First image with a new 60 MegaPixel camera with Andromeda as the target.
TriX
Loc: Raleigh, NC
Excellent! Please post the technical details. Camera? Tracker? Etc...
Absolutely beautiful!!!! I am going to make a 11”x17” print to enjoy seeing each day!
Ballard
Loc: Grass Valley, California
Tdearing wrote:
Truly amazing, thanks for sharing these pictures.
Hi Tdearing
Thanks for checking out the photos of Andromeda and for the comment, It was my pleasure to post them.
Ballard
Loc: Grass Valley, California
Kmgw9v wrote:
Incredible.
Thanks.
Hi Kmgw9v
Thanks for viewing the image of Andromeda and for the comment.
Ballard
Loc: Grass Valley, California
nimbushopper wrote:
Amazing!
Hi nimbushopper
Thanks for viewing my shot of Andromeda with the new camera and for the comment.
Ballard
Loc: Grass Valley, California
dpullum wrote:
Ballard your work is dedicated and the results fascinating. These photos are of things restricted to mere mortals, only the priests in ancient civilizations were so privileged to see them.
However, I could spot you not being a mere mortal when I saw that your dog wore UV sunglasses at the beach... well that was a questionable first impression. "Closeup of Pilot with her goggles on. (The goggles also have UV protection)."
https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-710613-1.htmlWhen I was young the Palomar Observatory Hale Telescope in 1949 became a reality, I was fascinated. During WW2 and my living in the country, the sky was not polluted with city or street lights the sky was crystal clear on some nights and one could only stare skyward and imagine. For our camera/lens/software technology to have advanced so far as to provide you with the ability to take these images is miraculous. Photo #2 shows your dedication, taking the time to show us the dim galaxies.
Photo #3 with the "pesky satellite trails" reminds me of the worldwide fascination with Echo, a huge [100'] Mylar/Aluminum coated balloon put in orbit in 1960. The schedule was in every newspaper so you knew when to look skyward. Perhaps we need such a second moon to make the space program connect with the people. I am glued to the SpaceX rapid advance copying the shining ships of 1960's SiFi space movies. Echo was actually suggested by Arthur C. Clarke the famous futurist SiFi writer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_EchoBallard your work is dedicated and the results fas... (
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Hi dpullum
Thanks for checking out my shot of Andromeda with the new camera and for the comment.
Note: Actually the dog is not mine but belongs to friends that we frequently go RV'ing with.
Indeed the capability to take deep sky (and planetary) shots has improved greatly with today's technology allowing even armature's like myself to rival what the worlds greatest observatories could do 30 or more years ago. I found picking out a few of the background galaxies very interesting and enjoying sharing them.
Satellites have become so common that many shots over a few minutes long will catch one particularly on wide field views such as Andromeda. I have heard that SpaceX is working on ways to mitigate reflectivity of their newer constellation internet satellites to help reduce there effect on ground based astronomy. Below is a view of what the software subtracted out of 1 filter group of images I took of Andromeda the other night.
Ballard
Loc: Grass Valley, California
RustyM wrote:
Awesome photography! What is the prominent galaxy at 5 o’clock from Andromeda? What do you mean by double download?
Hi RunstyM
Thanks for viewing my image of Andromeda with the new camera and for the comment and questions. The galaxy at ~5 o’clock from Andromeda is called M110 (Messier object 110, also listed as NGC 205 (New General Catalog)). It is a small elliptical satellite galaxy to Andromeda (M31) and is thought to be interacting with it via a dim stream of gas and dust that can be seen in the image. At ~10 o’clock from Andromeda is another satellite galaxy to Andromeda known as M32. Double download refers to downloading the image and then click on that image which will zoom in on the photo. Note: the amount of zoom depends on the pixel density of the image (some lower density images this may not have any effect, in this image it will have a large effect).
Ballard
Loc: Grass Valley, California
ELNikkor wrote:
Amazing photos! I don't mind the "pesky" satellite trail in #3; it could always be the capture of the Enterprise jumping to hyperspace...
Hi ELNikkor
Thanks for checking out the images of Andromeda and the comment. The satellite trails can be distracting as there would probably end up being 10 or more in this image if they where not filtered out. See the filtered part of the image for the red group I added to the response to dpullum above.
Ballard
Loc: Grass Valley, California
Hi Longshadow
Thanks for checking out the image of M31 and for the comment.
Ballard
Loc: Grass Valley, California
alberio wrote:
Once again, you have managed to raise the bar. Which camera did you use?
Hi ablerio
Thanks for checking out the image of M31 and for the comment. Regarding the camera, there was a sale on ZWO camera's at Woodland Hills Cameras back in July and so I jumped on it to get the ASI6200MM Pro camera (Just over 60 Megapixel cooled monochrome camera). The smoke delayed my ability to try it out until this last weak, but it gave me time to build an adapter to attach the filterwheel and camera to the canon 500mm F 4.0 lens ( I also made one to attach it to the off-axis guider I use on 16 inch Meade but I haven't tried it there yet). One thing to get use to is the size of the images, the raw fits image with 1x1 binning is >120Meg per sub, makes me glad that I set up a NAS box with 10gig Ethernet links to my system.
Ballard
Loc: Grass Valley, California
PoppieJ wrote:
you didnt say but are these shots tracked and what kind of exposure time did you have. nice end result thanks for sharing
PoppieJ
Thanks for viewing the image of Andromeda and for the comment and question. Indeed these images where guided. When using the canon lens there isn't room for an off-axis guider so I used a refactor as a guide scope mounted parallel to the canon lens. I used 4 minute subs for the color filter (~20 each) and a combination of 2, 4 and 5 minute exposures for the luminance images (The use of different times was a bit of an error as I initially didn't program in the filter change into Sequence generator pro when I set it off to take the images, unintentional HDR for the luminance image). I used a minimum gain setting on the camera to keep the noise low.
Ballard
Loc: Grass Valley, California
Edward Booth wrote:
Fantastic!!
Hi Edward Booth
Thanks for checking out the image of M31 and for the comment.
Ballard
Loc: Grass Valley, California
rmalarz wrote:
Very nice work.
--Bob
Hi rmalarz
Thanks for viewing the image of the Andromeda galaxy and for the comment.
Ballard
Loc: Grass Valley, California
Paul Diamond wrote:
Thanks for sharing what is possible for people who do not have "NASA size budgets" to do wonderful pictures like these. I have a lot of learning and work to do!
Hi Paul Diamond
Thanks for viewing the image of the Andromeda galaxy and for the comment. Indeed with today's technology an amateur can produce images that would rival major observatories from a few decades ago. There is a lot of learning to do (but it is interesting and very fun). I still have a lot more learning to do, particularly in how to best process the images.
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