Show Your Astrophotos

[aek]

This is a solargraph I made last year - a poor man's astrophotography technique that records the path of the sun. For those not familiar with solargraphy, a pinhole camera is created from a beer can. Photographic paper is inserted inside the can which is then fixed in a location facing the sun. It is then left for an ultra-long exposure, this example is winter solstice left outside for a month or longer. As you can see, there was some cloudy days in my pic. The paper is then removed from the can in a dark room and placed on a scanner creating a negative image. The image can then be inverted and manipulated using gimp or photoshop.

[snolly50]

On 1/21/2024 at 12:01 PM, Mark Kmiecik said:

Looks just like last month's! 😃

 

Therein is the paradox. Fickle, ever-changing Selene is also ever-constant - mutable, yet immutable. The best Humankind can do is Wonder. 

[Pleuromya]

I recently got a small telescope, and found out that there's a distant quasar that can be imaged. The tiny orange dot is the gravitationally lensed quasar APM 08279+5255. It's at a huge distance of 23.6 billion lightyears from earth and the light's travel time is 12.05 billion light years. Apparently the universe has almost quadrupled in size since its formation and it's also the largest known reservoir of water in the universe. 

There's also a few smaller galaxies in the rest of the image. 

Edited January 23 by Pleuromya

[Sagebrush Steve]

1 hour ago, Pleuromya said:

APM 08279+525

 

1 hour ago, Pleuromya said:

I recently got a small telescope, and found out that there's a distant quasar that can be imaged. The tiny orange dot is the gravitationally lensed quasar APM 08279+5255. It's at a huge distance of 23.6 billion lightyears from earth and the light's travel time is 12.05 billion light years. Apparently the universe has almost quadrupled in size since its formation and it's also the largest known reservoir of water in the universe. 

There's also a few smaller galaxies in the rest of the image. 

Very nice.  How big is your telescope and what are you using for a camera?  Looks like you have posted two photos.  Where is the quasar in the larger photo?

[Pleuromya]

7 hours ago, Sagebrush Steve said:

 

Very nice.  How big is your telescope and what are you using for a camera?  Looks like you have posted two photos.  Where is the quasar in the larger photo?

Thank you. I used the ZWO Seestar S50 which has an aperture of 50mm and a 250mm focal length, it has a built-in camera. The image was exposed for about 40 minutes in Bortle 5. 

It's sort of towards the upper left in the large photo, unfortunately I couldn't centre it very well. 

[snolly50]

Selene, on a caprice, shuns the customary regal showing of her full face and appears as a frightful goblin moon. The trees, although not as ancient as Selene, remain unalarmed. They peacefully wait the the coming season; even now feeling the surge of Life building within.

 

 

[snolly50]

Today's afternoon Moon...

 

[snolly50]

M108, a spiral galaxy 28 million light years from Earth, seen in Ursa Major...

 

[Yoda]

@snolly50

Really nice 

 

My son tried some astro photos. But they weren't nearly as good as those in this thread 

[snolly50]

9 hours ago, Yoda said:

weren't nearly as good

The Sun and Moon images I post are made with a Nikon D600 fitted with a Nikor 200-500mm lens. They require a little skill and experience for optimal results. The deep space objects that I post are a "cheat," as far as my contribution of skill goes. The device employed is a Unistellar eQuinox. This instrument is a combination telescope/computer/camera. It does all the heavy lifting astrophotography requires. Some post processing is performed; but the device really performs the bulk of tasks required for the results seen. There are certainly dedicated astrophotography component rigs that can produce superior results. However, those require much more user effort and experience.

[Nanotyrannus35]

19 hours ago, snolly50 said:

The Sun and Moon images I post are made with a Nikon D600 fitted with a Nikor 200-500mm lens. They require a little skill and experience for optimal results. The deep space objects that I post are a "cheat," as far as my contribution of skill goes. The device employed is a Unistellar eQuinox. This instrument is a combination telescope/computer/camera. It does all the heavy lifting astrophotography requires. Some post processing is performed; but the device really performs the bulk of tasks required for the results seen. There are certainly dedicated astrophotography component rigs that can produce superior results. However, those require much more user effort and experience.

About that, I've done some astrophotography with a telescope and a dedicated astro cam. I don't have a tracking mount, but I can still get okay results. It wasn't very expensive, but there is definitely a learning curve.

I was able to fit both M81 and M82 into the same field of view. This was taken with a 5 inch reflector and a ASI224MC camera.

[TheRocksWillShoutHisGlory]

Not sure if this belongs in this thread, but here is a photo taken from a near space balloon from about 80,000 feet.  This was from a student project I was a part of in 2008 out of the Adler Planetarium.

