I was just randomly looking around the night sky, and found a little “cluster” of stars that I thought looked cool. I decided to photograph it a bit in case something else came out with it. The result was quite pretty! I did mess with the saturations a bit to… Continue Reading... "Random stars?"
I bought a cheap Chinese “UHC” filter on Amazon that only lets through light around the 500nm band, which is a cyan-ish color. It did work pretty good at making the Orion nebula pop in a big eyepiece. However, it seems to have some kind of reflection problem. Stars would… Continue Reading... "M42 again?"
I recently learned about camera internal filters, and I might not want one for astrophotography. Basically, cameras tend to have an IR and UV cut filter that also cut some red from the pictures to match how our eyes see red. While good for daytime color photos, this greatly increases… Continue Reading... "Camera modifications"
While on vacation in beautiful Kentucky, I had a chance to try out the scope in some great viewing. With limited time and clouds moving in, I decided to try again at M42, since it is easy to find. The camera was used in “prime focus,” without any eyepiece used.… Continue Reading... "M42 at prime focus"
I wanted to try taking some longer exposure pictures with my cell phone, just for fun. I don’t think I waited long enough after dusk, but it does give a neat sunset gradient! Lots of fiddling around in Gimp with layer modes, blurs, and levels. Continue Reading... "Just playing around"
Well, it took me a while, but I finally figured out what all this buzz is around “collimation.” I am no expert on this, but I wanted to record my discoveries for future reference. Simply put, collimation means making sure that you primary mirror is pointed at the center of… Continue Reading... "The art of collimation"
I watched a video on image processing, and it motivated me to try again with my image of M42. The first step was to mess with the levels in a more careful way. I would start by moving the middle clamp setting closer to the peaks in the histogram. This… Continue Reading... "Trying again with M42"
Two days ago, we had a “super” moon. It was so bright, I could barely even look at it through the telescope with both a moon filter and light pollution filter in. The camera loved it, however. ISO at 100, shutter at 1/50. The false red color is due to… Continue Reading... "“Super” moon"
Also during my first trial run of the veritable “light chariot,” we were able to easily find M42 in the Orion constellation. It very clearly presented itself as we trained the largest eyepiece I had on it. I had never viewed a nebula before on my own, so it was… Continue Reading... "First view of M42"
The first night I was able to use the telescope, the moon was mostly full. Of course, I had to photograph it a bit to test everything out. My focusing skills are undoubtedly poor, but I managed a few decent shots that I was able to stack together. Continue Reading... "First shots of the moon"
