Weasner's Meade ETX Guest Gallery

GUEST SKY ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY

Last updated: 31 October 2007

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.

Submitted by: KIRAN chakravarti (kiranchak@yahoo.co.uk) [31 Oct 07]
This is an image of star trails i took from my back garden in the UK. It was taken using a Pentax K-1000 and a 20 min exposure. Please could you provide a link to my site at www.earthandsky.eu. Great website

Submitted by: Barbara & Tom Andrews (tombps@bigpond.com.au) [24 Oct 07]
A few weeks late, and a little trouble with cropping, but Mercury (brighter) and Spica still look like two headlights over the Sydney suburbs on 22 September 2007.

Submitted by: Dave Wallace (d_wallace@ecrm.com) [8 Oct 07]
One frame was taken at about 0530 EDT Saturday October 6th; the other was taken 24 hours later. The weather wasn't great either day, but when the planets were visible at all it was a pretty sight. And as long as I was out of bed early on my days off, I also managed a shot of Orion (Saturday). All shots were with a Canon Digital Rebel (300D) using a zoom lens at about 60 mm (equivalent) focal length, f/5.6 at 10 to 30 seconds, ISO 200. Post-processing in PhotoShop.

Submitted by: Dieter.Wolf@DNSint.com [8 Oct 07]
want to send you an 'atmospheric' picture of the moon between sunset-lit clouds (SAMSUNG GX-1l with 300mm lens, ISO 200, f/7, 1/250s; 2007-09-18, 19:00 CEST; reduced in size) - I start to like my new DSLR though I probably will stay a 'webcamer' for astronomy pictures.

Submitted by: Job Geheniau (geheniau@xs4all.nl) [4 Oct 07]
Here a nice Perseid from august 2007 (and 3 airplanes :-)) And you can clearly see the MilkyWay.

Submitted by: Terry Godfrey (terry.godfrey@materials.ox.ac.uk) [13 Aug 07]
Here is a rather poor image of ISS and STS-118 passing over my garden yesterday evening in a rather light sky. The exposure was a few minutes to enable both ISS and STS-118 to be captured. Ignoring the poor quality, I am concerned about the star trailing. The camera was piggy-backed on my ETX which was tracking in alt azimuth. Prior to taking the image the tracking, as checked occasionally in the guide scope, seemed to be OK but the image shows obvious rotation about the CENTRE of the image. The camera mount was firm. Any suggestions as to what could have happened? Mike here: The clue to the problem is that you said the telescope was in Alt/Az mode. "Field Rotation" will always occur when tracking the sky in Alt/Az. For piggyback sky photography you should place the telescope in Polar Mode and set the AutoStar accordingly. Terry here: Thanks for the quick response and congratulations on your retirement and future plans - I hope to be following in your footsteps (so to speak) fairly soon too! I have taken some successful images with alt azimuth tracked piggy-backed camera (my latitude is 51N)but I guess field rotation is very dependent on the location of the sky being photographed i.e due south would be less noticeable over a few minutes than facing east or west which was the case last night. Mike here: Field of view is also important.

Submitted by: Dave Wallace (d_wallace@ecrm.com) [9 Aug 07]
This was taken on May 25th from Kaanapali, Maui. The photo shows the skyline of the resort area at Kaanapali Beach and the stars of the constellation of Centaurus. Alpha Centauri is the bright star just above the horizon in the lower left of the frame and Omega Centauri (NGC 5139) is the fuzzy patch just right of center near the top of the frame.

Submitted by: Rick Stankiewicz (stankiewiczr@nexicom.net) [4 Jul 07]
On the Canada Day evening (July 1, 2007) my neighbours were having their annual bonfire and fireworks south of Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. What made it extra special this year was that Jupiter joined the show. In the attached images Jupiter is at the top of every display of fireworks set off. The main sequence stars in Scorpius are also visible in this image that I took using a tripod mounted Nikon 4500 (ISO 100; f/2.6;17 to 31 sec.exp.)

Submitted by: Dieter.Wolf@DNSint.com [4 Jul 07]
In reply to Dave Wallace's 'alert' - thanks Dave - the close approach of Venus & Saturn. I decided for an 'emotional view' with camera only whilst the sky was still bright. 2007-06-30, 22:20 CEST, PANASONIC Lumix DMC FZ-30 with 420mm focal length (equivalent to 35mm film), ISO 400, f/3.7, 1s

there has been another astronomical phenomena on June 30th that would have been worth an 'alert' (Dave, you FORGOT it...) ==>> the 'Blue Moon'. But it's a LIE! Trust me, here is the proof: 2007-06-30, 22:24 CEST, PANASONIC Lumix DMC FZ-30 with 420mm (equivalent to 35mm film), ISO 400, f/3.7, 2.5s It's DEFINITLY not blue... ;-)

See the Guest Sky Astrophotography Archive for photos posted in January-June 2007.

See the Guest Sky Astrophotography Archive for photos posted in September-December 2006.

See the Guest Sky Astrophotography Archive for photos posted in March-August 2006.

See the Guest Sky Astrophotography Archive for photos posted in January-February 2006.

See the Guest Sky Astrophotography Archive for photos posted in November-December 2005.

See the Guest Sky Astrophotography Archive for photos posted in September-October 2005.

See the Guest Sky Astrophotography Archive for photos posted in July-August 2005.

See the Guest Sky Astrophotography Archive for photos posted in January-June 2005.

See the Guest Sky Astrophotography Archive for photos posted in November - December 2004.

See the Guest Sky Astrophotography Archive for photos posted in April - October 2004.

See the Guest Sky Astrophotography Archive for photos posted in January - March 2004.