DSLR wide field imaging

I was recently out in a local dark site with my DSLR so without guiding I decided to grab a few long exposures of M31, M45 and the the Milky Way.  Some visible star trails which is getting me thinking of purchasing a sky tracker.

Orion Nebula

Back in January of this year I had another attempt imaging M42, The Orion Nebula, with a light pollution filter.  Not a lengthy imaging session, just experimenting for future objects.  Two images below, the raw image from DSS and the processed image, plenty to improve upon.

Details : Canon 450D, ISO 1600, 10 x 20s lights, 10 darks, calibrated and stacked in deep sky stacker and edited in photoshop.

Jupiter - April 2016

Looking back at my 2015 astro images I can't believe it's been that long since I posted some content on my blog.   I have lots of stories to share on my ongoing journey into astrophotography however I'll save those for a rainy day.  In the meantime here's a recent image of Jupiter.  Captured with a Phillips SPC900NC webcam in Sharpcap 2 at 30fps, best 1200 of 1500 images stacked in Registax 6 and a slight tweak to contrast/brightness and colour balance in PS.

UK Partial Solar Eclipse

Had a wonderful observation of the partial UK eclipse yesterday.   I managed to miss any cloud cover from my location providing complete visibility throughout the entire event.  I used my 8" reflector with solar filter to capture images every 20 secs, here are a couple of my favourites where a sunspot just became visible following the moon's movement after maximum.

Deep Sky Update

Deep Sky Astrophotography isn't easy - viewing wonderful images by amateurs is very inspiring and with the right equipment and patience, very rewarding.

Patience is the key though, every step forward hits you with with two backward.
From getting the right T-Ring Adapters, achieving perfect polar alignment, having a grip on the computer software and then waiting whilst your CCD or DSLR capture's the lights.

It's understandable why imagers can get frustrated when they come to processing those lengthy subs.   That said, improvements come with practice.   My setup is quite modest, a Canon 450D, Celestron 150XLT (6" Reflector), german equatorial goto mount, APT and DeepSkyStacker software.

I'm hopeful that I'll be picking up a field flattener during the summer to resolve the coma artifacts but here is a capture I keep trying to pull more data from, M42 The Orion Nebula.

Details : 20 x 60s Lights, 20 x 60s Darks, Bias (no flats).  ISO-1600, stacked in DeepSkyStacker.

Jupiter 11-02-14

Weather conditions were not ideal this evening, high wind and cloudy but I managed to capture some avi's of Jupiter for processing.
Details: SPC900NC, 25fps, approx 500 frames stacked in Registax 6, x3 Televue Barlow

Jupiter 23-01-14

Taking the opportunity to have another shot at planetary imaging I dodged some poor seeing conditions to capture Jupiter again for what will probably be the last time this January.

Details: SPC900NC, 25fps, approx 1300 frames stacked in Registax 6, x3 Televue Barlow