Late in life noob here

Hi All,
Always been interested in astronomy but never got into it before this, I'm hooked. Trying to learn what I can, been reading and looking at sites. Really enjoy the interaction here and the remarkable images. Don't have a scope yet, leaning toward an Intes Mak. Got a pair of Barska 15x20's from eBay and a mount from Burgess to learn the sky with.

Make my living doing digital imaging, Photoshop, 3D illustration and animation. Itching to get my feet wet and was wondering if someone out there might be interested in sending me a raw hi res image or images to play with, the larger the better. In return I will send you the finished version at whatever res you want. I have some fractal based compression software that allows the image to be res'd up to practically any size.

Any thoughts on the Nikon CP5700 for astro pics, or would the 4500 be better?

Thanks much.

The 5000 is better than both of them for astrophotography. The next one better after that would be the D-60. That's my opinion and I am sticking to it;-)
Ralph

Don't know if this will keep you busy or not, but here's a completed image:

http://www.astro-nut.com/sun-ar50-53jul30a.jpg

and the raw for it is at:

http://www.astro-nut.com/sun-ar50-53jul30raw.jpg

If you want something a "tad" larger to play with, this might fit the bill:

http://www.astro-nut.com/gibbousmoon.jpg

Paul

PS... here's my processed version of that first image:

Attached Image: