Posts Made By: Greg Bradley

Here is one I imaged a few months ago but never processed.

Not often seen. The Bug Nebula. RCOS 12.5 inch ST2000XM.

Greg.

Rho nebula. 6 x 5 minutes unguided. STL11000XCM. Greg.

I finally got around to modifying my Canon 20D. Replaced the Canon filter with a Baader UV/IR cut filter.

I like this camera so far. Very sensitive.

Here is the Small Magellanic Cloud taken from my backyard in the direction of greatest light pollution and only 6 x 90 seconds.

Tak FSQ106N.

Greg.

Lagoon Nebula from my backyard observatory tonight.

Modified Canon 20D, FS152 at F6. 16 x 90 seconds unguided ( I tweaked my drift alignment until I had it the best ever - the Tak NJP would do 4 minute exposures with pretty round stars at 730mm focal length. It probably would have done 5 minutes no differently - an amazing mount).

The modded 20D is very sensitive to H-alpha.

This camera is definitely a keeper.

Greg.

Takahashi FSQ106N, Canon 20D modified with Baader UV/IR cut filter.
About 12 x 60 seconds. My backyard in Sydney.

The FSQ is a beautiful scope. A real Takahashi masterpiece.

Greg.

Here's another one.

This one is a bit harder to shoot as it has a bright core and it is in the more light polluted sector of my backyard sky.

This is the 2nd biggest glob in our Galaxy.
Tak FSQ/Canon 20D. 7 x 60 seconds.

Greg.

Modified Canon 20D, 9 x 60 seconds, FS152 from my backyard.

Greg.

I just returned from a 4 day trip to my dark site observatory in remote NSW Australia. 2 out of 4 nights were great, seeing probably 8-9/10 very transparent skies with almost no light pollution.

Horsehead Nebula 4:30am, 15 x 2 minutes modified Canon 20D, unguided Tak FS152 at F6. The temperature was about 5-7C.

Greg.

I am very happy with this shot. I have always wanted to take a shot like this. It turned out better than I expected and made the whole trip to me dark site and imaging all night worthwhile.

This one was taken at around 4am, temperature about 5C (cold for Australia).

Takahashi FS152 at F6, modified Canon 20D.

24 shots at 2 minutes unguided at my dark site. The bright core was replaced with 5 x 10 second and 5 x 5 second shots using Photoshop.

I have another shot using an FSQ which is slightly better and shows the dust areas even more.

Greg.

Dominating the skies near the South Celestial Pole are the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds. These are the 2 nearest glaxies to our Milky Way and are companion galaxies. The Large Magellanic Cloud is in the process of being absorbed into our Milky Way. To the naked eye at a dark site they look like 2 small clouds. They are full of globs and nebulas.

This shot here - to me, seems to show the area around the Tarantula Nebula and its surrounding blue stars to already be sticking into our Galaxy and the rest of the cloud still outside our galaxy. It looks that way anyway.

I took a series of images of these 2 clouds with various setups and I can post the better ones here as I process them. Its a fascinating object in the southern sky and if you have a large scope it has its own whole catalogue of objects to view. Have a look at N49 in the Hubble image gallery for a stunning nebula that looks like the Veil.

Takahashi FSQ106N, Sbig STL11000XCM, Takahashi NJP mount on a permanent pier, my dark site in remote NSW (where the steaks are great!!).

31 x 2 minutes unguided plus 6 x 3 minutes for a total of 78 minutes. Images Plus and CCDstack.

Greg.