My astrophotography 2021

CCD vs Film? Lots of time vs no patience? Alright, this is your place to discuss all the astrophotography what's and what's not. You can discuss about techniques, accessories, cameras, whatever....just make sure you also post some nice photos here too!
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hhzhang
Posts: 730
Joined: Sun May 10, 2020 4:11 pm
Favourite scope: 115mm APO

Re: My astrophotography 2021

Post by hhzhang »

An annotated version of the vertical shot of MK on Oct-8 evening. A farewell to the summer night skies.

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hhzhang
Posts: 730
Joined: Sun May 10, 2020 4:11 pm
Favourite scope: 115mm APO

Re: My astrophotography 2021

Post by hhzhang »

2021-Oct-13-14

A long night under the stars. The night sky began to clear at 10PM. And I had to shoot the Cygnus region because 1) that would complete my farewell to the summer night skies, 2) I hadn't taken a wide field of this famous region before.

It turns out that under the terrible light pollution, the L-eNhance+ASI2600MC Pro produced peculiar brightness in the central of the 50mm frame -- but in the G(B) channels only. So I had to decompose into R and G images and process them separately.

The result is this.

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Last edited by hhzhang on Thu Oct 14, 2021 10:54 am, edited 1 time in total.
hhzhang
Posts: 730
Joined: Sun May 10, 2020 4:11 pm
Favourite scope: 115mm APO

Re: My astrophotography 2021

Post by hhzhang »

Next target was M31, again! I just wanted to know if I have >1hour total exposure with a small 70mm APO and an OSC astrocam, what could I get under the Sg's light polluted sky?

Well, compared with a mere 20min total exposure the other day, the resulting image from 92min total exposure shows much more features in the outer (fainter) part of the grand galaxy. I guess this well concludes my attempt at shooting M31 from Singapore this year.

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hhzhang
Posts: 730
Joined: Sun May 10, 2020 4:11 pm
Favourite scope: 115mm APO

Re: My astrophotography 2021

Post by hhzhang »

Finally, I decided to take a number of exposures to complete my Orion-belt region nebuli project. Turns out the orientation is different from earlier session so here I could only use Ha, G and B filter data for the composit image.

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There are some issues with the flatness of the image field, and like before, the 135mmF2 wide open often creates uneven illuminated G/B images very hard to correct.
hhzhang
Posts: 730
Joined: Sun May 10, 2020 4:11 pm
Favourite scope: 115mm APO

Re: My astrophotography 2021

Post by hhzhang »

Had to redo the Orion image -- there is very apparently an excessive amount of image plane tilt -- but I don't remember what went wrong.

My remedy is to use the earlier Ha-filter image for L, for the sake of pinpoint-round stars.

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hhzhang
Posts: 730
Joined: Sun May 10, 2020 4:11 pm
Favourite scope: 115mm APO

Re: My astrophotography 2021

Post by hhzhang »

It compares satisfactorily to my last year's attempt reposted below.

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Simply thanks to a much better lens, much longer exposure time.

Hmm, what new progress am I to make next year?
hhzhang
Posts: 730
Joined: Sun May 10, 2020 4:11 pm
Favourite scope: 115mm APO

Re: My astrophotography 2021

Post by hhzhang »

2021-Oct-16

The fun of shooting celestial wonders continued on Oct 15 and Oct (pre-dawn).

In the phase of gibbous, the moon's overall shape is not appealing but the details and even subtle colors are more vivid than other phases.

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Venus visits Antares. It would make a beautiful sight (photograph) under dark skies.

Got a bonus: probably first time catching the 4th largest asteroid Interamnia. ESO recently released a group composite photo of the largest 42 asteroids that have been imaged by their state-of-the-art instrument. A great reference and I can easily add the snapshot to annotate my photo.

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hhzhang
Posts: 730
Joined: Sun May 10, 2020 4:11 pm
Favourite scope: 115mm APO

Re: My astrophotography 2021

Post by hhzhang »

By combining the image with another one captured weeks ago, here is the composite showing Venus blazing in the deep star field.

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hhzhang
Posts: 730
Joined: Sun May 10, 2020 4:11 pm
Favourite scope: 115mm APO

Re: My astrophotography 2021

Post by hhzhang »

The comet 67P is transiting the M35 region. Took ~20x30s exposures this early morning before the clouds rolled in.

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It is far from being naked-eye-visible.


It is interesting to see the "time-lapse" of the comet's motion during the ~10mins -- quite a short time interval astronomically. It just tells us one thing: comets do move fast!

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hhzhang
Posts: 730
Joined: Sun May 10, 2020 4:11 pm
Favourite scope: 115mm APO

Re: My astrophotography 2021

Post by hhzhang »

The Moon-Jupiter conjunction yesterday. To the naked eye, the pair was quite near each other, yet in the image -- and in reality -- they are so far apart.

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