# 189 | Small Scope--Big Results

Some readers, upon seeing images taken by other amateur astronomers, may be afraid to try their own hand at imaging or even make a submission to the SkyNews Photo of the Week. Is a scope worth many thousands of dollars necessary to take a fantastic image? No!

For this splendid image of Jupiter, Jeff Bennett of Kingston, Ontario used an 80mm Sky-Watcher apochromatic refractor. Subtle detail can be observed in the equatorial band and in the polar regions. Two of Jupiter's moon can also be seen.

Jeff used a Canon A-70 point and shoot digital camera in its movie mode and afterwards stacked 400 frames stacked using Registax.

# 188 | A Streak of Bad Luck

Sooner or later, anyone who tries their hand at astrophotography will have a result similar to Clyde Miller's image of M13. During imaging, a satellite just happened to streak exactly across the globular cluster.

The best time to observe satellites is for about 90 minutes after sunset or before sunrise. The Sun is below the horizon for observers but is still shining at the satellite's altitude. This how we are able to see satellites---they reflect sunlight. Click here to learn how and when to view the International Space Station and satellites.

Clyde Miller took this image from Brantford, Ontario on May 17, 2005. Clyde used a Konusky 200 8" F5 Newtonian, a Meade LXD55 GOTO mount and a Meade DSI camera (42-second exposure).

# 187 | Jupiter

When the seeing conditions permit, Jupiter can allow many subtle and intricate details to be observed. Planetary observing requires patience and the adage "the more you look, the more you'll see" is true. Spending quality time at the eyepiece is the only way one can learn to see faint details.

Daryll Archer of Kitchener, Ontario took this image of Jupiter on June 2, 2005. Using a Celestron C14 and a Philips webcam, Darryl took a number of frames that night and then combined the best 286 frames with K3CCD Tools, Registack 3.0 and Photoshop.

Festoons, ovals, the Great Red Spot and subtle riffs in the equatorial bands all can be seen. Io is to the right and sharp-eyed readers may be able to spot Europa at the bottom of the northern equatorial band and halfway to the right edge of the planet. Note: south is up in this image.

# 186 | M101

M101 is beautiful face-on spiral galaxy located near the end of the Big Dipper's handle. Since it is face-on, detail is difficult to detect and patience is required to observe faint details. The key to locating this galaxy is observing under dark skies.

Pierre Tremblay of Quebec City, Quebec, used an 80mm Orion ED refractor riding piggyback on a Meade LX90 with an STV and Efinder automatically guiding the telescope to take this splendid image of M101 on May 5, 2005. Using a Starlight Express SXV-H9 CCD camera, Pierre took fourteen 5.5 minute RGB images and eighteen 7.5 minute luminance images using a Baader UV/IR cut filter.

The images were later stacked and processed using Images Plus and Adobe Photoshop.

# 185 | The Sun in Hydrogen-Alpha

Many may have viewed the Sun through a white-light filter and been amazed at the sunspots visible. However, a whole new world opens up if you view the Sun through a hydrogen-alpha telescope.

Allowing only a specific wavelength of light through, hydrogen-alpha telescopes allow observers to see flares, prominences and filaments on the face of the Sun.

This image, taken by John Hicks of Keswick, Ontario on May 7, 2004, shows incredibly fine detail and allows features smaller then our Sun to be seen.

John used a Meade 102 ED refractor with a 2X Astrophysics Barlow, an Astrophysics Telecentric lens, a 0.5A Daystar University oven-heated filter and an Olympus OM1 camera. Images were shot using Tech Pan 2415 black and white film. Using his scanner, John chose the "colour negative" setting to give a slight tint to image. The results were processed afterwards using MAXIM DL.

# 184 | Panoramic Aurora

An aurora lit up the night sky on Saturday, May 7, 2005 and although it was intense for only a short period of time, observers report that it was a spectacular show while it lasted.

From the Réserve Faunique La Vérendrye in Quebec, Pierre Martin took a number of photos and afterwards used Adobe Photoshop to combine three of them to create this panoramic image. Pierre used a 35mm lens at f2.8 and ISO 800.

Is there an aurora occurring right now? Visit the SkyNews Aurora Watch to find out!

# 183 | M51--The Whirlpool Galaxy

Found near the last star in the handle of the Big Dipper, late spring is the perfect time of year to observe M51 as it near the zenith soon after darkness falls. Located about 35 million light-years from Earth, the galaxy was distorted roughly one billion years ago when a small galaxy sideswiped it.

Under dark skies a 6" scope should reveal two distinct fuzzy patches with larger scopes showing a hint of spiral structure.

Paul Zelichowski recently imaged M51 from his observatory in Tiverton, Ontario using a 10" Newtonian riding atop a Losmandy G-11.

Paul combined separate images taken with Starlight Xpress HX916 (60 x 1 minute) and SXV-H9C (20 x 3 minutes) CCD cameras using Maxim DL and Adobe Photoshop.

# 182 | A Shot in the Dark

Many readers may think that astrophotography is too difficult or that they don't have expensive enough equipment to take a nice astrophoto. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Start off with the Moon. Simply hold a camera up to the eyepiece (or use an adapter to mate the two if possible) of a telescope and take a number of images. You may be pleasantly surprised at the results that can be obtained.

Using his 80mm f10 Vixen achromatic refractor, Douglas Palmer of Gatineau, Quebec took this image of the Moon in March by attaching his Kodak LS443 4MP digital camera to a 25mm Kellner eyepiece with an Orion SteadyPix SLR camera mount. Douglas used the camera's automatic settings with the zoom set to 2-3x.

# 181 | The Beginning of Imaging

As technology continues to grow by leaps and bounds, the ability for amateur astronomers to take planetary images is becoming easier and much more affordable. Today, with the click of a computer mouse, a single shot of Jupiter taken using an electronic camera attached to a telescope can show a substantial amount of detail.

Matt Grinter of Brampton, Ontario attached a Meade LPI to his Meade LX75 8" Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope and took this single image, his first ever, of Jupiter. Matt's image shows detail similar to what can be seen visually through a small-to-medium sized telescope and is a fantastic example of what can be accomplished with modest equipment.

# 180 | Artistic Aurora

Often it isn't the intensity of an aurora that makes an image beautiful, but rather the composition of the image. Steve Hachey's photo of a weak aurora reflecting in small creek in Smithers, British Columbia illustrates this perfectly.

For this subtle aurora, which occurred on April 11, 2005, Steve took a longer exposure than normal (90-seconds) using a Canon 300D (Digital Rebel) equipped with a 50mm EF lens at f1.4 using ISO 100 in RAW mode.