Having recently moved house, I have been blessed with a balcony with a good view to the south. The skies from 20-60 degrees altitude are clear from any obstructions.
That means it's time to set-up my rig and shoot some targets deep south on the celestial sphere!
Stay tuned for some pictures of the southern skies!
Note that unless otherwise stated, the equipment used are as follows:
Telescope: Skywatcher Esprit 100ED
Main Imaging Camera: ASI2600MM Pro
Mount: iOptron CEM40
Guiding Setup: ZWO OAG + 290MM Mini
Processing is done in PixInsight.
Southern DSO Astrophotography
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- Posts: 81
- Joined: Wed Aug 22, 2018 5:16 pm
- Favourite scope: Skywatcher Esprit 100ED
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- Posts: 81
- Joined: Wed Aug 22, 2018 5:16 pm
- Favourite scope: Skywatcher Esprit 100ED
Re: Southern DSO Astrophotography
The first target is definitely everyone's favourite: the Carina Nebula
This photo is taken in a 1x2 mosaic with my setup so as to capture it in all its glory in the Hubble Palette. It was a struggle to get the 2 mosaics to stitch together due to the gradients and the distorted stars in the corners, but well, it was worth the pain with the final image:
It took me almost 2 months to capture the data, as I was a bit too much of a perfectionist to substitute the magenta stars from the SHO combination with natural colour RGB stars. Even though it's far from perfect, I am still very happy with the results!
This photo is taken in a 1x2 mosaic with my setup so as to capture it in all its glory in the Hubble Palette. It was a struggle to get the 2 mosaics to stitch together due to the gradients and the distorted stars in the corners, but well, it was worth the pain with the final image:
It took me almost 2 months to capture the data, as I was a bit too much of a perfectionist to substitute the magenta stars from the SHO combination with natural colour RGB stars. Even though it's far from perfect, I am still very happy with the results!
Re: Southern DSO Astrophotography
thats amazing.
Re: Southern DSO Astrophotography
Classic! I clicked in and behold the glorious sight on my 27in 4K display. I guess I need an 8K monitor now!
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- Posts: 81
- Joined: Wed Aug 22, 2018 5:16 pm
- Favourite scope: Skywatcher Esprit 100ED
Re: Southern DSO Astrophotography
Beautiful image. SHO on such dynamic targets never fails to impress
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- Posts: 81
- Joined: Wed Aug 22, 2018 5:16 pm
- Favourite scope: Skywatcher Esprit 100ED
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- Posts: 81
- Joined: Wed Aug 22, 2018 5:16 pm
- Favourite scope: Skywatcher Esprit 100ED
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- Posts: 81
- Joined: Wed Aug 22, 2018 5:16 pm
- Favourite scope: Skywatcher Esprit 100ED
Re: Southern DSO Astrophotography
With my set-up on the balcony, I pretty much just shoot every single night now as long as there is clear weather. No more lugging the heavy scope + tripod + mount around in the night, battling the mosquitoes and the heat to assemble everything. Now I just leave everything set up and open the telescope cover when dusk falls, switch on the mount and the mini PC, and I'm good to go!LookingForScope wrote: ↑Fri May 27, 2022 9:05 pm WOW that looks very good!! How did you manage to find 20 hours of good weather?!
Every night of photon accumulation really adds up!
Re: Southern DSO Astrophotography
Excellent !