Stargazing Expert Astrophotography Tips & Discussions | Share Your Photos!

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The discussion focuses on sharing astrophotography tips and showcasing personal astrophotos among members. Participants share their experiences with different equipment, including digital cameras and telescopes, and discuss techniques for capturing celestial events like lunar eclipses and planetary transits. There is an emphasis on the importance of practical stargazing alongside theoretical discussions about astrophysics. Members also express interest in learning from each other and improving their photography skills. The thread serves as a collaborative space for both beginners and experienced astrophotographers to exchange knowledge and inspiration.
  • #91


49 million years.
 
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  • #92


russ_watters said:
Thanks - you can't see stuff like that with your eyes, though, you can only take pictures of them, which is why I spend much more time having a camera look through my telescope than using my eyes. I said 5 hours exposure, but I guess since I did the colors separately and stacked multiple exposures, it is really the equivalent of about 1 hour. But that still makes it many thousands of times more light captured (brighter) than what you can see with your eyes.

ohhh i missed the exposure time. Still that is quite amazing. I'm wondering as I've never had a telescope before how do you keep the galaxy in the frame? since it would be moving relative to where your telescope was originally positioned... i assume some sort of equipment follows it for you?
 
  • #93


Sorry! said:
I'm wondering as I've never had a telescope before how do you keep the galaxy in the frame? since it would be moving relative to where your telescope was originally positioned... i assume some sort of equipment follows it for you?
The telescope is motorized and aligned to the Earth's rotation axis, so theoretically should be able to passively follow an object across the sky. Realistically, the tracking accuracy required is impossible to do passively, so I have a second telescope and camera mounted on the first and my laptop sends constant tracking corrections to keep the object centered.
 
  • #94


russ_watters said:
The telescope is motorized and aligned to the Earth's rotation axis, so theoretically should be able to passively follow an object across the sky. Realistically, the tracking accuracy required is impossible to do passively, so I have a second telescope and camera mounted on the first and my laptop sends constant tracking corrections to keep the object centered.

Most cool!

49 million year old light. Is it a kind of crusty light?!:smile:

So this one is not to far out from our own. Did you give us the name yet? Just wondered.. I may have read the post after a Friday night:rolleyes:

edit: Does it mean that 49 million years ago, if there were telescopes and people around, no one would be able to see that galaxy... because the light had not reached us yet?
 
  • #95


baywax said:
So this one is not to far out from our own.
No, not really - and it is one of the dimmer/further one's I've captured. 60MLY is the furthest I've captured. But there are a lot of galaxies within that distance!
Did you give us the name yet? Just wondered.. I may have read the post after a Friday night:rolleyes:
No name that I'm aware of, just that 4 number catalog designation in the file name: NGC4565.
edit: Does it mean that 49 million years ago, if there were telescopes and people around, no one would be able to see that galaxy... because the light had not reached us yet?
No, the galaxy itself is billions of years older than that, so if we had looked at it 49 million years ago, we'd just see it slightly older than it is now.
 
  • #96


russ_watters said:
The telescope is motorized and aligned to the Earth's rotation axis, so theoretically should be able to passively follow an object across the sky. Realistically, the tracking accuracy required is impossible to do passively, so I have a second telescope and camera mounted on the first and my laptop sends constant tracking corrections to keep the object centered.

That is so awesome. I shall add that to my list of things I want to buy at some point in my life. :D
 
  • #97


these are taken with a nikon d40 (6.1 MP) and a 70-300 manual focus telephoto lens. as for the one with the stars, i could see none of those with the naked eye. that one was a 30 second exposure.
 

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  • #98


during this time of year, its hard for me to get much. (i am in north central florida..)i have no problem with light pollution. it's just that my elevation is almost nothing, like 300 feet.
 
  • #99


Has anybody here gotten high-quality images of NGC 101? The ones taken by the UK Schmidt camera might be nice, but when they were digitized, the fine details got lost in pixelation. I'm not employed in astrophysics, but this system is of concern to me and my collaborators as we develop our 2nd paper on interacting galaxies.
 
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  • #100


Here's my best Jupiter yet. Unfortunately, I screwed up with my filters and only shot red and green (the filters are in a wheel and not labeled by color), but fortunately, Jupiter is mostly red, so it still looks reasonably good. The moons are Europa and Io
 

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  • #101


russ_watters said:
Here's my best Jupiter yet. Unfortunately, I screwed up with my filters and only shot red and green (the filters are in a wheel and not labeled by color), but fortunately, Jupiter is mostly red, so it still looks reasonably good. The moons are Europa and Io

Thomas and Russ... far out! Thank you.

