Astronomy and DSLR Astrophotography Blog

Dark nebula is a nebula in the galaxy which absorbs the light from the background. There are two types of them in general – one can be seen because they block the light of the emission nebulas in the background. One of the most spectalular of them is Horsehead nebula in Orion. The others block the light which comes from the stars behind them and those are best seen where the density of the stars is the highest – in the Milky Way. Dark nebulas consist of cold materia in the space, which is not hot enough to transmit the light.

In the night from 23th to 24th August I have gone to Bohor to take some photos of Elephant’s trunk, but I had to end taking photos about at midnight because the object passed the meridian and I couldn’t track it anymore. I had to make quick decision which object to capture the rest of the night and I choose the dark nebulas B334, 336-7 in Aquila, near Altair. I had no internet and I hadn’t a clue how this nebula looks like. Some of dark nebulas are really breath-taking and impressive (who doesn’t know Horsehead). Well, mine isn’t so spectacular, but I am pretty satisfied with the result. The next day I have checked the google image search for this nebula and found nothing, which means that I am one of the first who decided to “burn” his CMOS sensor on this object for some hours After all, that counts as well …

Here you go:

Dark Nebulas B334, B336, B337 @ photo: Primož Cigler

Some technical data about the exposure, equipment and so on:

Object: B334
Date and Location: 23. 8. 2009, Oslica, Bohor
Exposition: 26 x 5min
Camera: Canon 350D, Baader mod., ISO 800, RAW
Optics: Orion Optics Europa 20cm f/4.5
Mount: Vixen GP-DX SS2K
Autoguiding: SW 80/400 with QHY5
Processed in: Iris, Ps

astrophotography astrophotography, camera, canon, constellation, dark nebula, deep-sky, galaxy, milky way, nebula, stars

In the nights from 20th to 21st and 21st to 22nd August I have been capturing the Great Galaxy in Andromeda. I used my 8″ f/4.5 Newton which means 900mm of focal length and too small FOV to get the entire galaxy into one frame so I decided to make a mosaic. I spend the first night for the right part and second for the left part of the image. I combined them in Photoshop. All other data about image are:

Object: M31 and M32 (Andromeda Galaxy)
Date and Location: 20. and 21. 8. 2009, Mali Orehek, Slovenia
Exposition: 2×1 mosaic: 30 x 5min and 36 x 5min
Camera: Canon 350D, Baader mod., ISO 800, RAW
Optics: Orion Optics Europa 20cm f/4.5
Mount: Vixen GP-DX SS2K
Autoguiding: SW 80/400 with QHY5
Processed in: Iris, Ps

M31 and M32 @ photo: Primož Cigler

I hope you like it, I am very satisfied with the result. More is coming soon…

astrophotography astrophotography, constellation, deep-sky, galaxy, images, messier, stars

The last week I am very active, especially at night. From Thursday I already had 5 all-nighters, capturing M 31, B 334, IC 1396, NGC 7293, … and of course, the Meteors. I figured out that my backyard is just too light polluted, so now I am going capturing to the hill near me, Bohor. In the night from 24th to 25th August I made a timeplase of the night sky with me in the foreground, capturing DSOs. Unfortunately I have caught a meteor sporadic -5 magitude. The picture is so awsome, that I must share with you.

Bolid -5 mag. above me, capturing the night sky

And here is the timelapse of the entire night. I have tagged the meteor:

I admit, I am lazy and that’s why I don’t finish up my Astrophotography Tutorial. I hope that I will find more inspiration, time and will to finish it up in September, because in October I start studying Physics at Ljubljana…

The images of the objects I listed above will be published here soon. As soons as I process them

CS!

astrophotography, personal astronomy, astrophotography, images, landscape, meteors, stars

The night from 12th to 13th August turned to be a little bit better than one before. The Moon was rising later and shining less. I had more luck as well. I caught at least 6 Perseids, I am attaching the most spectacular. The brightest object  right of the meteor is Jupiter:

Perseid on 13th August 2009

I am going to observe tonight again if the weather is OK. We had some clouds yesterday after the midnight. I came home at 8.10 in the morning and I haven’t slept yet, that’s why this post is so short

personal astronomy, meteor shower, meteors, stars

I am not only deep-sky astrophotographer. Every year I take part of the biggest youth astronomy camp in Slovenia – MART. I never take telescope there, because it’s too large and I prefer observing meteors during the camp. Usually the camp lasts during the maximum of Perseids, but this year there’s a moon and it was lasting from 24th July to 2th August 2009.

Yesterday some of my friends from MART came to go to observe the Perseids. We planned to go to Bohor, which is a hill just 20 min drive from my house, but when we came to the place it overcasted. We checked the satellite images and decided to go South-West. It was a good decision. After 1-hour drive we found pretty good place to observe and started observing about at midnight. We had 6 DSLRs, capturing the Perseids as well. I haven’t got any really nice and bright meteor, like my friend did, but I ended with a timelapse of the night.

I came back to home at 6.30 and went to bed at 7.00. But today there will be another night with less moon and more Perseids. If you have an opportunity, take a walk tonight  and look up to the sky. I’m sure you will see one. My the best captured yesterday:

Perseid

personal astronomy, landscape, meteor shower, meteors, moon, stars, trails

I think it’s not right always showing just the best works you produce. Sometimes it’s also good to represent worse pictures to show the world you also have troubles with everything and to encourage those who are not so good at astrophotography yet. I had a disaster last Thursday, capturing the Rho Ophiuchi region.

