jmeriaux
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Homepage: http://ngc1976.org
Solar Spots with SV 90 Raptor and Baader Solar Film
Posted in Astrophotography, Sun on December 24, 2010
Date: 9/26/2010
Location: San Bruno, California
These pictures were taken with the Baader Solar Film and my DMK black and white camera.
Sun granules and faculae are featured in respectively the first and second pictures
The Stellarvue SV90 (3.5″) is a fine instrument for Sun white light Astrophotography.
It reaches temperature equilibrium quite fast – and with its great optical quality it can get as far as a 3.5″ aperture can possibly go…
In addition I used a Televue x5 Powermate. Since the SV90 has a relatively short focal ratio (f/d 7) the x5 powermate is necessary to get high resolution pictures.
Processing:
– Avistack
– Photoshop CS4
– Astraimage Wavelet filter
Running Man nebula with c9.25
Posted in Astrophotography, Deep sky objects on December 11, 2010
Location: San Bruno, CA – 11/14/2010
C9.25 with Focal Reducer on NJP-Z Mount
Combination of 7 exposures of 7 minutes
Camera: Qhy9 at 2×2 binning with astronomik CLS CCD filter
This is my first long exposure with my new Takahashi NJP-Z mount. I am planning to do long focal / high resolution astrophotography with it and I am still in the learning curve.
The set up I have with my C9.25 and guidescope is far from optimal – and I am working on improving the overall rigidity – since I realized I am not limited by the mount (which has an excellent tracking) but rather by tube flexture (guidescope).
The mount was controlled from a Toshiba Netbook.
Processing: Maxim DL, Photoshop CS4, Sharpener Pro 3.0, Noise Ninja
Jupiter SEB revival in November 2010
Posted in Astrophotography, Planets on December 4, 2010
Orion 180 Mak Cassegrain with DMK Camera on Takahashi NJP-Z mount.
Seeing: 4/10
I captured these pictures on a night of average seeing.
It is possible to notice a quite visible revival of the South Equatorial belt on this picture, that was not visible in pictures taken earlier in November.
Copernicus with Mak Cassegrain 180mm
Posted in Moon on December 4, 2010
11/16/2010 at San Bruno, CA
Orion Mak Cassegrain 180mm with Black and white DMK camera on Takahashi NJP-Z mount.
Seeing: 4/10 and Transparency 3/6
I wish my DMK camera sensor would be larger than its 1/4″ size. It is perfect for planetary imaging but the field of view is too small for the moon!
This is taken at approximatively f/d 25 (f/d 15 with barlow x1.5).
Processing: registax v5, Photoshop CS4, and Astra image wavelet processing.
Jupiter – November 2010
Posted in Astrophotography, Planets on November 4, 2010
Seeing condition was pretty good (Alpo seeing 6/10) when I took this picture with my 7″ Orion Maksutov Cassegrain.
I spent 30min collimating the telescope before shooting Jupiter. I used a quality eyepiece at x350 to get pretty symmetric diffraction rings on a 2nd magnitude star. It was I think time well spent.
This is the first time I collimated this telescope since I bought it – the scope keeps collimation pretty well – but still it was time to tweak it.
And it paid off – seeing was pretty good and with better collimation the telescope really showed its potential.
I am still very surprised by what this small telescope is capable of !
Image processing:
– Registax v5
– Photoshop CS4
– Astra Image wavelet plug in
Pacman Nebula with SV90 Raptor
Posted in Astrophotography, Deep sky objects on October 24, 2010
This is the first picture I took with my new Stellarvue SV90 Raptor (APO triplet).
The quality of this telescope is excellent and with its carbon fiber tube, it is very lightweight.
Star diffraction pattern is textbook-like. With the Stellarvue field flattener specially designed for the stellarvue refractors at f/d 7, stars are round and tight from center to edge.
I can see a drastic difference with the Orion 102ED I had before: even though the focal is slightly shorter, the SV90 provides much more details. This is a pleasure to image with this telescope!
Total exposure time was almost 3 hours. Having many sub-exposures in conjunction with the CLS-CCD light pollution filter is definitely a good way to improve the S/N ratio in my light polluted backyard…
Date: 10/12/210 – San Bruno, CA
Stellarvue SV90 Raptor at F/D 7 with Field flattener on Atlas Mount
Autoguiding with FS-60C and Starshoot autoguider
26 exposures of 7 minutes with Qhy8 CCD camera
Filter: Astronomik CLS CCD
Processing: MaximDL 5, Photoshop CS4 and Noise Ninja.
Full Frame
Cropped Image
Jupiter opposition – October 2010
Posted in Astrophotography, Planets on October 17, 2010
I took these shots of Jupiter with my 7″ Maksutov Cassegrain.
Seeing what good but not at the best this night. Seeing was below average first (first shot) and then turned better progressively at the same time Jupiter raised in the Sky.
However the LRGB technique I have been using lately allows to have quite good resolution planetary imaging with average seeing, by extracting the best frames out of the large frame number / high speed luminance AVI.
For the first time I used the Astra Image photoshop plug in for deconvolution (maximum entropy deconvolution) and wavelet sharpening. I got this time better results compared to the deconvolution software “Focus Magic” I have been using so far.
I would recommend this software for planetary image processing.
Astrophotography in Urban Environment 