Astrophotography revisited......CMOS and CCD imaging...OMG am I selling out?

What has gotten into me. Have I been bitten by the astrophotography bug? Seriously? I have been a visual observer for the longest time and used to scoff at taking snapshots at the sky. But then again I have had the occasional "dabble", or forays into the complex and crazy world of astrophotography. I remember my first time, around Halley Comet's 1986 return to our part of the neighbourhood. I purchased some Fujifilm ISO 400 film (yes we used to shoot using good old emulsion films!!!) and shot star trails, constellation portraits (I have a few and if I can find them, I will scan them and put them up here) and a comet piccy or two (I shot Hyakutake in 1996 from my then "not so light drenched" backyard!). My weapon of choice was my dad's old Nikkormat camera. I learn about the B setting, using a bulb and mounting the camera on a photo tripod. Exposure times had to be kept short to prevent photo fogging due to light pollution and also to prevent the stars from trailing. I shot constellation portraits every chance I got, including our then dark sky site, a cleared construction site close to my friends home. I remember us building a campfire :) That was in the mid to late 80's!

Since then technology has advanced by leaps and bound. Its now much easier to shoot the night sky with digital camera's. No more buying high ISO films and waiting to see if the shots I took came out right. Its amazing what one can do with a simple point and shoot these days (and it is getting better trust me!). For instance I have shot afocally (and without a special mount too) the moon and a lunar eclipse through my Orion StarBlast and my 10" f/5 with my old point and shoot Nikon. Being back in oz and under dark skies, I dabbled in more constellation portrait shots and "comet" photography when Comet McNaught and Comet Holmes made surprise visits to the inner solar system, with my Kodak P850 camera. This cam was ok for point and shoot but it was an older model with 5megapixel resolution, full manual controls and a highest ISO setting of ISO800. My newest and latest digital cam is the Kodak Z990. I chose this camera as it is a bridge camera, like my older Kodak, that has all the features I need, such as full manual controls (I can push the ISO all the way to ISO 6400), a 30x optical zoom for my nature photography shots, as well as Kodak's first backlit CMOS sensor (i.e. better low light performance). With this camera I have taken shots of the milky way from Pinos and done some afocal photography. But the one thing that has always eluded me was getting good planetary shots!

Seeing an opportunity to wet my feet in the world of planetary imaging, I jumped at a recent chance to purchase Orion's new "lower end" Orion StarShoot Solar System Color Imager, which was on sale. They were out of stock when I visited their Cupertino store during the Memorial Day weekend, so I called in and got it over the phone. Little did I know that it would be about a month before I would get the chance to try it out on the moon and on Saturn and Mars, due to the pesky "June Gloom" marine layer. The verdict.......the cam would not come to focus in my newtonian scopes (see previous post). Disheartened, I packed the cam up and returned it to Orion for a full refund (thank god for their excellent after sales service). It was then that I spied a used Meade DSI I cam for cheap. This imager is touted to be a great "beginner" DSO and planetary imager as it is intuitive to use, has a much more sensitive CCD chip. Since receiving it in the mail this last Monday, I have installed the Meade AutoSuite and Envisage software and have tried it on terrestrial objects. trying it on celestial bodies, I found out that I was faced with the same problem, not enough backfocus. It seems that for CMOS and CCD imagers to work with newtonians, one would have to have a very short focuser. You live and learn. Therefore there was probably nothing wrong with the Orion Imager. The problem was due to my scopes.

Fast forward to December (yup this article has been the making for the longest time), I am now a proud owner of a Celestron/Costco 102GT scope (see reviews and small scope shootout articles from November). I have had the Meade DSI out, coupled to this GOTO tracking refractor, a couple of times under light drenched skies. The DSI now focuses fine, but now I have other issues to deal with. Firstly, the FOV is tiny in the DSI, The FOV equates to a 6mm eyepiece in my refractor. All I can see is the capture screen of Envisage is small portions of the moon, an overexposed Jupiter (still have not gotten used to Envisage's controls....not used intuitive at all!) and M42 totally filling the screen. I obtained a 0.5x focal reducer from Orion over thanksgiving and it is only now in January that I got to give it a go. The focal reducer does make a big difference and I can now get some of the tighter star clusters in the FOV. Also upon exposure I can at least see what I am imaging. Here are some of my 'first shot' images. Hopefully more to come. You can see from the shots that I exposed it for longer than 30 seconds. Field rotation is a problem with my motorized alt az mount. Will try for shorter exposures 30 seconds and under and stack the images. Stay tuned, this page will be updated regularly with new images and notes!!!!

Old piccies. Afocal astrophotography with my Kodak Z990, Orion SkyScanner and Orion Steadypix camera adaptor (see photo above). Even with the adapter, it was hard to get the camera lens at the right position and distance from the eyepiece. I found that I could only shoot brighter objects, and with very short exposures with wide field long eye relieve eyepieces. I have since sold the adapter. Its just too hard to get the camera in the right position, and even then the heavy camera sometimes swings out of the way.

My playground observatory where I do most of my imaging. Notice how light polluted the playground is. It is actually worse than it looks since I can visually detect some pretty dim quarry such as M65/66 in Leo, the Little Dumbbell (M76), the Crab Nebula (M1) and the Owl Nebula (M97).

