My third attempt (1st of 2009) at CCD astrophotography started last friday, Jan. 9. The following is my first go using an 80mm, f/7.5 refractor scope (focal length: 600mm) and just degrees away from the full moon The moon limited my shots to only collecting the luminance data but I did manage 3 hrs. worth. My plan is to collect the colour this weekend , process it and send it off to the print shop to have it ready for my wife as a Happy Valentine's Day a gift as it's true colour is like that of a red rose. The nebula is about 1.5X the size of the Full Moon, but nearly invisible to the eye because of its red hydrogen gas emission. Here is the B&W:
Wow.. AGAIN. BTW, you recorded it over 3 hours? Then it would be necessary to move the gear to compensate for the rotation of the Earth, right?
Yes... The mount compensates for the earth's rotation rate with some +/- error.... but that's a whole 'nother story.
Wow .. nice pics and lots tat tech into taking the photos. .. but I m not sure how women translate men's interest into something romantic unless she is also into it...
You give her a "Rose". I finally collected the RGB info for the "Rosette" nebula. Here is my first... Just a follow up... Astro photos are typically a series of exposures taken over minutes or hours. The mechanics of matching the earth's rotation are theorhetically simple. Making the gears to do such precision "tracking" is where one spends the money. My particular mount's periodic error is 3-5 arc-seconds of error before software correction. After it is less than one arc-second. This accuracy (in photo) is/is not revealed by the focal length of the lens (telescope). Just think of it as shaking while taking photo at wide field -vs- zoom, and now super zoom... ...more to come.
