Month: January 2021

Less light pollution; better photos.

So I finally got to try to take astro photographies from somewhere with less light pollution. I still have trouble with movement from either my tracking lagging a bit, or me not having a remote control for the camera (so I cause movement in the telescope when I start the shot).

M42 – Orion Nebula again

M42 is so easy to find observe and shoot. I also finally got to see some of the Flame Nebula, by doing a 30 seconds exposure into what looked like nothing at all. It sadly did not turn out very well because of movement in the camera, but I finally saw something! Anyway, here is my M42 shot. Getting better at this!

M42 20s exposure with pretty much no editing. Increased contrast a bit and moved the black point.

M31 – Andromeda Galaxy

The moon would easily fit in this picture, but the Andromeda galaxy takes more space, so this is mostly the core and some of the arms. I think I could fit most of the galaxy if I had rotated the camera. I randomly also caught M32 (barely visible at the left edge) and M110 (in the lower right corner). Looking forward to try Andromeda with an even longer exposure, or many stacked images.

M31 30s exposure, and some editing (contrast, black point)

Astro log – Through the smog and light pollution

A month back I finally got a new stepper motor and got the tracking for my telescope working. One dark night I took it to a pretty dark spot close to Bergen and did some observations.

M42 – Orion Nebula

I have observed the Orion nebula under bad light pollution before, but this time I got to observe it with under better conditions. It was stunning. Very sharp.

The next day I took my first deep space photography ever from our apartment. The light pollution was really bad, and there was some smog as well. I also forgot that I could use a timed shot. So i think some blurring is due to the camera moving slightly after I started the exposure.

I think it turned out fine for a first:

M42 taken with a 5 – 10 seconds exposure. Very heavy light pollution. The left image is the raw image, the right ones are versions where i increased contrast and tried to remove the pollution. The latter is an attempt to make it look somewhat like what a visual observation of M42 looks like in my telescope (it is sharper when visually observed)

M1 – Crab Nebula

My original plan for the trip, was to observe M42 and the Andromeda Galaxy. I was also hoping to get to see the Flame Nebula since it was really dark. I sadly did not see any trace of the Flame Nebula so I started looking for some open clusters to look at in Taurus. While scanning for them I suddenly saw that the Crab Nebula was close, and I found it immediately. It is the first supernova remnant I have observed, and I think I saw some small amount of detail. Hoping to get a picture of it one of these days.

M31 and M110 – Andromeda Galaxy and a friend

Andromeda is a not that interesting to visually observe since it is so hard to see anything beyond the core. I think I saw some more since it was really dark, but it was very faint. These two are prime targets for a photo some day, since that should bring out some more detail.