Astrophotography Gallery

Monochrome DSI Pro Images

All of the images on this page are monochrome grayscale. I either ran out of time to take the color frames, or conditions were not favorable. After playing around with them for a while I decided that they were still worth posting. I will repost them in all of their RGB glory when I am able to do the color frames.

M20, the Trifid Nebula in Sagittarius

Object	M20, the Trifid Nebula
Date	September 9, 2005
Conditons	Mag limit - 5.0 Trans - poor Seeing - good
Instrument	4" f/5.5 Mak/Newt
Camera	DSI Pro
Mount	Cave EQ with B&L drive corrector
Guiding	Unguided
Exposure	10 minutes (15 second subs)
Processing	Aquired with Envisage, Post-processed with Drizzle, 1.5, 1.0, 0.5. Levels, curves, in Photoshop. FitsPlug for import GradientXterminator for LP gradients. Neat Image for noise reduction.
Comments	Gain - 90 Offset - 50 Autodarks, no flats Saved individual frames as .fts 32 bit float This image was done as a demo for some attendees at Astrofest.

M16, the Eagle Nebula in Sagittarius

Object	M16, the Eagle Nebula aka, the 'Star Queen'
Date	August 23, 2005
Conditons	Mag limit - 4.0 Trans - good Seeing - good
Instrument	4" f/5.5 Mak/Newt
Camera	DSI Pro
Mount	Cave EQ with B&L drive corrector
Guiding	Unguided
Exposure	20 minutes (15 second subs)
Processing	Aquired with Envisage, Post-processed with Drizzle, 2.0, 1.0, 0.5. Levels, curves, selective gaussian blur and unsharp mask in Photoshop. FitsPlug for import
Comments	Gain - 90 Offset - 50 Autodarks, no flats Saved individual frames as .fts 32 bit float I was planning on color, but the eagle flew into the trees! (I was imaging at home in my backyard.)

M17, the Swan Nebula in Sagittarius

Object	M17, the Swan Nebula, aka the 'Checkmark' or 'Omega' nebula.
Date	August 23, 2005
Conditons	Mag limit - 4.0 Trans - good Seeing - good
Instrument	4" f/5.5 Mak/Newt
Camera	DSI Pro
Mount	Cave EQ with B&L drive corrector
Guiding	Unguided
Exposure	10 minutes (15 second subs)
Processing	Aquired with Envisage, Post-processed with Drizzle, 2.0, 1.0, 0.5. Levels, curves, selective gaussian blur and unsharp mask in Photoshop. FitsPlug for import GradientXterminator for LP gradients.
Comments	Gain - 90 Offset - 50 Autodarks, no flats Saved individual frames as .fts 32 bit float This was done the same night as the Eagle. The same tree got in the way.

NGC6992, the Veil Nebula in Cygnus

Object	NGC6992, the Veil Nebula, aka the 'Cirrus' or 'Network' nebula.
Date	September 10, 2005
Conditons	Mag limit - 4.0 Trans - poor Seeing - good Lots of intermittent, thin clouds.
Instrument	4" f/5.5 Mak/Newt
Camera	DSI Pro
Mount	Cave EQ with B&L drive corrector
Guiding	Unguided
Exposure	20 minutes (30 second subs) with red filter.
Processing	Aquired with Envisage. Levels, curves, selective gaussian blur in Photoshop. FitsPlug for import GradientXterminator for LP gradients.
Comments	Gain - 100 Offset - 50 Autodarks, no flats Saved individual frames as .fts 32 bit float This was my second night at Astrofest, and conditions were even worse than the night before. I almost didn't include this one here, but decided that it would give me incentive to try again under better conditions. There were lots of thin clouds moving through and the background ended up almost as bright as the nebula, hence the noisy, weak image.