Astrophotography

Drakkith

Thanks guys! BTW this nebula is home to Eta Carinae, an extremely luminous blue supergiant, with a mass of at least 100 solar masses and shining with at least 1 million times more luminosity than the Sun.
It is only one of a handful of stars of this size known to exist in the Milky Way. A little history of the star:

When Eta Carinae was first catalogued in 1677 by Edmond Halley, it was of the 4th magnitude, but by 1730, observers noticed it had brightened considerably and was, at that point, one of the brightest stars in Carina. In the middle of the 18th century, Nicolas Louis de Lacaille mapped and gave the stars of Argo Navis Bayer designations. He assigned the then second-magnitude star the Greek letter Eta.[9]

Subsequently Eta Carinae dimmed, and by 1782 it appeared to have reverted to its former magnitude. In 1820, it was observed to be growing in brightness again. By 1827, it had brightened more than tenfold and reached its greatest apparent brightness in April 1843. With a magnitude of −0.8, it was the second brightest star in the night-time sky (after Sirius at 8.6 light years away), despite its enormous distance. (To put the relationship in perspective, the relative brightness would be like comparing a candle (representing Sirius) at 14.5 meters (48 feet) to another light source (Eta Carinae) about 10 kilometers (6.2 mi) away, which would appear almost as bright as the candle.)

That's one heck of a bright star! As of April 2012 it's around magnitude 4.6, much dimmer.

Damo ET

That is spectacular! Nice work.

Damo

QuantumPion

Finally a nice clear night to try out my new XT8.

I took these with my Canon EOS 20D by just holding it up to the eyepiece. I didn't have the exposure set very well though, Jupiter was much too dim. In the view it was extremely bright and I could see 6+ moons quite clearly.

davenn

hey QuantumPion

well done for your first efforts :)
You will always find imaging the moon when it is full or near full to be difficult
The details always get washed out
The only time I photo the full moon is during eclipses :)

wait for try again during the earlier phases like first quarter and you will be amased at the detail in the craters and mountains you can get along the day/night terminator line

pretty good on Jupiter too, some of the bands are easily visible :)

Dave

94JZA80

hey Drakkith, i see you used narrowband filters, but what camera and telescope did you use for the Carina Nebula shot?

TIA,
Eric

QuantumPion

Madness!

p.s. I do have on order a T-adapter for my camera so I can bypass the camera lens and directly attach the EP to it. Not sure which method is better though. Just waiting for some clear weather now!

p.p.s. I think I'm going to need a counterweight for this thing. :o

Jokmal

Early this year I took my first photographs of the moon I did it with a friend's telescope and my iPad

94JZA80

Quote by Jokmal

Early this year I took my first photographs of the moon I did it with a friend's telescope and my iPad

very nice considering the equipment you had to work with

spark802

Heres my Messier 101 with my new Astro-tech imaging newt (6")and Canon 550, shot thru a laptop with BYEOS. April 13/2013.

Drakkith

Quote by spark802

Heres my Messier 101 with my new Astro-tech imaging newt (6")and Canon 550, shot thru a laptop with BYEOS. April 13/2013.

Not bad. All you need is more exposure time. Take more subs!

spark802

Quote by Drakkith

Not bad. All you need is more exposure time. Take more subs!

Hey Drak...yes i went through the stacking process with DSS and saved as fits per advice from an AP friend. All i could get was grey scale after stacking, so i may stack my 15 subs again and save as tifs...

Dave

glappkaeft

After stacking DSS automatically applies a contrast curve but you need to manually increase the color saturation before saving the image if you want more than just a tiny amount of color.

spark802

Here's my rendition of ngc 7000, I left the exif data in if you want to look.

davenn

Quote by spark802

Here's my rendition of ngc 7000, I left the exif data in if you want to look.

nice one :)
Had to think for a moment about what object I was looking at then remembered that NGC 7000 is the North American Nebula, in you photo lying on its side ;)
Maybe there's been a huge tectonic shift haha

Dave

sas3

I was out trying to catch some shooting stars and seen a flash 2 times once while the camera was resetting and then caught the second flash with the camera, was it an Iridium flare?

Look to the left and down from the last 2▼ stars in the dippers bowl.

czelaya

Quote by Drakkith

NGC 3372, The Carina Nebula.
Shot in narrowband. Red-Sulfur II, Green-Hydrogen Alpha, Blue-Oxygen III

9x300s - HA
10x300s - OIII
14x300s - SII

Edit: Didn't realize it would be so big in the post. Forgive me as I have no idea how to make a small thumbnail and the file is too large to upload. (Had to shrink it down 50% just to upload it to imageshack)

Why would you even apologize? I just made that my background picture for my laptop. Thanks.

davenn

[QUOTE=sas3;4373063]I was out trying to catch some shooting stars and seen a flash 2 times once while the camera was resetting and then caught the second flash with the camera, was it an Iridium flare?

The Iridium Flares I have seen generally tend to be short bright streaks rather than the faint pinpoint you have caught there.
Maybe it was a rotating satellite that you caught its bright side reflecting the sun ?

Dave

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QuantumPion	Finally a nice clear night to try out my new XT8. I took these with my Canon EOS 20D by just holding it up to the eyepiece. I didn't have the exposure set very well though, Jupiter was much too dim. In the view it was extremely bright and I could see 6+ moons quite clearly.

94JZA80	hey Drakkith, i see you used narrowband filters, but what camera and telescope did you use for the Carina Nebula shot? TIA, Eric

QuantumPion	Madness! p.s. I do have on order a T-adapter for my camera so I can bypass the camera lens and directly attach the EP to it. Not sure which method is better though. Just waiting for some clear weather now! p.p.s. I think I'm going to need a counterweight for this thing. :o

Jokmal	Early this year I took my first photographs of the moon I did it with a friend's telescope and my iPad Attached Thumbnails

spark802	Heres my Messier 101 with my new Astro-tech imaging newt (6")and Canon 550, shot thru a laptop with BYEOS. April 13/2013. Attached Thumbnails

glappkaeft	After stacking DSS automatically applies a contrast curve but you need to manually increase the color saturation before saving the image if you want more than just a tiny amount of color.

sas3 Recognitions: Gold Member	I was out trying to catch some shooting stars and seen a flash 2 times once while the camera was resetting and then caught the second flash with the camera, was it an Iridium flare? Look to the left and down from the last 2▼ stars in the dippers bowl.