| Camera lens images from February 5, 2005 Leo Triplet - M65 (bottom left), M66 (top left) and NGC 3628 (right) |
| Ramon's Astronomy Pages - Images |
| Saturn December 13, 2003 10 inch newtonian reflector with SAC7 modified webcam at prime focus (f23.5). ~300 frames aligned and stacked in Registax |
| Waxing gibbous moon. November 2003. 10 inch newtonian reflector with Minolta 101 SLR at prime focus (f4.7). |
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| CCD images |
| Webcam images |
| Film images |
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| Here's Comet Machholz (C2004/Q2) imaged near its closest aproach to earht on January 9, 2005 ~9:30pm EST. This is a single 40 second unguided exposure with the ST-237A camera attached to a Nikon 180mm f/2.8 ED lens. . Great Polaris equatorial mount. |
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| Comet Machholtz C/2004 Q2 - Jan 9, 2005 |
| This is the first set of images taken with my new GP-DX mount. The Leo Triplet is an impressive grouping of galaxies and a good subject for wide-field imaging. I used an SBIG ST-237A CCD camera attached to a Nikon 180mm AF ED lens at f/2.8 to take this image. The image is made up of 40 x30-second unguided exposures that were median combined in CCDSoft 5, for a total exposure of 20minutes. Histogram, mid-range brighten, and Lucy Richardson deconvolution were applied in CCDSoft 5. No image reduction was performed. The camera was cooled to -30 C. Except for the slightly out of round stars I'm pretty happy with how this came out. I could barely make out the Messier galaxies with the 4 inch achromat that the lens+camera assembly rides piggyback on, and NGC 3628 was not visible . All three galaxies were easily seen on the monitor with just a 10 second exposure. The dust lanes on M66 and NGC 3628 are easily visible. I have 15 minutes' worth of color data for this image that I'll be adding soon. |
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| Camera lens images from February 1, 2005 |
| M81 (left) and M82 (right) |
| Camera lens images from January 9, 2005 |
| Here's my first attempt at shooting galaxies with the camera lens. Its a luminance shot of M81 and M82 that was median combined from 10 30-second unguided exposures with the ST-237A attached to the Nikon 180mmm ED AF lens at f/2.8. The camera was cooled to -30C and darks was applied om CCDSoft. Median combining, historrgram, and mid-range bright were applied in CCDSoft. I was surprised that I could get as good a focus as I did with the coarse focusing of the camera lens. The lens was mounted on my older Celestron GP mount. |
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| Images from February 12, 2005 |
| This image and the next two images below are the initial results of my first attempt at CCD imaging with the C8 SCT. The C8 was mounted on a Vixen GP-DX. with Skysensor 2000 tracking and goto. Images were taken with an SBIG ST-237A camera at a focal ratio of f/3.3. the M81 image is the result of 36x30-second unguided luminance exposures median combined in CCDSOFT. Curves and levels in PhotoshopCS. The Skysensor 2000 goto really proved its worth tonight, placing several objects directly on the small chip of the ST-237A and saving me a great deal of time in focusing and framing images. |
| M51 and NGC 5095 |
| Luminance image taken with a C8 SCT at f/3.3; Mount: Vixen GP-DX with Skysensor 2000.; Camera: SBIG ST237A ; 38x 30-second unguided luminance exposures median combined in CCD SOFT with histogram and contrast adjustment. |
| Luminance image taken with a C8 SCT at f/3.3; Mount: Vixen GP-DX with Skysensor 2000.; Camera: SBIG ST237A ; 38 x 30-second unguided luminance exposures median combined in CCD SOFT with histogram and contrast adjustment. |
| M1 Crab Nebula |
| M81 Bode's Galaxy |
| All images taken from Potomac, MD |
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