Fitting in with the summertime galaxy theme, after all of the good ones are gone, I settled on the Fireworks galaxy. It is quite dim at 10 magnitude, and I could barely see some spiral arms over the background noise in the individual snaps. However, with about 40 images taken… Continue Reading... "Fireworks galaxy"
I hadn’t had a chance to use the telescope in a little while, but Accuweather said that tonight would be “excellent,” so how could I turn that down? Saturn was coming up right about dark. The conditions weren’t ideal, as it was a bit hazy with lots of seeing near… Continue Reading... "First shot at Saturn, another challenging planet"
Jupiter is starting to come up in the middle of the night, so I decided to give it a try. Wow, it was much harder to get than I thought it would be! Dew was also a big problem again, and handling Barlow lenses and eyepieces would quickly coat the… Continue Reading... "First attempt at a planet"
The all-in-one tracking motor that I was using for my equatorial platform was a real pain in the neck. It would take me almost an hour to finally get tracking mostly correct, as I would have to take an exposure, think about it, kneel down on the ground, and try… Continue Reading... "Upgraded tracking and trying M51 again"
I would like to record how I process my photos on here, mostly because there isn’t a whole lot of good documentation on Siril, and also because I will probably forget between imaging sessions. The first step to getting your light frames ready is also produce good calibration frames. Take… Continue Reading... "Siril workflow: preprocessing"
As I am learning the intricacies of this hobby and having an absolute ball doing it, I wanted to explain how all of this works. Of course, my images are not near as good as the ones you see in books or news articles, because those images typically come from… Continue Reading... "How does this work?"
When I was imaging the Whirlpool galaxy, I didn’t get too far before my secondary mirror was completely coated in dew. I also noticed that even dim stray light would affect the background of my images. So, I needed to solve these problems. A commercial fabric light shroud is available… Continue Reading... "Light shroud and dew shield"
The last time I was imaging, I noticed that many frames would vary in the background color and brightness. I realized that this was due to light leaking into the the telescope, from my laptop, flashlights, neighbors’ porch lights, pretty much anything. I built a shroud to cover the middle,… Continue Reading... "M63, the Sunflower galaxy"
After having had great success with my tracking platform while imaging the Pinwheel Galaxy, I wanted to try the other famous galaxy in the Big Dipper, the Whirlpool galaxy. This galaxy is actually two galaxies that are interacting! You can see the funnel of stars going from the sister dwarf… Continue Reading... "M51a, the Frigidaire Whirlpool galaxy"
After spending a few weeks working on an equatorial platform for my telescope, I finally got all the kinks worked out on it and had a nice, clear night to test it. The platform worked exceptionally! I spent about 15 minutes setting it up, fiddling with the motor speed, and… Continue Reading... "First Galaxy, M101"
