

If one is studingthe physics and approach of what is taking place inthe cosmos with such views to its quantum nature, it is hard not to be drawn to these beautiful events. It is even more difficult, to refrain from offering a explanation , if it is offered as a challenge. You just should known what context this is being offered, it was not offered for the general public. But someone did make it so.

So why would anyone not rise to occasion?

turbo

You have taken a very nice underexposed picture of your reflection (probably on a shiny icy surface) surrounded by an ice halo. Solar ice halos can be very beautiful in these higher latitudes, and even the fainter lunar halos can be stunning if your eyes are properly adapted to darkness. I don't need the extra credit (unless you could boost my 1972 grade in my initial-[and gut wrenching!] - philosophy course in Meta-ethics), but could you get me a discount on my prescription medications? You're not Canadian by any chance, eh?

tony873004

I took a picture of Jupiter's moons without a telescope. This is from my 300 mm zoom lens on my Canon Digital Rebel:
http://orbitsimulator.com/orbiter/jupiter.jpg

turbo

COOL!!!! How did you manage that?

tony873004

Tripod shot. Tameron 70-300 lens on a Canon Digital Rebel. Manual mode, 2 second exposure. I forget the ISO. Probably the stock lens (?-70 mm) will get a photo of the moons too. I have to wait till Jupiter returns to the evening sky.

Twistedseer

Is this just for astrophotography?


Twistedseer

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tony873004

3 pics from tonight's eclipse
http://orbitsimulator.com/orbiter/CRW_4806.jpg
http://orbitsimulator.com/orbiter/CRW_4814.jpg
http://orbitsimulator.com/orbiter/CRW_4851.jpg

russ_watters

I posted my own thread without even seeing this one. D'oh. Anyway, I got my best yet (only my 3rd try...) shot of Saturn. The sky was very clear, but it was windy, full moon, and a lot of light pollution. I had to wait for a break in the wind, then shot a 30 second avi clip. Equipment is an ETX-105 and a QuickCam 4000. Photo taken at prime focus (1470mm), about 300 shots aligned, stacked, and processed with Registax.

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