Pictures through my telescope...
 

A while back, I picked up a new hobby. I bought a telescope and a bunch of photography equipment and started channeling my inner scientist. Well, now I'm an amateur astronomer, and it's a great hobby. I'd suggest it to anyone with kids, or just a general interest. I've joined our local astronomy club and have been helping with outreach, and just love watching kids or even adults develop an interest. Plus, it's nice to know what you are looking at when you are outside late smoking a cigar.
That said, I've decided to share some of my results. Enjoy!

The Eagle Nebula
http://i288.photobucket.com/albums/l...agleNebula.jpg

Andromeda
http://i288.photobucket.com/albums/l.../andromeda.jpg

The Veil Nebula
http://i288.photobucket.com/albums/l...1/BESTVEil.jpg

I have a few more photo's up at the Lackawanna Astronomical Society website gallery. Adam & Kerry's gallery. I also designed the website. Feel free to check it out or even show up for an event.

Re: Pictures through my telescope...
 

nice! what's your setup?

Re: Pictures through my telescope...
 

Those are very cool Adam! :tu

Re: Pictures through my telescope...
 

Those are beautiful photos Adam. Nicely done. :tu

Re: Pictures through my telescope...
 

Very nice shots there. Meade catadioptric, mebbe 6-inch?

Re: Pictures through my telescope...
 

My main scope is a wedge mounted Celestron CPC-800, but a number of my shots are from a smaller William Optics 66 which is mounted on the CPC. I'm shooting with a Canon Rebel XS camera and I do my processing in Photoshop.


Here's a picture of the scope without all of my camera gear.
http://i288.photobucket.com/albums/l.../Telescope.jpg

Re: Pictures through my telescope...
 

YEah, what is your setup... how long did you unshutter to capture those? You must have nice equipment!

Re: Pictures through my telescope...
 

Very cool! Thanks for sharing.

Re: Pictures through my telescope...
 

:r

Sorry, I got a dirty mind.

Re: Pictures through my telescope...
 

cool pics!

Re: Pictures through my telescope...
 

Each of the photo's were multiple exposures of 3 or 5 minutes. Andromeda was 7 shots x 5m, Veil 17 x 3m and I think the Eagle was about 15 x 5m.

The CPC is a great telescope. When I was getting into the hobby, I knew I wanted to do photography and that was the main reason I bought such a nice scope. But photography is very demanding of the equipment. You could buy a very nice scope for a lot less then I payed if you don't care to take photographs.

Re: Pictures through my telescope...
 

Wow!!! Very impressive!!!

This is all I ever see:
http://www.vegatransports.com.au/sta...ving_yavin.jpg

Re: Pictures through my telescope...
 

Nice photos.

Re: Pictures through my telescope...
 

That is really awesome! :tu We used to have a decent telescope when I was a kid. Great hobby!

Re: Pictures through my telescope...
 

Some awesome photos Adam. I spend a lot of time looking up into the stars when I am smoking outside at night.

Re: Pictures through my telescope...
 

Wow, really nice. Those are cool shots. I really enjoyed my two astronomy classes in college. Spending evenings at the school's observatory in was fun.

I'd like to sit back with three fingers of Scotch and a good cigar, just pondering the universe. Hmmmm, that just became my plan for tonight.

Re: Pictures through my telescope...
 

Sounds like a good plan!:tu Thanks for the comments guys!

Re: Pictures through my telescope...
 

Keep the photos coming!

Thank you!

Re: Pictures through my telescope...
 

Great job, Adam! Did some photographing myself back around 15 years ago. Used a Canon AE-1 with a shutter release cable. Used lots of high speed film. All the development was done at Walmart or one hour shops. Not the best, but I got some cool pics. Used a homemade barndoor unit.

I also have an 8" Orion Deep Space Explorer that's 12 years old. It's not driven, it's manual. You do get to see some cool stuff, though.

Great job on those photos!!! There's lots of cool stuff out there see. Congrats on the new hobby. It's a good one.

Re: Pictures through my telescope...
 

It's funny how far the technology has come. I take all of the photo's from my laptop hooked up to the camera[actually two]. The CPC does the rest. I can sit in my living room and have the images pop up on the laptop.

When the astronomy club does outreach at state parks, they bring their manual telescope. They asked me to keep my eyes on one and someone told me Saturn moved out of the frame. I tried to help, but I realized I had no idea how to work the scope. No remote control? :D

I can't imagine how tough it must have been to work with film. A lot of the clubmembers images in the gallery of the website I posted above were film. There are some amazing photo's in there.

Re: Pictures through my telescope...
 

Thanks for the pictures very cool:banger

Re: Pictures through my telescope...
 

Those are really cool pictures. I love to watch the stars when I'm out in the country away from the city lights. Never viewed them through a telescope though. Thanks for sharing! :tu

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Nice work Adam. Love to see these photos, Thanks for sharing !

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Great photos! Keep them coming:tu

Re: Pictures through my telescope...
 

Very cool and a great way to combine your passions. As the kids like to say… "I am going to subscribe to this one. :)

Truly splendid, thanks for taking the time to do the publishing as well. :yu

Re: Pictures through my telescope...
 

This takes good equipment, patience and an incredible amount of know how to capture images like these. I am completely envious. Looking thru your gallery, the moon shot is spectaclular too. Good stuff.

