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Wokka Wokka Wokka! NGC281 - The Pac-Man Nebula by tmarkuk, on Flickr It's the Pac-Man nebula, NGC281, taken last night. 41x300s exposures on my 250mm f4.8 reflector.
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Aug 19, 2012 18:54
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Choicecut posted:Another from the weekend: Showing some excellent improvement in your processing there, much improved colors and less clipping, good work!
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Aug 20, 2012 14:42
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MMD3 posted:Are there any resources for learning more about intro astrophotography? really really curious to find out more about what the necessary equipment is to get started. shots like this are incredibly inspiring: http://www.feraphotography.com/AM14/M42.html I just always assumed it cost tens of thousands of dollars to get the gear needed to pull something like that off. There is quite a bit of discussion over in the Amateur Astronomy thread in DIY & Hobbies, lots of links to resources and discussion of kit : http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3155317 The DSLR mod is to remove the IR Cut filter which cuts out a lot of the red light emitted by objects, such as the Pac-Man nebula above. This is Hydrogen-Alpha, a specific spectral line emitted by hydrogen. It's largely invisible to the human eye, and your camera blocks much of it out by default. By removing the filter we can capture these objects much easier. In general you either replace the filter with a more permissive version, or with a clear glass filter. Both will allow the camera to autofocus as normal. Or you remove the filter entirely which causes problems. Some people also like to remove the anti-alias filter to create a completely open camera, but at that point you accept that it's never taking normal photos again.
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Aug 21, 2012 09:36
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For deep space long exposure photography tracking is a must, and depending on your focal length and exposure time you'll also need autoguiding to correct for mechanical and alignment errors in the mount. It's a deep and slippery slope of expense and technical frustrations that occasionally leads to a nice picture. Don't bother taking apart a camera until you've had a chance to take a few shots and see if this is really something you want to get in to.
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Aug 23, 2012 09:39
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I wanted to hve a play with mosaics within Pixinsight (astro image processing software I use). So I took three frames of Andromeda to have a go with. The Andromeda Galaxy - M31 by tmarkuk, on Flickr Each frame composed of 21x180 captures. Getting the background light levels matched between then is pretty tricky.
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Sep 17, 2012 08:13
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Clown posted:I can't compete with Hasselblads and the universe. My walk to the office has never looked so good, I love all of those.
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Sep 20, 2012 14:18
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The Moon, because I can't really do anything else during the full Moon. Late September Moon by tmarkuk, on Flickr
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Sep 30, 2012 13:12
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theHUNGERian posted:Optics: Takahashi Sky 90 II @ 406 mm fl (f/4.5) That is a very nice little scope, color me jealous! Great image as well, my savings for a proper CCD is going far to slowly.
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Oct 22, 2012 09:49
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theHUNGERian posted:Are you looking at the used market for the CCD? Yeah, I'm hunting around for used equipment but we have a much smaller market over here in the UK, and the language barrier can make it hard searching out items in the rest of Europe.
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Oct 23, 2012 11:13
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InternetJunky posted:Speaking of tracking mounts, my mount finally came in yesterday. Do you think it's big enough (it's taller than me and I'm 6')? You'll want to check your balance in dec and RA with that setup, the lens looks like it's going to be quite nose heavy even with the body attached. The CGEM is pretty good for what it is, but proper balance goes a long way to making it better.
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Nov 3, 2012 17:20
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Testing out a QHY8L one shot colour CCD camera on IC410 the other night. I had some issues with the camera not sitting square in the focuser (now fixed my tapping in a couple of extra thumbscrews) which resulted in stretched stars and some oddness. Hopefully most of the issues are fixed now so I can test it without distractions. I'm still working out colour calibration issues and processing with it, but it's coming along.  ic410 by tmarkuk, on Flickr Also Jupiter, composed from a 2 minute video taken with an OpticStar PL-130c high speed USB camera. Think fancy webcam with a cooling arrangement.  Jupiter, Io and Ganymede by tmarkuk, on Flickr
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Dec 10, 2012 20:32
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InternetJunky posted:I'm still waiting for a clear night -- there hasn't been a decent one since I got all my gear more than a month ago. This is astrophotography, some lucky people live near deserts or mountains and can drive out to clear, dark skies. Some of us do not and have to do the best we can with whatever the weather chooses to do on any given night. Last night was clear for two hours, followed by a freezing fog out of no where. You get used to looking at all your expensive kit while you wait for that perfect clear night, which will no doubt neatly coincide with a full moon anyway. You spend the time patiently checking and testing everything, safe in the knowledge that something annoying is not going to behave itself anyway regardless of what you do. Eventually though, it all works out and you get to take a picture and everything seems worth it in the end.
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Dec 13, 2012 10:19
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Comets are fun, and you can do a composite image which includes both stars and comet by stacking the images as two separate sets. The first set you align on the stars and use a heavy sigma clip to remove the comet as much as possible. The second run you manually align on the comet and again use a heavy sigma to remove the stars. Process each image normally then combine in PS as separate layers and use cunning brush / transparency to bring the comet back into the image. Saying that I've only done it once, it's hard work taking and aligning 60 odd frames twice.  Comet 103p Hartley by tmarkuk, on Flickr It's been a while since I posted in here, I have a new camera now (QSI-583ws) and narrowband filters. I'll be getting a new mount this year to, either an EQ8 or iOptron CEM60.  NGC281 in Narrow Band Hubble Palette by tmarkuk, on Flickr Jekub fucked around with this message at 16:52 on Jan 13, 2014 |
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Jan 13, 2014 13:06
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None unfortunately, I am hoping that by the time I am ready to make a choice there will be some decent test results out to allow me to make a decision. If not I'll go with the EQ8, at least it is a known quantity and will easily allow me to piggyback a wide field refractor onto my 10" newt.
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Jan 14, 2014 12:40
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A short test image from my new mount. The Pelican nebula in HA 3x20 minutes taken with my QSI 583ws. NGC5070 with the CEM60 by tmarkuk, on Flickr
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Jun 26, 2014 11:37
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A couple of astrophotography images from a trip to the to La Palma in the Spanish Canary Islands. Antares, including various reflection nebula and globular clusters.  Antares Region by Tim Powell, on FlickrThe Lagoon and Triffid Nebulas.  Lagoon and Triffid (M8/M20) Nebulas, RGB. by Tim Powell, on FlickrBoth taken with a QSI 583ws CCD caamera and a Takahashi FS-60c refractor telescope.
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Jul 30, 2015 10:44
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