Image of the day

Captured by
adrian oradean

WF Cone in Ha OIII

About Astromart

My Account

New to Astromart?

Register an account...

Need Help?

Posts Made By: Greg Bradley

October 29, 2005 11:17 PM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

Re: Mars-Solis Lacus and Olympus Mons (good seeing

Posted By Greg Bradley
One of the absolute best Mars photos I have seen so far. Well done!

Greg.

November 3, 2005 10:25 AM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Solar System

Mars 2 November

Posted By Greg Bradley
My first Mars image. Philips ToUcam, Nexstar 11 GPS, 2X Televue Barlow, Baader UV/IR Block filter.

Greg.

December 1, 2005 07:36 AM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Deep Sky

question about image processing software

Posted By Greg Bradley
I am interested to know what version of Photoshop I should get for astro work.

Is Photoshop CS the one?

Thanks,

Greg.

December 26, 2005 10:05 AM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Deep Sky

Keyhole Nebula

Posted By Greg Bradley
I haven't posted here for a while. Been setting up my improved imaging gear.

Beautiful clear night last night in Sydney (been cloudy for ages).

Takahashi FS152 at F8, autoguided with William Optics 80/480 fluorite triplet and Sbig 2000XM. 3 shots x 4 minutes at ISO 1600, modified Nikon D70 camera using Hap Griffin remote cable and Images Plus to program the sequence. Takahashi NJP mount with Temma 2 on a MI8 pier.

Nikon Capture Editor for processing and Images Plus for aligning and combining (average) plus stretching slightly to bring out more nebulosity.

Several good targets at the moment, Omega Centauri, Centaurus A, Tarantula Nebula, M42 of course, Rosette Nebula.

Greg.

December 28, 2005 01:43 AM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Deep Sky

Keyhole Nebula in H-alpha

Posted By Greg Bradley
Here is the Keyhole Nebula in H-alpha.
William Optics 80mm fluorite triplet, Sbig 2000XM, Schuler 6nm H-alpha, CCDSoft, Takahashi NJP mount. The WO matches the Sbig chip quite well for a good image scale. I can also use a TV .8X field flattener/reducer and will do another one to see if it makes much difference. 4 x 10 minutes.

Any comments on the processing? I used CCDSoft and the changes it can cause are dramatic compared to the other styles of processing I have used on DSLR shots.

Also shot some colour for this but still processing that.

Greg.


December 28, 2005 02:33 AM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Deep Sky

help wanted about RGB processing

Posted By Greg Bradley
I shot the Ha of the Keyhole and also some RGB at 1x1 binning. CCDSoft defaults to 2x2 binning for a colour series. Is this common practice? I figured the 1x1 would give better resolution but then again it requires more exposure time.

Can someone give me suggestions about how to best process the RGB and Ha together? Is it the Ha goes in the luminance channel of CCDSoft and the other colours in their respective slots and trial and error to get good colour balance? The colour balance often seems whacky so I must be doing something wrong.

Cheers,

Greg.

December 28, 2005 09:23 AM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Deep Sky

Omega Centauri FS152

Posted By Greg Bradley
The fabulous OMega Centauri, perhaps the most amazing object in our sky at a dark site with a good telescope. Some estimates
place it as being 11 million stars and a dwarf galaxy remnant.

Takahashi FS152 at native F8 on Tak NJP mount autoguided with SBig 2000XM through William Optics 80mm triplet.

5 x 3 minutes at ISO1000.Modified Nikon D70.
Sydney.

Greg.

December 28, 2005 10:09 PM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Deep Sky

Tarantula Nebula

Posted By Greg Bradley
This one is a bit hard to shoot as it is close to the South Celestial Pole and polar alignment errors get exaggerated. It is part of the Large Magellanic Cloud which is a fabulous object full of globular clusters and nebulas.

FS152 at F8, Tak NJP mount, modified Nikon D70, autoguided with WO 80mm and SBig 2000XM.

1 x 6.5 minutes at ISO 1000
1 x 10 minutes at ISO 800

I intend to shoot this in Ha at a dark site with the 2000XM next week.

Greg.

December 29, 2005 07:20 AM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Deep Sky

Centaurus A FS152

Posted By Greg Bradley
Here's a shot from the same series using modded Nikon D70 autoguided at F6 this time.

Photo is cropped to zoom it in a bit as really should have been shot at F8 in fact now I think of it would have been good to use the Q extender 1.6X on this to get F12.8.

This galaxy is still a bit low in the sky but another target for the RCOS soon. I'm looking forward to M83 in the near future.

Greg.

December 31, 2005 04:16 AM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Deep Sky

Omega Centauri RCOS 12.5 inch

Posted By Greg Bradley
Developing this series of images further I used an RCOS 12.5 inch with an AP .75 telescompressor to make it F6.75.

This is 4 images x 60 seconds, modified Nikon D70 @ISO1600, unguided Tak NJP mount (what a beauty!).

Interesting to note the similar image scale to the Tak FS152 at F12.8 (using Q-extender 1.6X) but chromatic aberration is apparent in the FS152 shot - see a few posts below the last image posted under Omega Centauri- where the foreground bright stars have a blue halo. I thought that was from the camera but the RCOS with its mirror system and no lenses (except for the AP telecompressor) shows none.

The RCOS is a superb instrument with refractor-like (almost) sharp stars and fantastic light collecting ability. The electric secondary focuser really is a wonder. It seems their incredible reputation for a superb imaging instrument is well founded.

My backyard last night.

I may try this again at a dark site at perhaps F9.

Greg.


Funding Member

Telescopes, Astronomy, Binoculars

Sponsors


View all sponsors

Search