MadMan's Astronomy and Astrophotography Pages - Photos of the Week

Below are the start of a number of images done with the M25C and SX-AO unit in the C11" Edge HD SCT scope.  The weather has only allowed collection of a few hours on
each here in Atlanta.  I have started keeping a library of calibrated lights (calibrated against the flats done on the night of imaging) so that I can stack all the data at the end of
the season into what hopefully will be good pictures.  This is what you have to do when you live in what might as well be a rain forest and are into this hobby :(  I can't
organize my field boxes any more than I already have and am running out of data to process.
Starting to work on mosaics in February.  Preview of some results....
Equipment configurations for January (see below):

Rainy nights are expensive.  More equipment.  More possible configurations.  More organized field boxes (now have dedicated cases for Visual, DSO and Planetary in addition to
Tools/Hardware, Finderscopes and Camera cases).
Photos of The Week - January, 2013
Takahashi FSQ-106 EDX.  Wide-field multi-camera combinations...  Lots of rain this month ....
Sombrero Galaxy - 5h of 10 minute
RGB sub-frames.
M51 - Whirlpool Galaxy - 4h10m of 10 minute RGB sub-frames from the M25C camera plus an hour of Ha
HaRGB image lose the Ha and become just RGB).  I plan on adding more time when weather clears.
Tak FSQ-106 - H694 Camera:
Helix Nebula - 4h of 15 minute emission line filter sub-frames.  H694 Mono camera.  
Combined in the Hubble Palette (Sii=Red, Hydrogen Alpha=Green, Oiii=Blue).
Wide-Field Canon Lenses and Canon 60Da, H694 and M25C Cameras:
Simeis 147 (Sh2-240)  

Supernova Remnant inTaurus and Auriga (crosses two constellations in size). 4h of both RGB and Ha data
captured with two cameras and registered for combination/blending with Registar.  Very large, faint object
covering a huge part of the sky (see image to right for the visible size of the moon as a comparison).  Will take a
lot more data capture.
Planetary work:  PGR-Flea3 video camera and C11" Edge HD were used to image the two Jupiter photos on the left and a Canon 60Da DSLR
mounted in the Tak FSQ-106 refractor were used for the Moon/Jupiter near transit images:
Experiments with Flea3 and EP
Projection for planetary.  Results
forthcoming.
New WO Bino set.  Tried on
C11 and loved them.
Too much time...
(L-R): DSO Case, Planetary Case, Visual Case, Camera (empty because on mounts) Case
Current Equipment -
waiting for clear sky
Owl Nebula - 2h of 10 minute
sub-frames.  M25C Camera.  Needs a
lot more time!
Moon and Jupiter near Transit - 1/20/13:

Right top is a single 1/400s exposure at ISO 100. To the left is a stack of 3 frames each at 3 different exposures - total 10 frames combined
in Photoshop using layers.  One exposure setting for the moon, one for Jupiter and one for Jupiter's moons (4 are visible if you zoom).  
Crop is also provided of the stack.
Orion Multi-Camera, Multi-wavelength Composite:

Done with Canon lenses, this image represents 2+ hours of 2 minute exposures with the Canon 60Da DSLR combined with a 3 hour
2-panel vertical mosaic of Ha images captures with the H694 camera and a Canon EOS 24-105 zoom lens set to 50mm.  The presentation
is HaRed+G+B+HaLum.
Just for Fun - Star trail composite of my view of Polaris:

30, 40 and 170 minutes of stacked 1 minute frames taken with the Canon 60Da DSLR on a stationary tripod.  Images were
combined with a neat little piece of freeware called StarStax.exe.  Google it on-line and have fun!
Last M25C/AO image for January:  
Globular Cluster M3 - 33 minutes of
stacked sub-frames.  M25C Camera.
Soul Nebula - only 3 hours of emission line filter sub-frames.  H694 Mono camera.  
Combined in the Hubble Palette (Sii=Red, Hydrogen Alpha=Green, Oiii=Blue).
Crops
10 frame, multi-exposure manual stack
Larger RGB crop
Ha 'screen' overlay
HaRed+G+B.  
Final for now.
RGB only
27mb full size file below

M25C in Tak106 reduced for color (6h30m), H694 for 3 panel Ha mosaic (6h30m), H18 in Tak106 reduced for luminance detail of IC434 and M42.