Posted inAstronomy Astrophotography
August 2017 Solar Eclipse
My 5 favorite shots of the 2017 solar eclipse from Oregon. Nikon D750, AstroTech AT65Q refractor, Manfrotto tripod, SkyWatcher Star Adventurer.
Posted inAstronomy Astrophotography
IC434 Horsehead and Flame Nebulas in Hydrogen Alpha
I revisited an old favorite for my first quick test with my new Takahashi FSQ-106EDX4.
23 x 600 second integrations, Baader Hydrogen-Alpha filter, FSQ-106EDX4 @ f/5, SBIG ST-8300 with FW5 filter wheel, processed with PixInsight.
Posted inAstronomy Astrophotography
Rosette Nebula with Narrowband filters
My first shot of the Rosette Nebula with my new set of Baader narrowband filters.
The image was combined using SII (ionized sulphur) for the red channel, Ha (hydrogen alpha) for the green channel and OIII (ionized oxygen) for the blue channel. This combination is known as the “Hubble Palette” and is the same method used by NASA for the famous Pillars of Creation image.
The exposure breakdown is:
Ha 25 x 10 min
OIII 34 X 10 min
SII 33 x 10 min
For a total exposure time of about 15 hours.
AstroTech AT65EDQ telescope, Losmandy G11 mount, SBIG ST-8300M camera + FW5 filter wheel, Baader Narrowband filter set.
Posted inAstronomy Astrophotography
The Horsehead and Flame Nebulas in Orion
I got a second amazing night for imaging and despite it being a Tuesday I couldn’t resist having a go at some RGB data and eating the lack of sleep. I combined the RGB images with the hydrogen alpha data I collected on Saturday to get this image.
SBIG ST-8300m camera, AstroTech AT65EDQ 65mm f/6.5 refractor, Astronomik 1.25″ RGB and Ha filters, Orion Nautilus 7×1.25″ motorized filter wheel, Losmandy G11 Gemini-2 mount.
30 x 5 minute Hydrogen Alpha sub-frames for luminance
20 x 5 minute sub-frames for each red, green, and blue filter
30 averaged darks
30 averaged bias frames
Total of 7.5 hours of exposure time.
Posted inAstronomy Telescope Mods & Repair
Nexstar SE Wedge
The final part of my Nexstar project was getting it on a wedge which would make auto-guided long exposure shots possible. Unfortunately, the Nexstar wedge has long since been discontinued and even if it hadn’t — $160 for a weenie little wedge for this scope was a bit much for me. So I decided to buy a cheap used wedge from an older Celestron system and make whatever modifications were needed to get it to work with the Nexstar.
What I didn’t expect was how little modification was needed to get an old 1980s era Celestron C8 wedge to work with the Nexstar SE. All the holes, both on the tripod and drive base lined up perfectly and the only modification I really had to make to the wedge was to hammer out the center guide peg.