[SPrice]

The southern night sky during a January winter evening over Moonflower Canyon in Moab, Utah, USA .  Orion the Hunter is the centerpiece. In the Belt is the Great Orion Nebula. Also visible are Betelgeuse ( the orange/red star top center) , Sirius ( the brightest one on center left in the tree branches) and Aldebaran ( the yellow/orange star top right corner).

 

I deleted most of the background stars.

 

Believe it or not, this was captured with a Google Pixel cell phone using the Astrophotography function called Night Sight with the Star icon lit up. On a tripod, of course. The phone camera takes a 4:06 minute video of the sky, compresses the frames into a 1 second video and creates a single frame image. I'm still amazed that a cell phone camera can do this. Not near the quality as my Canons and Sony cameras with star trackers, but still...quite decent for what it achieves.  Looking forward to the Milky Way Season starting this month for those in the Northern Hemisphere during the New Moon phases. This year I have calendared the New Moon Astrophotography session destinations to coincide along with day time fossil hunting. Oh yeah!

 

Edited March 7 by SPrice
typos

[snolly50]

M109...

 

[Missourian]

On 3/7/2024 at 8:08 AM, TheRocksWillShoutHisGlory said:

Not sure if this belongs in this thread, but here is a photo taken from a near space balloon from about 80,000 feet.  This was from a student project I was a part of in 2008 out of the Adler Planetarium.

 

That is awesome! It absolutely does belong in this thread

[digit]

On 3/7/2024 at 9:08 AM, TheRocksWillShoutHisGlory said:

Not sure if this belongs in this thread, but here is a photo taken from a near space balloon from about 80,000 feet.  This was from a student project I was a part of in 2008 out of the Adler Planetarium.

This image reminds me of Colonel Joe's jump (step) on August 16, 1950 from a balloon at 102,800 feet. Tammy and I had the honor of meeting Joe and his wife Sherry some years back in Orlando where we had a wonderful lunch with them. He was kind enough to sign my copy of his book Come Up and Get Me and my August 29, 1960 copy of LIFE magazine which proudly hangs nicely framed on my wall. He was a warm and friendly guy who was disarmingly modest. Despite all the acclaim (many decades ago) he always insisted that the record setting freefall was not for publicity or fame but basic science for the developing space program.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Kittinger

 

https://www.life.com/history/joe-kittinger-the-man-who-fell-to-earth/

 

https://www.amazon.com/Come-Up-Get-Autobiography-Kittinger/dp/0826348041

 

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[snolly50]

Earthshine...

 

 

Crescent Moon with Jupiter...

 

[SPrice]

Here's another closeup of the core of the Milky Way galaxy.  The  image was captured in a Bortle Class 1 dark sky in a south central Utah desert.

 

Sony a7s mirrorless camera with a Zhongyi Speedmaster 85mm f/1.2 Lens @  f5.6, 151 seconds with a star tracker mounted between the camera and tripod. 

 

The "brown stuff" in the image is dirt...commonly called  the dust lanes. The science of the dirt: "The dust in galaxies consists of small grains of carbon, silicon, iron, aluminum and other heavier elements. The Milky Way has a very high content of carbonaceous dust, which has been shown to be very rare in other galaxies. " -  https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/07/180703105953.htm#:~:text=The dust in galaxies consists,very rare in other galaxies.

 

 

 

 

[snolly50]

Last night, even at "half power" the skyglow from her light made other observations of the heavens difficult...

 

 

 

[Missourian]

FYI, the comet 12P/Pons-Brooks is currently low in the northwestern sky after sunset. It is drifting near Andromeda at the moment. It is fairly east to spot in binoculars and small scopes if one knows where to look. More details at:

 

http://aerith.net/comet/catalog/0012P/2024.html

 

https://www.shopplaza.nl/astro/

https://www.shopplaza.nl/astro/comets/comets.htm

 

Photo gallery:

https://spaceweathergallery2.com/index.php?title=comet&title2=12p

[snolly50]

Selene, once again, graces Humankind with a glimpse of her full countenance. She rose, serene, robed in orange, casting her warm light on those below.  

 

Edited April 24 by snolly50

[Wrangellian]

1 hour ago, snolly50 said:

Selene, once again, graces Humankind with a glimpse of her full countenance. She rose, serene, robed in orange, casting her warm light on those below.  

 

 

Nice... It's getting to be that time of year again when I can see the moon low in the S/SW from my house and I watched it set last night (well, early this morn).

Already 2 weeks since the big eclipse.

[minnbuckeye]

10 hours ago, snolly50 said:

She rose, serene, robed in orange

 

And I thought it was suppose to be the "Pink Moon"!

 

April marks the month that wildflowers begin to bloom. Specifically, the Phlox subulata—more commonly known as creeping phlox or moss pink—makes an appearance. This is how the name pink moon came to be.

 

My Phlox is blooming in conjunction with the Pink Moon!