The following astro images are from our back garden near Southampton, UK:
This image was taken with the Meade DSI (Deep Sky Imager), during a full moon, and with some badly chosen software settings (I saved the image as a compressed 14KB jpg rather than in FITS format). I've forgotten the exposure times, so the one below is a guess. The blocking effect is the result of the jpeg compression. I fiddled with the gamma settings using GIMP, but otherwise the image is untouched, including the hot pixels. Subsequent images taken later during that evening, after I had taken dark frames, seemed to be underexposed.
This is a close-in look at the Trapezium (The four bright stars in the middle of the image) in M42, the Orion Nebula at 19:49 UT, Sunday 26th December 2004
For a comparison take a look at this M42 image, taken with the 48 inch (1.2m) telescope at the F.L. Whipple Observatory. You can see in the professional image that some of the stars are clearly resolved, in the same places where there are faint smudges in my image. For a really impressive view of the Trapezium Cluster take a look at this Hubble Space Telescope image and Roland Christen's M42
Saturn on 4th January 2004 taken through a 2x Televue Powermate and an IR blocking filter.
Saturn on 17th December 2003 taken at prime focus. 621 out of 1200 frames selected. Notes: Couldn't get perfect focus, really need to fit and use a secondary focuser. A barlow would allow Saturn to cover more pixels and make more use of the CCD. An infrared blocking filter might increase the images's contrast.
Revision History
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