Last week we had some clear skies out here and on Thursday I decided to go to the near hill named Bohor to caputre the Rho Ophiuchi region, which is a large cloud of colorful nebulas, a part of Milky Way. June is the only month when this region is accessible to photograph from our latitude because it comes the highest on the night sky – about 20 degrees. Se we had clear skies, warm weather, no moon – perfect astrophotography conditions. I packed my mount Vixen GP-DX with SkySensor 2000 PC to the case with all the accessories and went to the Bohor to take some shots. I arrived there 2 hours before the astronomic night, prepared everything, aligned the mount, focused my modified Canon 350D with Canon 70-200 f/4.0 IS L lens and waited for the night. I started shooting at 23.45 LT. After first two shots I saw that everything works OK and went into the car, watching a movie for two hours. When  the film finished I was planning to take some darks and then to go home but when I checked the destination folder for images on my laptop I immediately noticed that something had gone wrong – THERE WERE JUST 6 PICTURES!!! OMG, I was awake till 4 a. m., getting just 6 frames. There was noting else to do, I had about half and hour till the dawn so I packed up the mount and everything and went home.

Nevertheless, on Sunday I decided give it a try and I processed the image. Honestly, I suspected to be worse, but it’s far from that I was planning to do. So here you have, Rho Ophiuchi nebula, not so perfect:

Rho Ophiuchi region @ 6 x 5min, ISO 800, RAW. Author: Primož Cigler

I hope that next time I will show something more attractive. And which are yours most common troubles you are dealing with?

Thanks for reading!

astrophotography, personal astrophotography, canon, deep-sky, images, milky way, nebula, stars

I haven’t been writing here for a while. Currently I am studying for my exams … but just one month left. Then I will continue with astrophotography tutorial. Nevertheless, I managed to take photography of galaxy M86 and neighbours last weekend. The picture was caputred with my standard setup: Orion Optics 8″ f/4.5, modded Canon 350D with IDAS LPS P2 filter at ISO 800, RAW on Vixen GP-DX mount. The photography is composition of 30 images, each of 5min. I was capturing from the backyard in front of a house where is a lot of light pollution.

M86 with neighbours

I am very satisfied with the result because I have spent some nights outside recently without any useful pictures, because autoguiding wasnt’ working properly. I had to change some settings and now works again.

astrophotography astrophotography, deep-sky, galaxy, idas, images, messier, stars

I have decided to publish step-by-step how-to tutorial for astrophotography beginners. It’s International Year of Astronomy and I am pretty sure that there is a lot of people who are interested in astronomy and astrophotography, but they don’t know where to start.

Weekly I will publish articles guiding you trough the process of astrophotography – from equipment to the imaging tips and processing of images on the computer. Each article will cover specific part and every single of them is important for good results.

There are several different types of objects up there and they require different type of equipment, capturing, processing. In this tutorial I will focus on deep-sky astrophotography with DSLR camera and with amateur equipment in range up to 5.000$. If you are beginner – don’t be afraid! There is a possibility to start astrophotography with much lower budget and get stunning results. You just need to be patient and don’t give up.

Contents:

• Part I: Choosing an Object
• Part II: Camera Settings
• Part III: The Telescope

Don’t forget that we all learn from mistakes. With patience and enthusiasm everything is possible. Enjoy the Universe and Clear Skies!

NGC6888 - The Crescent Nebula @ Primož Cigler

astrophotography astronomy, astrophotography, deep-sky, equipment, guide, images, milky way, nebula, stars, tutorial

A friend of mine contacted me some days ago that he bought a new telescope (Orion Optics SPX 200 f/6.0) and asked me if he could came around to collimate it. We have arranged for Saturday evening.

He really came yesterday and we did a collimation really quickly with my laser collimator. BTW, this telescope is really gorgeous! After the collimation we planned to test the optics on the stars but it clouded. We checked the weather forecast and figured out that it might be clear just some hundred meters higher so we decided to go to Bohor (that’s a hill very near where I live) and we had right! It was clear but windy night up there! The moon was rising and shining extremely bright. We could admire an “ocean” of the fog / clouds below in lowlands. It was incredibly beautiful.

Anyway the wind was too strong and I have a little cold so we stayed there just to take some photos and that was it. It was worth to drive half an hour just to admire the nature for some minutes.

View to the South-West. The brightest object is Venus. @ Primož Cigler, Nejc Ucman

View to South-East. The brightest object up-left is the Moon @ Nejc Ucman, Primož Cigler

personal earth, images, landscape, moon, stars, visual

As we all know, the sky above us is apparently moving. The sun, the moon and stars are travelling every day from east to the west. This fact is not very practical in astrophotography especially because for deep-sky imaging the long exposures are obligatory. That means if we just put the camera to the usual tripod and make a one minute lasting exposition then we get just the star trails. The following video demonstrates the virtual rotation of the southern sky. The Megellan’s Clouds are visible also:

I believe that everybody understands what I mean.

However, this daily ritual of our home planet is not very appropriate for astrophotography. We need special mounts with tracking which tracks with just the same speed as the sky is moving. The Earth rotates quite slow so the stepper motors must track really slow and smooth to assure enough good tracking. All the bearings and gearwheels must be made very precisely to avoid any unpredictable jumps and so on. It is extremely important that we have a stable tripod or pier otherwise everything is worthless.

In general we three different types of mount: Alt-azimuth mount, German equatorial mount and Fork equatorial mount. All three has their advantages and disadvantages and every single of them I will describe in the following posts.

Stay tuned!

equipment astrophotography, deep-sky, earth, equipment, mount, stars, tripod