Tuesday, October 17, 2017

Astroimaging is a bit like fishing...




Astroimaging is a bit like fishing--conditions can be great, but sometimes, the fish just don't bite. Last night was just like an unsuccessful fishing trip. The skies were clear and I fired up the big scope. Unfortunately, a lot of the things I wanted to image were in areas of the sky either obscured by trees or the edge of the observatory dome (that's a problem I need to fix). I did manage a couple of shots of the Triangulum Galaxy and the Helix Nebula, but the camera I was using had problems. The images were really noisy and there was lots of false color and amp glow (the purple tinge around the Helix image), to say nothing of the dust bunnies. The Helix is a difficult object to image at the best of times, however). I'm not sure why this happened (bad cable, software issues?) but the pix are pretty crummy. Oh, well--maybe I'll have better luck next time.

No comments:

Post a Comment

20 Hours of WR 134 with the Seestar S50

This image is a 20+ hour integration on WR 134, which is a highly energetic Wolf-Rayet star. The blue shockwave is oxygen ionized by the int...