Larry

Re: Pictures through my telescope...
 

that is some nice pics. i have been wanting to get it to this, i did not need to see it. Its just more more push to the edge

Re: Pictures through my telescope...
 

For anyone considering a telescope, the technology has come so far that even many of the base models are automated in a way that they tell you where to point. Great for finding the deeper sky objects that I photograph.

But I should let you know that the photo's I took are very long exposures, so that is not what you see when you look through the eyepiece.

You mostly see either a little fuzz with shape or just a bit of shadows. Planets, on the other hand are amazing. With Saturn you can see it's rings easily and usually at least 3 moons. Jupiter is even more amazing. You can see banding on the planet and many moons as well.

Also, a fun fact... Andromeda is one of our neighboring galaxies and makes a great target for binoculars. It rises earlier and earlier as the year goes on. Now, it rises from the North East and at about midnight about 45 degrees in the sky due east. If you know where Polaris [North Star]is, look right. Polaris will be the base of an arrow pointing directly at Andromeda.

Now the fun part... Andromeda is huge. If you could see it in perfectly dark skies, it would be the size of 5 moons next to each other. I happened to be in very dark skies in New York State, and I saw Andromeda with my naked eyes. I couldn't believe what I was seeing and had to Google it as soon as I came home.

That and the fact that it is the International Year of Astronomy were the reasons that pushed me over the edge. Like cigars, it's a slope of it's own.

Re: Pictures through my telescope...
 

Very nice pics...thanks for sharing.

I got into astronomy around the age of 12...purchased a Meade 8800 Newtonion. Luckily I had very dark skys growing up in rural PA...so I would sit back and enjoy the skys all the while puffing away on Swisher Sweets. :) Great times...thanks for jogging my memory.

Re: Pictures through my telescope...
 

Those are cool. I used to have a cheap telescope years ago, but could never see anything like that.

Re: Pictures through my telescope...
 

Awesome stuff.
:tu

Re: Pictures through my telescope...
 

Very cool pictures :tu

Would be nice to see some more when you have time. Even the 'bad' ones.

Re: Pictures through my telescope...
 

Nice shots!
Back in my photog days, I use to really enjoy long exposure night shots. It wasa always thrilling to see what actually showed up on the film. Of course, that was back in the day when we used film, not digital stuff.

Re: Pictures through my telescope...
 

You want more you got more! Two more of my better shots.... They can be seen in my gallery as well.

The Great Cluster in Hercules - M13
http://i288.photobucket.com/albums/l...inHercules.jpg

The Dumbell Nebula
http://i288.photobucket.com/albums/l...bellNebula.jpg

Re: Pictures through my telescope...
 

Don't let Richard fool you. I've seen some of his nighttime photos.

(He won't be able to stand it and will post them here eventually. ;))

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I'd like to see them. I'm amazed at what can be pulled of with a little or a lot of effort.

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Always been fascinated with space photography! Thanks so much for sharing. Questions - you stated that you have several exposures. What determines your exposure times and the amount of? Also is there a correction in the scope between exposures - or is the distance between points A and B so great that none are required.


Ron

Re: Pictures through my telescope...
 

Great Photos!

Thanks for sharing:tu

Re: Pictures through my telescope...
 

Good questions... The exposure length is determined by the brightness of the object. That said, light pollution can play a big factor in determining exposure length. The more light pollution, the shorter the exposures have to be otherwise the image gets overexposed. It's really a battle finding the sweet spot, but you can use the histogram on the camera to give you an idea.

As for correction, the scope itself tracks the object with its built in motor. This tracking is good enough for visual observing or short exposure photo's, but not for long exposure photography. For long exposures, I use another telescope mounted on my primary scope. This scope has a second camera which locks onto a star and sends corrections to the mount as the scope moves.

Only five years ago, this process was completely manual meaning you had to watch the same star through your telescope while making the corrections yourself. I've said it a few times already, but the technology is amazing.

Re: Pictures through my telescope...
 

nice work!

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Thanks for the new photos. Keep them coming.

Re: Pictures through my telescope...
 

Simple incredible. Thanks for sharing!! :tu

Re: Pictures through my telescope...
 

Bumb.

Re: Pictures through my telescope...
 

Very cool pictures.

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Me too.:D
Except this version has been photoshopped by ILM. The original wasn't near as clean looking. Crazy kids and their damn computers.

Re: Pictures through my telescope...
 

Very nice, indeed. Best I can do:

http://rlv.zcache.com/man_in_the_moo...30t5wm_400.jpg

Re: Pictures through my telescope...
 

One more from last night...

The Cocoon Nebula
http://i288.photobucket.com/albums/l...1/Cocoon-2.jpg

Re: Pictures through my telescope...
 

Great pics Adam... especially Andromeda.

Just got finished re-reading a book entitled "Big Bang" by Simon Singh. He's an outstanding writer and makes scientific writing extremely digestable for the rest of us. Anyhow, a good portion of it has to do with the scientists scouring the earth for the choicest spots (least amount of 'noise') to take their photos from... often risking their lives.

Keep the photos coming

Re: Pictures through my telescope...
 

My most recent shot...

M33 - The Triangulum Galaxy
http://i288.photobucket.com/albums/l...tbag01/M33.jpg

Re: Pictures through my telescope...
 

Cool stuff.
Amazing what is out there for us to wonder about life in other worlds.