Astrophotography

[fort384]

Hi all, new to the forum, would just like to share some of my astrophotography adventures with you. I also do some macro photography and enjoy reading and viewing others's work. Here are some of my recent works:

The Elephant's Trunk Nebula - SBIG STF-8300 Mono CCD Camera

The Horsehead Nebula - Canon 1100D

The Great Nebula in Orion - Canon 1100D

Bode's & Cigar Galaxies - SBIG STF-8300 Mono CCD Camera

 

[minicoop1985]

Can I get some help cleaning my jaw and all this drool off the floor? The Horsehead is absolutely incredible. The Great Nebula is also unbelievable. Wow.

 

[fort384]

Thanks, here are a few more recents:

M51: The Whirlpool Galaxy - SBIG STF-8300 Mono CCD in RGB

NGC 7635: The Bubble Nebula - SBIG STF-8300 Mono CCD in RGB + Hydrogen Alpha

Sharpless 2-86 - SBIG STF-8300 Mono CCD, False Color Hydrogen Alpha + RGB stars

 

[tevo]

Holy crap. Nice.

Do you use an LLRGB process or do you not need to? What's your telescope/tracking setup?

 

[fort384]

It depends on the target - I rarely take straight luminance frames though as is the case with the elephants trunk I will add Ha in as a modified luminance layer of sorts if the target warrants.

Currently I use an explore scientific 127mm apochromatic triplet carbon fiber refractor which is essentially a very nice 952mm prime lens at f/7.5. With this glass I get no detectable chromatic aberration.

The main camera is a Santa Barbara Instruments Group thermoelectrically cooled Mono CCD with an electronic filter wheel mounted between it and the scope. However I also image with a no frills Canon 1100D from time to time.

Installed on the imaging scope is a Moonlite Focuser which is driven by a high resolution 35,000+ step stepper motor that automatically adjusts focus per the filter I am imaging through and the ambient temperature.

It all rides atop a Sirius EQ-G German equatorial mount. A second 50mm guidescope is piggybacked on the 127 that has a mono CCD camera attached and is only used to provide tracking updates to the mount based on the position of a selected "guide star". This system sends corrections to the mount any time the guide star moves more than a quarter of a pixel on the CCD chip of the guide camera.

Most of these images are hours and hours of integrated subframes at between 8-10 minutes each. It generally takes all night or multiple nights to produce enough data for a single image. Without proper tracking stars start to streak in as little as 5 seconds depending on the location of the target in relation to the celestial pole, so proper tracking and guiding are as crucial as the main optical tube assembly to the final outcome.

All of it sits atop a concrete pier embedded 5ft into the ground with about 3 tons of concrete and rebar. The whole system is driven by a myriad of software and hardware that is piped underground to my man cave/observatory control room 50 feet away.

 

[Raj_55555]

I didn't get a word you said, but wow!! Just wow!!:hail:
How much do these gears cost? I mean the specialty stuff.. Is there a tutorial somewhere I can read? I know I can google, but I was wondering if you had a favorite..

 

[fokker]

Holy crap.

 

[fokker]

Sorry, what I meant to say was "Amazing photos and an incredible sounding setup."

 

[IzzieK]

Sorry, what I meant to say was "Amazing photos and an incredible sounding setup."

Yeah...sounds like something I cannot afford even if I dream about it.

 

[pgriz]

Fort384, welcome to the forum. To my fellow TPF members, these are excellent examples of what good equipment and even more important, knowledge of processing, can reveal of the skies above us. There has been a revolution in "amateur" astrophoto processing that has resulted in images made equal to what can be achieved by much larger professional equipment. Some astro photos have at least 24 hours or more of exposure, but hundreds of hours of processing which bring out the detail. Part of this is due to the faintness of the objects (it takes a lot of time to collect enough photons to get a decent image), and part due to the processing that compresses what is perhaps a dynamic range of 20+ stops into the image.

Fort384, do you have a site where you have displayed your images before? They are inspiring and pretty awesome. There are several other TPF members who have serious astronomy gear, but I don't remember them posting images like yours. Thank you.

 

[fort384]

I didn't get a word you said, but wow!! Just wow!!:hail:
How much do these gears cost? I mean the specialty stuff.. Is there a tutorial somewhere I can read? I know I can google, but I was wondering if you had a favorite..

There is a modest investment, but it really is all relative. The current setup has somewhere around $10-11K invested with all the hardware and associated software. I am hopeful that we will have a significant upgrade to our mount in the next few months, and it will be a sizable investment. There are a lot of tutorials out there that are helpful... youtube features some great videos, and there are hundreds of useful websites. The advent of technology and the internet has made astrophotography much more accessible. From a processing standpoint, Doug German has some great video tutorials for beginners using Photoshop. More advanced software like PixInsight is made much easier with the tutorials at Harry's Astroshed. Gary Honis has some amazing features on DSLR use in astrophotography.

Really, some neat stuff can be achieved with just a tripod and a remote shutter release using a widefield lens on any DSLR. That's where I started.

Fort384, welcome to the forum. To my fellow TPF members, these are excellent examples of what good equipment and even more important, knowledge of processing, can reveal of the skies above us. There has been a revolution in "amateur" astrophoto processing that has resulted in images made equal to what can be achieved by much larger professional equipment. Some astro photos have at least 24 hours or more of exposure, but hundreds of hours of processing which bring out the detail. Part of this is due to the faintness of the objects (it takes a lot of time to collect enough photons to get a decent image), and part due to the processing that compresses what is perhaps a dynamic range of 20+ stops into the image.

Fort384, do you have a site where you have displayed your images before? They are inspiring and pretty awesome. There are several other TPF members who have serious astronomy gear, but I don't remember them posting images like yours. Thank you.

You are correct that processing is just as important as the setup and collection of data. I started off with Photoshop, but now do most of my post in PixInsight, with some finishing touches added in Photoshop occasionally. There are a lot of techniques and work flow is important... it is easy to overdo it and have to start all over again. I am still learning, especially with PixInsight, which is quite powerful but also kind of cumbersome and much different than processing in Photoshop.

There is a lot of software employed during actual imaging runs as well. The control room allows for some good visibility on all of it -

Control room during a typical imaging run

All of the work I have done is featured on our website: Claustonberry Observatory - Marengo Illinois USA - Astrophotography - Claustonberry Observatory

It has many good examples of the evolution of progress in both processing skill and gear. The early pictures are still neat to look at, but do not hold a candle to the most recent stuff produced.


Thanks all for the kind words and I look forward to seeing a lot of great work on this site - having looked around a bit last night, I can see there are some really great photographers that reside here!

 

[sscarmack]

I'm speechless!

 

[Pav10566]

Magnificent ! I observe the skies above us as well and I know how difficult it is to take pictures of what you can see. Congratulations ...really...impressive

 

[astroNikon]

Fantastic photos.

That's like my dream setup .. until then I just carry around my miniscule ETX-125. I'm still stuck in the "start" mode lol

 

[Raj_55555]

I can see there are some really great photographers that reside here!

Literally, and rent free too
I went through your site, and it was an instant bookmark stuff. TBH I've never even heard of widefield lenses, everyday I come across something new on this forum. Google takes me to some ophthalmologists website though, but I'll dig up something..