M 101 - The Pinwheel Galaxy

I'm not very happy with this image of the pinwheel. It was taken under light polluted skies in my backyard. I wanted to test my new Smartguider and had planned to go the the RASC Calgary Observatory (The Wilson Coulee Observatory) south of Calgary. But when I looked outside at 6:30PM, the skies looked quite cloudy and I didn't want to make the drive to the observatory, only to be clouded in. So I stayed home. I looked outside at 9PM and it was perfectly clear. I grabbed my scope and set it up on the back deck and pointed it to M101 which was quite high in the sky, hoping to avoid as much light pollution as possible. I shot 20 subs (10 at 180 sec. and 10 at 360) to test the smartguider. It was windy, but the smartguider ended up giving me 18 good images. In the end though I needed longer exposures and dark skies to make this one work. M101 is quite diffuse and needs a longer exposure. Without dark skies there is not enough contrast to pull the galaxy out of the murk.

M33 reprocessed

I reprocessed this image to try to bring out more detail. It was a tough image to process. Firstly, I had used my camera, a canon 450D, in the afternoon to photograph in the studio at work under tungsten lights and had white balanced for that and I forgot to switch back to daylight for the astrophotography in the evening. So I shot all of my subs and darks white balanced for tungsten. The other problem was I was only able to get 18 subs at 75 sec each before the clouds rolled in. That coupled with the fact that I haven't modified my camera for Ha yet makes for a difficult time processing. But I actually think it turned out not too badly for a newbie to astrophotography.

M33 Galaxy in Triangulum

M33 - Televue NP101IS - 544mm, f5.4 - Unmodified Canon 450D - 20 x 75 sec 15 darks. Taken at Sibbald Flats west of Calgary.

The Moon and Venus Conjunction

Conjunction of the Moon and Venus Feb. 27, 2009. Taken east of Calgary. Televue NP101IS at prime focus - Unmodified Canon 450D
I had wanted to take a picture of the conjunction earlier in the evening, but I had to drive out to the dark site south east of Calgary and thought it would be better to wait shoot it there. It took nearly an hour to drive and when I did finally get the telescope setup, I could barely fit Venus in the frame.

La Lune

Taken with a Skywatcher 100ED on Dec. 21, 2008 - Unmodified Canon 450D - Processed in Adobe Photoshop.

Comet Lulin

Taken with a Televue NP101IS - Unmodified Canon 450D - at the Wilson Coulee Site on Feb. 21, 2009. Unguided exposures 20 x 1 minute. 10 dark frames. Processed in Nebulosity.

M45 Pleiades Star Cluster

Taken with a Televue NP101IS at the Wilson Coulee Observatory on Feb. 21, 2009 - Unmodified Canon 450D - Unguided exposures 20 x 1 minute. 10 dark frames. Processed in Nebulosity.

M81-M82

My first decent astrophoto. M81, M82 and a very small galaxy NGC3077. Taken with a Televue NP101IS at the Wilson Coulee Observatory on Feb. 21, 2009 - Unmodified Canon 450D - Unguided exposures 20 x 1 minute. 10 dark frames. Processed in Nebulosity.