Another attempt at comet Hartley. It was at magnitude 6.3 when I imaged this. This is 10*2 minute exposures, stacked in Deep Sky Stacker using the "comet mode".
Below is an attempt at making a movie of it as it moved across the sky over a 30 minute period. If you squint your eyes, maybe you'll actually see the comet. :-(
Again, sticking around Sagittarius, I aimed for M20. It's an object that has eluded me based on both the lack of ability to get out and shoot it and the rubbish results that have occurred when I have been able to shoot it! I may be pushing it when shooting smaller objects with an 80mm scope, but this is my best M20 yet.
Image Details
Imaging Scope: Astrotelescopes 80mm ED Refractor
Imaging Camera: Nikon D40
Guiding Scope: William Optics 66mm Petzval Refractor
This is not too shabby! I wanted to image some objects around the Sagittarius region before it set for the year. I've had very few opportunities to do this, sadly, as family, work and study commitments have kept me away from the night skies over the Summer.
Image Details
Imaging Scope: Astrotelescopes 80mm ED Refractor
Imaging Camera: Nikon D40
Guiding Scope: William Optics 66mm Petzval Refractor
Here is my M31 "best of" image. I went through several iterations of processing on the set of images I acquired this past Friday night. While these were long~ish exposures (five minutes), I still really had to bend the curves and settings to get the image to look like this, and it really brought out some noise. I now think I need to take 10-minute exposures to get decent RAW images to stack and work from without inducing the noise and graininess seen in the resulting image. It IS better than my last attempt, for sure.
Image Details
Imaging Scope: William Optics 66mm Petzval Refractor
Post-Processing in GIMP (contrast, saturation and unsharp mask)
Noise Removal in Neat Image
I am going to try this again in a few days' time. My M51 shot from a few months ago came out nicely at ISO400 with 10 minute exposures. That may be the ticket for this...
Great night tonight, got a few hours of imaging in. While my main target was M31, I decided to try and shoot this small comet currently in Cassiopeia. It's a small period comet, orbiting every 6.5 years or so, and was discovered by an Aussie astronomer in 1986. Current magnitude is 7.5. This shot is the result of six three-minute captures in my 80mm refractor, guided on my CGEM through a 66mm refractor.
Not a bad night, tonight! Very clear, but it was a bit hazy. Still, I decided to go out and shoot some nebulas. M27 was actually a last minute decision as a mate of mine was observing it through his LX200 and it looked pretty bright, as well as being close to the zenith. Anyway, not a bad result and it's better than what I shot two years ago! I'll keep working on the post-processing and see if I can get a better result.
It's very cool that I can now shoot 5 minute light frames with guiding. Excellent stuff! Need to get out to a real dark sky site to get some better photons...
Image Details
* Imaging Scope: Astrotelescopes 80mm ED Refractor * Imaging Camera: Nikon D40 * Guiding Scope: William Optics 66mm Petzval Refractor * Guiding Camera: Meade DSI-C * Exposures: 4 * 5 minute lights, 4 * 5 minute darks * ISO 800 * Aligned and Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker * Post-Processing in GIMP (contrast, saturation and unsharp mask)
