Photos from 2023
Leave a reply
Category Archives: Astronomy
Photos from 2022
Photos from 2021
Photos from 2020
Photos from 2019
Catching up….
I have not posted anything for almost three years now but that does not mean that I have stopped taking photos. I will try to catch up by posting some of my pics since Jan 2020.
River Murray Dark Sky Reserve
We are lucky to have a new dark observing site relatively close, about 90 minutes drive away, east of Adelaide towards the Murray River.
I have been there three times since New Year and its been very good.
I have a few photos to show and will keep adding more as I complete their processing.
Orion Nebula, taken on 13 Jan 2019 at Meldanda, South Australia.
Taken with a Canon 6D through an 80mm EON ED Refractor on a EQ6-R mount.
21 x 2 minute light frames calibrated with dark and bias frames.
Processed with Deep Sky Stacker, PS CS2 and LR4.
Large Magelanic Cloud, also taken on 13 Jan 2019 at Meldanda, South Australia.
Taken with a modified Canon 600D through a Canon EF-S 60mm lens on a iOptron Skytracker on my camera tripod.
40 x 3 minute (2 hours) light frames calibrated with dark and bias frames.
Processed with Deep Sky Stacker, PS CS2 and LR4.
Milky Way
Every amateur astronomer knows that the clouds will roll in as the delivery man’s van leaves your front door. This happened to me again these last two weeks.
I treated myself to a new ZWO ASI224MC camera with a Canon lens adapter, all purchased online from Bintel. Very small and compact and it is intended to help me with my polar alignment, guiding and some planetary imaging. It’s main advantage is its very low read noise which means that you can take many short images and add the individual image frames in post processing to form a longer duration image without adding significant noise in the process. I’m not planning any huge expansion into planetary astrophotography but it would be nice to have something to do when the moon is up and I cannot do long exposure, deep sky stuff.
Last night was clear with the Moon and Jupiter right overhead and I started everything up; EQ6-R mount with the ZWO ASI224MC camera on a Canon 60mm EFS lens. For the software I used Sharpcap Pro, it will cost you 10 pounds annually to get the Pro version that lets you do polar alignment. This works very well and will work with any camera that is recognized by Sharpcap. Also read one of my previous posts about SparkoCam.
You just follow instructions and move the mount az and alt adjustments to get the polar axis of the mount perfectly on the celestial pole. No guessing or frustration and a perfect result. That’s worth more than 10 pounds!
My first attempts at using the ASI224MC camera with an Orion EON 80ED on the moon and Jupiter was not great, I have a lot of learning to do and I did not spend a lot of time trying. Just a quick picture of the moon…
I then took a number of images of the Milky Way with my modified Canon 600D with a Canon 60mm EFS lens directly on the mount and took a series of 60 images of (quite short) 30 seconds exposures at f3.2 and 400ASA as well as a number of dark frames of whatever was directly overhead at the time. It happened to be the center of our galaxy. As usual, combined with Deep Sky Stacker and processed with LR4. I was sitting inside on the sofa nice and warm, watching a movie while Magic Lantern was managing the camera outside in the cold. Did I mention that it was cold?
Polar Alignment Made Easy
I may have just found a great solution for achieving very good polar alignment with any telescope mount.
There is this little piece of software called “SharpCap” ( http://www.sharpcap.co.uk/ ). It’s a very clever piece of software that uses a webcam or an astronomy camera to assist with focusing, stacking, polar alignment and much more. Unfortunately SharpCap does not support DSLR cameras as a video source. It supports some of the available astronomy cameras such as ZWO, QHY, etc. If you want to use SharpCap you have to have a camera that is supported. I was on my way to purchase a ZWO camera to do this when I read a forum post on Cloudy Nights ( https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/545643-sharpcap-polar-alignment-experiences/ ) where someone mentioned that they are using another piece of software to allow them to use a DSLR as a webcam and that SharpCap actually processes the DSLR image seamlessly.
“SparkoCam” ( http://sparkosoft.com/sparkocam ) is providing the capability to use your Canon or Nikon DSLR as a regular webcam. When installed, SharpCap will recognise SparkoCam as a virtual webcam and process the DSLR live view images directly. No need to purchase a separate camera to work with SharpCap.
The process is quite simple, install the DSLR on your mount pointing towards the celestial pole. You would obviously do a basic mount alignment to get the camera view close to the pole, at least to within about 5 degrees. Now activate SharpCap and follow the instructions to get to an accurate alignment. This process will work with a tracking mount as well as a manual equatorial mount.
I have everything installed now and will test under the stars as soon as possible. It is raining outside at the moment, as can be expected….
Orion Nebula M42
The Orion Nebula must be one of the greatest objects in the night sky. At about 1,344 light years away it’s not close but it is visible to the naked eye as a fuzzy patch in the middle of Orion’s sword.
This nebula is difficult to photograph because of the large dynamic range in the image. The Trapezium is a group of bright stars that illuminate the nebula and the difference in brightness between these stars in the centre and the fainter clouds on the outside makes it hard to image and process the nebula in all its glory.
This image was taken at Rabbiter’s Hut in the Adelaide Hills on a dark night and processed from 5 light frames and 2 dark frames of 5 minutes each. I used the Orion ED80 (500mm focal length) and Canon 600D (modified). The Skywatcher EQ6-R was tracking on its own without any guiding but I do make an effort to get the polar alignment as accurate as practically possible.
Processing was normal with DSS and Lightroom 4.
Orion Nebula M42
stars*in*photos 