Double Cluster

Had an eventful night imaging tonight. As was suggested by some peers, I tried to do longer exposures to make my images smoother and hopefully get better results. It seemed that I was getting some field rotation in the longer exposures, so I spent some time drift aligning the scope. I think I got it a little better, but not quite perfect yet. After that I tried to do some more imaging but intermittent clouds were rolling in. I waited a while and was able to sneak a couple of hours of imaging in before dawn. I knew I wouldn't get any great results on anything faint in such a short time so I shot the famous double cluster. I'm pleased with the results, but I can see that processing stars is a lot different than processing nebulae. Looks like I need to get out Ron's book again.

IC 5070

This is 5.5 hours of Ha data shot the evening of 7/21/07. Still shooting throught the Sky 90. I love this little scope. I'm hooked on wide field imaging. I don't see myself shooting through the 10" Lx200 anytime in the near future unless it is for planetary. I guess you could day I have APO fever. What a beautiful night. Seeing was average but skies were clear as can be. Saw several bright meteors while sitting outside for a short period.

IC1318

This is 4.5 hours worth of data of IC 1318, aka the Butterfly Nebula. Same setup as with the swan nebual from below. Only difference is that in this session I used 2 minute subexposures.

Swan 8 Hours

Shot this image 7/1/07 and 7/8.07. Skies were clear, but seeing and transparency were not so good. Just had to get out and image with my new setup. I'm using a Takahashi Sky 90 with reducer, SBIG ST-2000XMI with remote guide head, Astrodon Ha 6nm filter, piggybacked on 10" LX 200 GPS for tracking. I've imaged through the 10" in the past, but was itching to do some wide field stuff. Here are my first light images. This exposure is a total of 8 hours with 10 min subexposures through the Ha filter. Images dark subtracted, aligned and stacked in CCDSoft, processed in Photoshop. Click image for full size version.

Moon July 1st

This is my moon shot from the early hours of July 1st. I always like to end a deep sky photo session with an easier target. Taken with the Tak Sky 90 and reducer, SBIG St-2000 and Astrodon 6nm Ha filter, 20 sub exposures x .05 sec, 1x1, stacked with registax, processed with photoshop.