My astrophotography 2021

[hhzhang]

The massive M87. Glad that I captured the relativistic jet.



This is also a 100% crop. Pixel size 3.76um of a full frame CMOS.

[rifleman175]

Great shots of the Makarian's Chain and its rich assortments of galaxies!

[hhzhang]

2021-June-8

Went up to Upper Seletar Reservoir park to watch the sunset. Unfortunately, the clouds on the horizon spoilt the plan.

But it was quite clear otherwise and I enjoyed observing the two planets and other bright stars. What I really like is the bright reflection of Venus on the water!



The brightest asteroid (4) vesta is traveling near the Leo Triplet galaxy group -- which I had made a plan long time ago. Today I brought my new toy (Rokinon135F2) to shoot the subject. Indeed I was very worried that such an imaging gear would not be up to the challenges (small subjects, light pollution).

Now, this is a highly cropped (1860x1240 at original pixel scale) photo.



Quite pleased with the nice star images. And this lens did not disappoint! And the galaxies!

By the way, through the imaging session (40~50min), the asteroid had made a small move -- its image is thus a little elongated.

[celeron787]

The samyang is quite a good lens isn't it? Wat Aperture are you shooting at? I find that I can't get more than 15sec exposure without overexposing when shooting at F2.

[hhzhang]

The samyang is quite a good lens isn't it? Wat Aperture are you shooting at? I find that I can't get more than 15sec exposure without overexposing when shooting at F2.

I just shoot with it wide open at F2. Quite good image quality. But there is still work to do to align the flanges (my camera-lens mount, my budget EFM-T2 adapter) on my mirrorless cam, and to adjust the tilt and backfocus distance on my astro camera -- I can see different aberration patterns in the corners on different cameras -- although none is too bad.

Yes the poor SQM of Singapore night skies is a serious problem for long exposures with such a fast lens wide-open shooting wide-band images. I currently choose to use low gain/ISO to mitigate this.

[hhzhang]

2021-June-9 The morning I had been waiting for, for a sight of the conjunction of the thin crescent moon and the Pleiades, the latter recently returned to the morning eastern sky -- that I had not observed it yet.

The east horizon saw the annoying clouds. And the high thin clouds, and then the twilights. Never a good situation for deepsky astrophotography. Nevertheless the conjunction there was quite a nice sight worth every second of my lost sleep.

[hhzhang]

So here you go the NGC7293. Phase 1 of an imaging project in which I choose a wide field to capture something about to happen. Thankfully to the high-res camera, the heavily cropped image of the nebula is not too bad in terms of details.

[Dragon Man]

Lovely! but what's about to happen with Helix?

[hhzhang]

Lovely! but what's about to happen with Helix?

Around June-15, the comet 7P will pass by the Helix closely.

[Dragon Man]

Thanks, I will book it in as an event to watch and image.