jmeriaux
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Homepage: http://ngc1976.org
Eskimo Nebula (NGC 2392) with C9.25
Posted in Astrophotography, Deep sky objects on January 8, 2011
Date: 1/5/2011
Location: San Bruno, CA
Telescope: C9.25 on NJP-Z mount
Camera: Qhy8 with CLS CCD Filter
16 exposures of 2 minutes at f/d 6.3.
Processing: Maxim DL5, Photoshop CS4, Astraimage Wavelet filter
The Eskimo planetary nebula has a fairly small angular size: about 48″, comparable with the apparent size of Jupiter.
At focal plane, the scale was about 1.15″ by pixel when taking this image.
Collimation is critical at this focal length – and I made sure the SCT was well collimated.
Given its high surface brightness, shooting NGC 2392 benefits from many short exposures to get the best of seeing conditions, and processing techniques such as sharpening or wavelet filtering.
For this pictures, I tried out my new Losmandy dovetail plate on which the guidescope (Takahashi fs60c) is attached.
I had trouble with tube flexture in the past with other systems to attach the guide scope to my c9.25, but with this great dovetail plate, the guide scope is now coupled to the C9.25 OTA in a very rigid way.
Helix Nebula with Astrotac – New Mexico
Posted in Astrophotography, Deep sky objects, Wide Field and Telephoto on December 24, 2010
Date: 9/12/2010
The month of December is definitely not great for astronomy given the clouds / rain – so I am taking the occasion to process and post shots I took in September in New Mexico,
These two pictures from the Helix nebula were taken with respectively my Canon 200mm Teleobjective, and Takahashi FS-60C, both having very fine optics.
Both were done on my Astrotrac Travel system mount (unguided). Star were slightly elongated because of poor polar alignment, and I tried to fix it as much as possible using Photoshop and techniques described in the excellent book “The New Astro Zone System for Astro Imaging” by R.Wodaski and R.Croman.
Interesting to see the comparison there. Since shots were unguided I was limited to a short exposures especially with the FS-60C. The picture taken with the FS-60C is definitely more detailed – stars are “tight” but colors are not captured as nicely as with the Teleobjective open at f/d 3.5 because of the short sub-frame duration.
Even though more pictures were stacked with the FS60, still the short F/D ratio of the Canon Teleobjective makes the difference when capturing colors from green to yellow to red in this great planetary nebula.
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
Astrophotography in Urban Environment 