Celestron/Costco 102GT. For the price this combo can't be beat. Computerized guiding and tracking and with two star align, objects are pretty much centered in the FOV. The scope is seen with the Meade DSI I color CCD. Its a cheap way to get into the complex world of astrophotography. I know I will never be able to get pics such as the ones in Astronomy and Sky and Telescope, but for a little investment, I can capture some pretty keepsakes, as below.....

My first DSO image with the Meade DSI CCD camera....not bad huh since I have not even mastered how to properly work the cam with the Meade Envisage. The heart of the great nebula in Orion (M42).  5 minute exposure. You can see the effects of field rotation as the stars around the bottom have started to trail in an arc. Next time I will do stacking with multiple 30 second exposures.

This is a stack of several 30 second exposures and processed in Photoshop using curves. My focusing might have been off (or it might have been the tracking acting up...batteries are old and might need replacing) as the stars really looked bloated, but the nebula was heaps brighter. You can see the ruddy hues in the outer wings an well as M43. I have seen such rusty hues visually in my 10", but only from dark sky sites. And this is with a waxing moon that is past first quarter!!!!

Open clusters are easy provided you do not expose it for too long. Field rotation is a big problem with motorized alt az mounts that do not have an equatorial feature. This was a 3 minute exposure of the double cluster in Perseus (NGC 884 and 869). Tracking seemed to be pretty spot on as the stars did not trail. Even with the 0.5x focal reducer (taking the focal length down to 500mm), I still could not fit both clusters in the FOV.

NGC 2393, the Eskimo Nebula in Gemini. This one was easy to image as it is bright and starlike. I exposed it for about 3 minutes. Skyfog was crummy (bad part of the sky). I should have stacked the image and do dark frames. Next time perhaps.

Short 20 second exposure multiple stack of the Eskimo. The background was noticeably darker. I am surprised that the hot pixel problem is not much of a, well "problem". I cropped and color corrected the image in Photoshop.

A much better M35. Stack of 6x15 second exposures with Envisage. I find that 20 seconds is the max I can go on my GOTO alt az before the stars start trailing. Image processed in Photoshop using Levels.

M36 in Auriga. Again with Meade Envisage 6x15 seconds. Its funny how the sky fog is different with different parts of the sky. Also I think the dimmer the object, the worse the color balance is thrown off. Processed in Photoshop with Levels and Color Balance.

M37 in Auriga. Again 6x15 second exposure. Similar part of the sky so sky fog was a problem. Processed with Phoptoshop Levels and Color Balance.

M38 in Auriga. 6x15 second exposure. Again skyfog was a big problem. I think I might have to resort to some sort of broadband filter for imaging, even open clusters. I am happy though with my results. Can't wait for summer to come around. Bring on M57, M27, M13, M5, M22, M8, M20, M17...OMG the list goes on and on...till then enjoy my galaxy pics....

M81, Bode's Galaxy in Ursa Major. My second imaged galaxy so I am a happy camper. Captured using Meade Envisage with a 6x15 second exposure and processed with Adobe Photoshop Levels and color corrected using Color Balance function.

I still can't believe I got this...my first galaxy M82...and it was visible at the screen...more visible than through the eyepiece!. Exposure was 6x15 second with Meade Envisage and processed with Photoshop and color balanced with Color Balance function.

My forays into the complex world of astrophotography continues. I am learning something new about my Celestron Nexstar/Costco 102GT everyday, such as how it tracks better in some parts of the sky than others. I am also learning the intricacies of my first CCD camera, the Meade DSI 1 color one shot camera. Things that you cannot see on screen may be in the FOV. You just have to do a quick preview. I am also discovering the joys of imaging galaxies from suburbia. Its much easier than I though...maybe its because I have been imaging the brighter and more compact galaxies. Take the Sombrero Galaxy in Corvus/Virgo for instance. This is a 12x10sec stack of M104. My color balance is always off (more towards the reds) and I am attributing that to the local light pollution. So much so I have to do a color correction within Photoshop everytime I process my shots. But I captured the dust lane! Isn't it wonderful what technology can do these days...and for so little money at that. My next trial is to use my SkyGlow filter to see if I can improve on the background light pollution. Stay tuned...

Experiments with Stark Lab's Nebulosity. Its funny how much sharper the image is with Nebulosity. I am trialling the software and it is useble with my MacBookPro, which means heaps more imaging time (my Mac last up to 5 hours while the damn HP lappy a mere 1 hour!!). 17 second exposure no stacking and no dark frames and processed with Photoshop Levels.

More M42 with Stark's Nebulosity for Mac. I am using the older version (not version 3 as my OSX 10.5 does not support the latest version. The problem with the demo version is that if you do use stacking, you get vertical lines across the piccy. I used the preview to capture this image. I find that trailing is a problem after 20 seconds of exposure. The demo version is fully functional and is heaps more user intuitive than the Meade Envisage capture software.

UPDATE (1st of Feb 2013): I am still experimenting with both capture software, Meade's Envisage and Stark Lab's Nebulosity for Mac. Pro's and con's for both. Stark Lab's Nebulosity gives much cleaner images and better contrast (and tighter star images) but to me it is less sensitive. maybe I am not getting the setting's down right but at this point I am still leaning towards Meade's Envisage. Its just easier with the live view and somehow more sensitive views, making it easier to "see" your target. More to come....

UPDATE (9th of Feb 2013): I have reverted to using Meade's Envisage. Its just easier to use and more sensitive. I can't for the life of me figure out how to get a "visible" image in Nebulosity and this is a problem when imaging fainter fare!