Astrophotos
Astrophotography has always been a fascinating blend of science and art, though you’d be surprised at how much statistics enters the artistic exercise that is image processing. My time doing this hobby is unfortunately limited, and the ceiling on image quality is set by my ability to travel to locations with darker night skies and my willingness to stay up past a reasonable bedtime. Perhaps I shouldn’t have picked a hobby that directly conflicts with sleep…
In any case, I hope to add more images I am satisfied with to this page.
M101: Pinwheel Galaxy
Details
It’s been a while since I took this image, but I belive it total around 3 hours of integration.
Equipment:
- Orion ED80T-CF
- Celestron AVX
- Canon 6D (Hutech modified)
- Orion SSAG + 50mm guide scope
- Kstars/Ekos
M42: The Orion Nebula
Details
This image was processed from my first ever outing doing astrophotography. It totals around 12 minutes of integration from the Bortle 1 sky around the McDonald Observatory. Weather prevented any more data collection, but I’m still surprised at how much I was able to get out of it. By contrast my image of M101 was taken from a very light-polluted Bortle 8 sky, and that image was 3 hours of integration. This image always surprises me at how much better it is to image under dark skies.
The uneven illumination on the bottom left of the image is due to a strange reflection pattern on an IR cut filter I have for my camera. It’s not present in other images because I imaged those without the filter.
Equipment:
- Orion ED80T-CF
- Celestron AVX
- Canon 6D (Hutech modified)
M33: The Triangulum Galaxy
Details
This was a pretty mammoth project: around 4.5 hours of data went into this for a fairly mediocre result! This was a big lesson in the destructive power of light pollution on deep sky astroimaging. This is one I hope to revisit in the winter.
Equipment:
- Orion ED80T-CF
- Celestron AVX
- Canon 6D (Hutech modified)
- Orion SSAG + 50mm guide scope
- Kstars/Ekos