Weasner's Meade ETX Guest Gallery

GUEST DEEPSKY ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY

Last updated: 8 December 2006

Some ETX users have sent me examples of their astrophotography. If you have some examples you would like included here please send me a description of how you made the astrophotos and a copy of the images as GIF or JPEG files (due to internet email gateway issues, please send only one image file per message). Send to etx@me.com. Alternatively, if you have created your own web page with your examples please let me know and I'll include a link to your site. You will also find astrophotography examples on the Helpful Information - Astrophotography page.

Submitted by: Nicolai Wiegand (nwiegand@gmx.de) [8 Dec 06]
The Galaxy is M31 with my Canon Rebell piggy backed on the ETX 125.

Submitted by: Niall J. Saunders (niall@njs101.com) [30 Nov 06]
I thought this might make you grin !! I was just setting up on M51 (after a long and successful session on IC434). I had just switched over to the Live Preview mode on Envisage and had drawn a tracking box round an appropriate star. At the end of the next 15-second exposure, just when I was about to rename the collection file to 'M51', and start collecting new subs, I saw the attached image appear, and had to figure out, VERY QUICKLY, how to stop Envisage overwriting what had just appeared. I eventually did a screen capture - and, apart from the lossy conversion to JPG in order to email it to you, what you see is what I captured. It's not a satellite (as far as I can tell from Heaven's Above and Cartes du Ciel) - but we were imaging right after the peak of the Leonids here in Scotland. The shower itself had been pretty disappointing, but it was a clear Saturday night / Sunday morning - and it had been well worth staying up 'til dawn for !! By the way - if anybody would like to check, as I just have, if you follow the trail up and to the left, you end up right in the middle of Leo (next to Saturn) - isn't that how a meteor 'radiant' is supposed to work ? !! It made my evening anyway (almost as much as my first clear view, earlier that morning, of IC434 - the Horse's Head). Cheers, Niall Saunders Clinterty Observatories Aberdeen, SCOTLAND

Submitted by: Tim Wood (timwould@gmail.com) [20 Nov 06]
First, It was nice to have finally met you Saturday at the 10th Anniversary of the ETX Star (sun spot) party. Apologize I couldn't stick around for the talks, but my family commitments only gave me a short window to stop by and say hi. I look forward to the 11th Star Party and will spend more time. And thanks for signing my book. I took this image with a Canon Digital Rebel piggybacked on the ETX-125. I used a 300mm lens and the exposures were 30 seconds x15 shots. These were taken from Murrieta, California on November 17, 2006, starting at 10:30PM.

Submitted by: N Mukkavilli (n_mukkavilli@yahoo.com.au) [17 Nov 06]
I imaged the horshead with my ETX 70! if you detect a hint of excitment , you're probably right. I am rather pleased to have been able to finally (!) capture the Horsehead with an ETX 70..been trying for years.Details: imaged on 17 Nov 2006,stack of 25 thirty second images.ETX in polar alignment on a home made wedge,processed in photoshop. I had to shoot with the camera binned 2 x 2 so its only a B and W image unfortunately and image scale is small. But I'm just chuffed to actually capture this most elusive object with my little ETX 70. Who can deny it truly is the mighty ETX?

Submitted by: Tim Wood (timwould@gmail.com) [28 Oct 06]
Hi Mike, glad your Oracle trip turned out to be a great experience. I would have loved to see the bolide; where's a camcorder when you need one? Here is a photo of the Milky Way using a Canon digital Rebel camera piggybacked on top of my ETX-125. The lens was a variable zoom set to 20MM. The exposures were about 4 minutes each and I was able to stack 5 good ones out of about 15. I did a little enhancement in Photoshop. What I like is that M31, the Andromeda galaxy is visible (pointed out in the photo) as is M45, The Pleiades (not pointed out).

Here is a picture of every one's favorite, M57 the Ring Nebula. This was taken with my ETX-125 using the DSI-C camera with a 0.3 focal reducer. 53 exposures were used and I combined the RGB in Photoshop CS2. I use FITS Liberator 2 to open the FITs files in Photoshop then combine the layers using RGBL processing. Most times I subtract out the luminous channel altogether, but sometimes I leave 20-40% available if it helps enhance the image.

Here is a picture of M33 the Pinwheel galaxy. This was taken with my ETX-125 using the DSI-C camera with a 0.3 focal reducer. 49 out of 100 exposures were stacked in RegiStax in separate channels of RGBL. Then combined in Photoshop and enhanced to TRY and bring out the detail. This seems to be a very difficult object (at least for me) to image and get good results. I did try several 60 second exposures, but I asked too much of the ETX-125's tracking abilities. I thought maybe a few 60 second exposures might come out, but alas, nothing.

Submitted by: Lubomir.Janostiak.ml@zoznam.sk [24 Oct 06]
Variable star is Chi Cygni (Cygnus)!

Submitted by: Luis Villa (ETX_125EC_from_arizona@msn.com) [24 Oct 06]
Exceptional seeing Friday, was able to finally image M-57, a little soft on the focus, but I finally did it.... my trusty 995 is still plugging along after five years and thousands of photos, hundreds of the night sky....

ETX-125EC, Nikon Coolpix 995 Meade Super Plosl 32MM with Scopetronics adapter... ALT-AZ photo taken 10/20/2006-approximately 35 second exposure.... M-11 Wild Duck Cluster--same setup as M-57--

Submitted by: Mikel Stoer (mikel_s@verizon.net) [4 Oct 06]
Here is a picture I took with my etx80, 8 25second exposures taken with the Meade DSI just to se if I could do it. From the increasingly light polluted skies at my house near Dallas I could not even see it with my eye but you can plainly see it here. Taken at 400mm (no reducer or Barlow) and digital zoomed to 300%.