Colorado CJ Posted December 8, 2018 Share Posted December 8, 2018 Another hobby I am getting into is Astrophotography. I've had a 10" DOB for years and my main hobby is photography, so I thought I should try my hand at some astrophotography. I have been using just my camera and 300 mm lens so far, but I had ordered a 80mm APO scope to get better images. I received my new Stellarvue Access 80 ED yesterday. Luckily it was also a clear night! I set the scope up on my AZ-GTI in EQ mode and shot 1 minute subs. I probably could have went a little longer as the mount was tracking GREAT, I only had to reset it for the meridian flip. So far, I am really liking the scope. I am using The Stellarvue SFF3-25-48 field flattener, but I still see pretty bad coma around the edges using a full frame DSLR. with a slight crop they are gone though. Specs for the image are: Scope: Stellarvue Acess 80 with 2.5" focuser, SFF3-25-48 field flattener Focal Length: 560mm Focal Ratio: F7 Camera: Pentax K-1 ISO: 1600 Exposure: 60 sec. Shots: 100 I used Astro Pixel Processor for stacking. I am still learning the ropes with this program, so I am sure I am not doing things 100% correctly yet. I post processed in Photoshop and also in Nik Effects plugin. Here is the photo. Andromeda 100-60 sec 7 Dec 2018 by Andrew Marjama, on Flickr Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted December 9, 2018 Share Posted December 9, 2018 That's quite the sidereal track for a blacksmithing site you're taking us on Andrew. I approve! Of course you did say you used a flatter on Andromeda Galaxy and lots of iron is becoming every second. So okay, smithing content satisfied. SWEET photo, what are the little globular(?) clusters, galaxies? No telling if they're in the foreground or not of course. Ever shoot planets? Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irondragon Forge ClayWorks Posted December 9, 2018 Share Posted December 9, 2018 You just thought Blacksmithing was expensive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colorado CJ Posted December 9, 2018 Author Share Posted December 9, 2018 54 minutes ago, Frosty said: That's quite the sidereal track for a blacksmithing site you're taking us on Andrew. I approve! Of course you did say you used a flatter on Andromeda Galaxy and lots of iron is becoming every second. So okay, smithing content satisfied. SWEET photo, what are the little globular(?) clusters, galaxies? No telling if they're in the foreground or not of course. Ever shoot planets? Frosty The Lucky. Yeah, I have a pretty diverse set of hobbies. I also race FPV Drones in MultiGP :). Those globs are actually other galaxies, M32 and M110. There is a fourth galaxy in there, but it is hard to see since it is behind the spiral arm of Andromeda. 29 minutes ago, Irondragon Forge & Clay said: You just thought Blacksmithing was expensive. Yeah, unfortunately, I tend to gravitate towards very expensive hobbies. Luckily (or unluckily) I am unmarried, so I have no one to tell me no ;). I think I am going to LOVE shooting with this scope. This is 75, 1 minute exposures taken with the Stellarvue Access 80 and Pentax K1. This is a work in progress. I still need to shoot lower exposures to get the Trapezium to show up. I'll be sure to post the final version here once I get it finished. It is sooo much nicer to use a real scope compared to just a camera lens. Great Orion Nebula - 75 Minutes by Andrew Marjama, on Flickr Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted December 9, 2018 Share Posted December 9, 2018 Aren't virtually all of those galaxies in the pic? Beautiful shot of the Orion Nebula, I'll be watching for the next exposures. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ausfire Posted December 9, 2018 Share Posted December 9, 2018 What a nice digression from blacksmithing for a moment. Let's call that last pic the Great Iron Nebula. Thanks for the spectacular photos. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billyO Posted December 9, 2018 Share Posted December 9, 2018 wow thank you Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John in Oly, WA Posted December 10, 2018 Share Posted December 10, 2018 Beautiful shots! In the Orion Nebula shot it looks like a large, light purple, planet-like sphere just above (about 11 o'clock) the bright white "center" of the nebula. Could be just my imagination running away. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted December 10, 2018 Share Posted December 10, 2018 I was sent to some training once held at La Silla in Chile; site of a number of observatories. Just with the mark 1 human eyeball, 2 ea; I got to see a lot of nice stuff I have previously only read about: Coal Sack Nebula. Greater and Lesser Magellanic clouds, etc, (including an Andean Fox). Unfortunately I was working for NRAO and the ones and zeros are just not as impressive to the naked eye---always been a problem with funding Radio Astronomy, optical has all the great pictures! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted December 11, 2018 Share Posted December 11, 2018 On 12/9/2018 at 2:49 AM, ausfire said: Great Iron Nebula. Oh the Irony! Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted December 11, 2018 Share Posted December 11, 2018 G.I.N and tonic! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colorado CJ Posted December 13, 2018 Author Share Posted December 13, 2018 Thanks everyone. I shot the Pleiades (man that is hard to spell ) last night for a total of 54 minutes. 65, 50 second exposures at 1600 ISO. Shot with my Pentax K-1 and Stellarvue SV80 Access. I think I got decent nebulosity for the short total exposure, but I am no expert. This is the first time I shot this object. Pleiades finished by Andrew Marjama, on Flickr Edit: Looks like I am going to have to find a different photo hosting service. Flickr is really making these last photos look grainy. There is no grain on my Photoshop screen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BIGGUNDOCTOR Posted December 13, 2018 Share Posted December 13, 2018 Sure it is blacksmithing related, he's just looking for that next batch of fresh meteoric iron getting delivered. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colorado CJ Posted December 14, 2018 Author Share Posted December 14, 2018 Well, I did hammer out a few of these today while my computer was stacking astro imags Hammer Forged Leaf Necklace by Andrew Marjama, on Flickr I shot the Flame and Horse Head nebulas the other night. Tonight I finished the image. It isn't the best, but it is my first image of these two (I am pretty new to this). I did shoot over two hours of exposure, but when I uploaded the images, I seen that most have clouds throughout the images. So, this is a 55 image stack (50 seconds each at 1600 ISO). One thing I noticed is what looks like a lot of binary stars in this photo. It seems most of the bright stars are binaries! Man this astrophotography thing is addicting! The Flame and Horsehead - 54 Minutes by Andrew Marjama, on Flickr Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billyO Posted December 18, 2018 Share Posted December 18, 2018 On 12/13/2018 at 8:34 PM, Colorado CJ said: Man this astrophotography thing is addicting! You aren't kidding. Are you familiar with the DECaLS Browser at legacysurvey.org/viewer? There may be some interesting images at RA= 186.7278, Dec= 8.9373. Zoom to 10 arcmin and you'll have a number of galaxies to choose from, including 4 merging towards the top right Another website you may find useful is zooniverse.org (https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/zookeeper/galaxy-zoo/) where you get b/w pictures of galaxies in low resolution to classify and after you give your classification, you can then get a link to the image in the DECaLS browser that gives better, color images of what it looks like. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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