I was about to buy a telescope as a BDay present for a 13 year old but was told I'd only be getting a similar power to binocs at the under 300 buck range (Canada). Do you guys know of one that is superior in quality and price? Thanks!
 
  • #102


thanks. sweet, russ. yeah. I am looking at at nice celestron, but dang! almost four hundred. I am not real familiar with brands and/or different types, baywax...I'm a (seventeen year old) noob.
 
  • #103


russ_watters said:
Here's my best Jupiter yet. Unfortunately, I screwed up with my filters and only shot red and green (the filters are in a wheel and not labeled by color), but fortunately, Jupiter is mostly red, so it still looks reasonably good. The moons are Europa and Io
Nice. Can the effects of the recent impact of the Earth size object still be seen on the surface?
 
  • #104


mheslep said:
Nice. Can the effects of the recent impact of the Earth size object still be seen on the surface?

I don't think that the object that recently hit Jupiter was Earth sized. I believe the 'plum' it created was Earth sized. I may be wrong however.
 
  • #105


Sorry! said:
I don't think that the object that recently hit Jupiter was Earth sized. I believe the 'plum' it created was Earth sized. I may be wrong however.

You're right, the plume and debris field is Earth size. Its in Jupiter's southern hemisphere and appears as a black dot. Actually it must have grown in size by now.

Thanks Thomas! Go ahead, be 17 all you want!
 
  • #106


mheslep said:
Nice. Can the effects of the recent impact of the Earth size object still be seen on the surface?
It can, but not in that pic. I'm not sure where it is, but I have several other pics from the same night (3 hours ealier and so that covers most of the planet) I haven't processed yet. They aren't as good a quality, but maybe its in them (if it is still prominent).
 
  • #107


haha
 
  • #108
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  • #109


Denyven, is that even real!?

Astrowesome! :D
 
  • #110


Hello Jupiter! This year Jupiter is going to be a great subject.

Image taken from deep inside the city lights of San Antonio (9-16-09).
Scope is an AstroTech 80ED on an Orion Atlas mount. Camera used was a Phillips webcam (SPC-900NC, WalMart).

It is the best I've gotten out of this small scope... imaged during an public outreach that http://www.sanantonioastronomy.org/" has every cooperative Wednesday night.
 

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  • #111


Mars is about 2 weeks from opposition. Here's my first attempt at it this time around.
 

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  • #112


chemisttree said:
Hello Jupiter! This year Jupiter is going to be a great subject.

Image taken from deep inside the city lights of San Antonio (9-16-09).
Scope is an AstroTech 80ED on an Orion Atlas mount. Camera used was a Phillips webcam (SPC-900NC, WalMart).

It is the best I've gotten out of this small scope... imaged during an public outreach that http://www.sanantonioastronomy.org/" has every cooperative Wednesday night.
Are those stars or Jupiter's moons shown there off of Jupiter's equator?
 
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  • #113


The fact that they are aligned with the equator is a dead giveaway that they are moons.
 
  • #114


russ_watters said:
The fact that they are aligned with the equator is a dead giveaway that they are moons.
Thought so, but I had no idea of the apparent magnitudes expected of stars vs Jupiter moons on that kind of equipment.
 
  • #115


Yeah, you can see the moons easily with binoculars.
 
  • #116


Great shot of Mars, Russ. I've been visually observing for the last couple of weeks with my upgraded (APOgrade) optics in the 80mm using a 7mm T1 Nagler. It is the first time I have been able to see the dark ring around the polar cap that is clearly visible in your shot. I was really jazzed to have finally seen some detail on Mars on my little scope!

I see a lot of older SCT's for sale these days... probably everyone is upgrading to the HD version that has been recently introduced. Good time to be in the market for a used larger SCT, eh?
 
  • #117


Shortly after the snow stopped last Saturday, it cleared up and I shot this image of NGC2903. It's a barred spiral galaxy. This is something like 6 hours of of exposure on Saturday and Monday. The snow tends to make the sky brighter, so I'm pretty pleased it still came out so good.
 

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  • #118


russ_watters said:
Shortly after the snow stopped last Saturday, it cleared up and I shot this image of NGC2903. It's a barred spiral galaxy. This is something like 6 hours of of exposure on Saturday and Monday. The snow tends to make the sky brighter, so I'm pretty pleased it still came out so good.

Excellent Russ! Its a bit like our own galaxy eh?!
 
  • #119


baywax said:
Excellent Russ! Its a bit like our own galaxy eh?!
It looks so much like our galaxy that I wondered, at first, if Russ simply photographed our Milky Way, and was passing it off as another one. :biggrin:

But seriously -- super photo Russ.
 
  • #120


I've often wondered about the stuff like that which is around the galaxy in Russ's photo. Are those stars in our galaxy in the photo or more distant galaxies or both?
 

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