Deep Sky Images

(Please click on thumbnails for full size images)

  M27- this a composite of 2 images, one exposure of 38 mins, and one exposure of 20 mins.  Brighter parts of the nebula had burned out, causing a loss of detail, so stacking a shorter exposure on top has remedied this to some degree, although the nebula is still showing pretty red in comparison to some images I have seen; I'm guessing it's down to reciprocity failure of the film.

  This one of the North America/Pelican nebulae is a 35 minute exposure via a piggybacked OM-1 camera with a 135mm F3.5 lens plus a 2x teleconvertor, again on Kodak Ektachrome 200asa.

  This image is an averaged stack of 2 images, one of which was a 40 min exposure, the other being a 15 min exposure.  Again in the longer exposure the clusters' core was burned out, like me, but when the shorter exposure is averaged in, core detail is now discernible.  I also used an excellent freeware program with this image called SGBNR, a dedicated noise reduction software whose action is based upon the Gaussian Blur.  It can soften the image a little but unsharp masking can be applied to counter this without excessive grain appearing.

         M104 and M82 by Phil Masding. Phil Created the images by stacking multiple short exposures on his 10'' LX200 and Starlight Express CCD camera. 

   M27 By Mark Crossley, a composite image of 9x90 second exposures at approx F5, with Orion Skyglow filter on his Starlight Express CCD camera. 

   A new shot of M104 by myself, Taken at Llyn Brenig in April. It's a 60-minute manually guided exposure @ F9 with my 200mm Cassegrain, on Kodak E200 Slide film, pushed 1 stop.

Two new images by Mark Crossley, taken with his new Starlight Express SXV-H9 ccd camera through a 10'' Meade LX200. Mark has commented on the moonlight washing out the images a tad, but they are showing plenty of detail to me. 

  I took this image of M42 on a windy December night in Lower Withington, accompanying Mark C and some people from Mobberley AS. This was a 15 minute exposure at F9 prime focus on my 8'' on Kodak EL400, which as you can see is rather grainy. This was the least wind-affected image from 7 attempts.   

This is a rather under exposed shot f M65/M66, 40minutes manually guided, through my 8'' F9 Cassegrain on Kodak Ektachrome 200ASA film.

  Pleiades, 3min exposure on Kodak E200, 300mm lens @f5.6 - This was part of an experiment to see how long an exposure I could take from my moderately light-polluted back yard - the 5 minute one came out completely yellow- think I need a filter!

 Double Cluster and adjacent open clusters, 15 min. exposure on Kodak E400, 300mm lens @F8 by Dave Timperley

Rosette Nebula and surrounding star field, 10min exposure on Kodak E200, 200mm F4.5 lens piggybacked on VC200L by Dave Timperley (got this one in Astronomy Now, April 2002)

M13, 15 minute exposure on Kodak E400, pushed 1 stop, Vixen VC200L @F9 prime focus by Dave Timperley

M44, 5 minute exposure on Kodak E200, 200mm F4.5 lens piggybacked on VC200L by Dave Timperley

North America Nebula and surrounding area, 10 minute exposure, Kodak Supra 400asa negative film, 80mm F4.5 lens, piggybacked on Vixen VC200l by Dave Timperley.

   Southern Orion, 10min. exposure on Kodak E200, 200mm F4.5 lens piggybacked on VC200L by Dave Timperley.