Weasner's LXD55 Guest Astrophotography Page

GUEST DEEPSKY ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY

Last updated: 31 May 2006

Some LXD55 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 or ZIP or Stuff multiple files). Send to mweasner@optcorp.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: Dieter Wolf (testdwolf@hotmail.com) [31 May 06]
just read about your planned visit to OO; crossing fingers for a beautiful sky! We had a beautiful sky here in Munich, Southern Germany too - which means fst about 4m.5 in my city garden! So I tried to catch some deep sky objects. Starting with the Leo triplet - M65: 2006-05-21, 23.50 CEST, LXD55 SN-10, ToUCam SC1 at prime focus, 25x20s (darkframe), you can imagine some of the spiral structure and the dark dust lane

The next one was M51. I like this galaxy very much because it is one of very few that shows me detailed structure and even colors: 2006-05-22, 00:30 CEST, LXD55 SN-10, ToUCam SC1 at prime focus, 50x20s (darkframe)

Then I switched to M3 and tried a broad range of exposure time to get good resolution of central and outer parts of the cluster: 2006-05-22, 01:00 CEST, LXD55 SN-10, ToUCam SC1 at prime focus, 150 frames between 1 and 20s exposed (averaged darkframe)

My final one this night (how about getting some sleep?) and new for me: M64 - The 'Black Eye Galaxy', 2006-05-22, 01:20 CEST, LXD55 SN-10, ToUCam SC1 at prime focus, 40x25s (darkframe); very pleased to see the inner arms, the prominent dark dust lane and a touch of the outer parts of the spiral galaxy Thanks for posting Mike, clear skies at 'Oracle Observatory' Dieter (Munich, Germany)

Submitted by: Peter Kennett - EgyptianDiving.com (peter@egyptiandiving.com) [3 May 06]
The LXD75 8" SN, while certainly not a large telescope by any means, is capable of doing some impressive research. The Andromeda Galaxy is filled with globular clusters just as our own Milky way is. Here's a photo I in which I labeled most of the clusters I could locate accurately. To see this photo in detail, you'll have to download the HI-RES VERSION - which is 500K. I now have to research data on each cluster, to find magnitudes and any other cool data, which I will post on my website. Then I will locate all the Open Clusters and Nebula visible in this photo. I know this has all been done on large research grade equipment, but it's kind of cool to see just what my low cost equipment can do! The photograph was shot with a stock Meade LXD75 8" f/4 Schmidt Newtonian. The exposure was a single 40 minute exposure, hand guided with an Orion 910mm guidescope (thank you PEC!) on Fujichrome 400F Provia. The camera was an Olympus OM-1 and focus was achieved with an STI Stiletto.

Submitted by: Dave Wallace (d_wallace@ecrm.com) [21 Apr 06]
Details for the M42 image: Canon 300D with 200mm (300mm effective) lens at f/8 mounted piggyback on LXD-75. ISO 100 for 1 minute. Contrast and gamma adjustment and sharpening applied. Originally a 1024 by 682 pixel crop. (The orange object in the lower right is my house, illuminated by the local light pollution.)

Submitted by: Dave Wallace (d_wallace@ecrm.com) [5 Apr 06]
Moon and Pleiades (Messier 45) Canon 300D with 200 mm zoom lens mounted piggy-back on my LXD-75. We had clouds in the area; I shot this and then the sky was obscured until well after moon-set.

Submitted by: Dieter.Wolf@DNSint.com [27 Mar 06]
time again to take 'the big one' out (more than often I don't trust the skies to keep long enough clear for setting up the 'big gun') Two very different views of the most famous and beautiful winter skies object: M42 1: an overview of the region with PANASONIC Lumix DMC FZ-30 digital camera (ISO 400, 150mm, f/2.8, 5x60s) piggy back on LXD55

2: detail of the inner parts with LXD55 SN-10 and ToUCam SC1 at prime focus (75 frames between 1 and 20s each)

And - from yesterdays night (2006-03-20) - the turbulent, chaotic M82 (even shows some H II areas) which is positioned very well close to zenith now with LXD55 SN-10 and ToUCam SC1 at prime focus (180 frames between 5 and 20s each; total exposure time about 30 minutes) As you can see I forgot about a darkframe / flatfield and had to use an older one that did not fit well, but nevertheless I like this picture. cs to all of you - and especially for your next trip to OO, Mike, Dieter (Munich, Germany)

Submitted by: Dieter.Wolf@DNSint.com [31 Jan 06]
I took the chance of a clear, cold (10 degrees below freezing) night to chase M1 - Crab Nebula. With the ETX-70 it was catchable, but only a 'blob' - no structures visible. Looked similar to your D70/200mm shot from OO (link: http://www.weasner.com/oracle_observatory/oracle122805.html) But with the LXD55 SN-10 and 50x20s exposures with ToUCam SC1 the result is satisfying. There is some structure in the nebulosity and even the week outer parts are visible. The color is not 'real' - I had to modify the gray-pale to make it look better.

Submitted by: Dave Wallace (d_wallace@ecrm.com) [7 Jan 06]
My best effort of 2005 (taken September 27th). Un-guided and imperfectly focused, but anyway, here it is: a shot of M57. LXD75-SC8 with Canon Digital Rebel (300D). 30 seconds at ISO 800. Processed in PhotoShop (color saturation and gamma) and cropped.