Working out the kinks

I woke up the other night before twilight and captured another, much better, version of the Orion Nebula. I've finally worked out a way to get some medium zoom on the camera with eyepiece projection. In this method I actually bury the eyepiece inside of the optical setup and the sensor catches light passing through the eyepiece as your eye would. My main problem had been that the focal plane was extremely curved. That is somewhat okay for an eyeball, but makes a camera sensor think it's getting ready to go to warp 9 on the Enterprise. Needless to say I finally found a way to somewhat correct that problem. Now I just need to keep working at getting the mount aligned properly so that I can increase the shutter beyond about 30 seconds.

The Orion Nebula

This nebula, found halfway down the "sword of Orion," is made up of dust and baby stars just coming to life. The dust billows and glows in extraordinary colors as it gets blasted away from the newborn stars.

Andromeda Galaxy 2.0

I finally tried editing a few versions of the Andromeda Galaxy and came up with this.

The New Tripod

I finally got my equatorial mount and am dipping my toes in to the possibilities it presents. Even though I can't align with Polaris from the back yard, there was a nearly full moon and I'm only using a 3" telescope, I was extremely happy with what I was able to capture.

The Andromeda Galaxy - M31, plus M32 and M110

Updated photo to a visual sky orientation from an earlier version:

I was finally able to get this shot late at night after Cassiopeia and Andromeda made their way clear from my rooftop. There was some serious haze from the moon washing out this shot. I can't wait for a clear night in a week or two when the moon is down and I should be able to get a much better exposure. The smaller galaxies M32 and M110, which actually orbit the larger galaxy, can be seen as well. M32 is up and to the left of Andromeda and looks like a large hazy star, while M110 is down and to the right and looks like a small, faint version of Andromeda.

The tripod doesn't directly help me get a better looking picture of Jupiter, but it does make it a whole lot easier that I no longer have to manually chase the big guy as he zooms across the eyepiece.

Check out how Jupiter looks through the viewfinder as I'm waiting for the ripples in the atmosphere to smooth out and give me a crisp, defined shot.

Jupiter through the Viewfinder

And then I also got a chance to check back in on Comet Garradd, who looks a whole lot more like a comet now that I can filter out some of the camera noise.

Craters

The moon snuck in to a small clearing of clouds last night and I finally got my first zoomed picture of the cratered surface. During my winter at the South Pole, I took hundreds of pictures of the moon while passing the time until the next aurora display. I've been waiting a long time to see detail like this on the back of my camera. There was still a thin veil of clouds moving across the disk, and it was quite amazing to see the surface literally "boil" as our atmosphere flowed above me. I had to take a dozen pictures until I got a lucky clear spot in both the clouds and the turbulence.

Couple More Tidbits

The stuff Messier actually WAS looking for...

It may not look like much, but the fuzzy little star in the center of the picture is actually a comet. Comet Garradd is making it's way towards the constellation Hercules, where it will then start its swing around the Sun and back in to the cosmos come February. Hopefully it will brighten a magnitude or two as it approaches the Sun, but it certainly won't be the same sight as a Halley's or Hale-Bopp.

Green and red shooting stars?
I thought this picture was interesting. While I was pointing my small telescope at Jupiter and it's moons, an airplane crossed my view. I was amazed that the moons actually span a greater celestial arc than the wingspan of the jet.

Orion

I've been ridiculously spoiled the last four days with crystal clear night skies. I woke up to make coffee and realized it was both clear out, and that Orion was fully up in the pre-dawn morning. Orion is hands down my favorite constellation and the first I can remember my Dad pointing out to me as a young child. It always reminds me of winter.

I took a couple pictures with my wide angle and then zoomed in for the first time on the sword of Orion and snapped my first clear picture of the Great Orion Nebula. Amazing...

Jupiter Part 2

Left to Right: Callisto, Europa, Jupiter, Io, Ganymede

Found a way to add some magnification to Jupiter and captured this image Friday night once the clouds moved out of the way. Thought I had captured the cloud rings a bit better, but still pretty happy with it.

Astro-Boy

Update: I have corrected the links to the larger format images.

Thursday night it was really clear out and I had been wanting to see how far I can push my night/astro- photography. I have to say I'm pretty impressed with what it can do with just a 300mm lens and short exposures. Being zoomed in, I was only able to stretch the exposure to about a second and a half before the stars would streak too much. That meant a high, high ISO

First up, the Andromeda Galaxy. It's the closest spiral galaxy to our own Milky Way, and I was blown away with it when I first managed to point my binoculars in the right direction. This one I can't wait to see once I'm able to really stretch out the exposures instead of brute forcing it with ISO 25600...

M31 - The Andromeda Galaxy

I was also able to capture a planetary nebula in the constellation Lyra. This constellation has been stuck in my head ever since I first spotted it soon after my brother got his cat of the same name. The nebula is a small green disk in the center of the photo.

M57 - The Ring Nebula in the constellation Lyra.

Near 10pm Jupiter made it's way above the trees and I was able to train my sights on our solar system's largest planet and four of its moons: Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. I was amazed that I was able to actually see each moon showing up as a different color. This is another one that I can't wait to get closer on. With my current setup, Jupiter only consists of about 100 pixels on camera sensor.

Jupiter and it's Moons
(Left to Right: Ganymede, Europa, Jupiter, Io, and Callisto)