ebfaulkner6a

Taken 9-16-09  Cocoon Nebula using color filter wheel, ccd filters  R30 X B31 X G20 = 80 min's combined in MaxIm DL/CCD.  Don't know why this image is so dark, original is ok.

Out last night (Saturday 19th) for about an hour, dew came in to visit.  Took one hour combined images to take NGC 6960, using H-a filter, in Cygnus with my Orion 80ED on  the G8 mount.  Combined in MaxIm DL/CCD.

I'm always trying something new.  Tuesday evening was no different.  This image was taken using my new G8 mount, Starlight Xpress ccd SVX-H9, filter wheel, Ha filter, required diagonal to focus, 5x Televue lens.  I used the Ha filter to cut the light and allow imaging the planet and moons at the same time.  Taken between 11 and 11:45 pm in Whiting, NJ.   261 combined images 0.6 exposures, processed in Adobe and Registax5.  The three moons are Io, Europa and Ganymede upper right hand corner.  Whew!

This is a very short CMY exposure, 18 min's combined color images and 45 min combined Ha.  Taken Friday evening from Whiting, NJ:  First attempt at CMY imaging.  6" Astro-Tech RC

"Keeping up with the Joneses"
This is a 45 min exposure thru AT6RC Saturday evening 7-18-09 using my SVXF-H9 Starlight Xpress CCD from my backyard in Whiting, New Jersey. 

Taken with newly purchased Astro-tech 6" Ritchey Cretien Thursdy 25th June.
Messier described it as "a nebula which I am sure contains no star". Sir William Herschel used his great reflector and disclosed its true nature as "a most beautiful cluster of stars exceedingly compressed in the middle and very rich".

Again M51 (seems to be popular on this site) taken on Saturday evening when the sky was clear. I notice some dust mites on image, need to clean camera. Just over one hour exposure. Also note that there is another galaxy in the lower right hand corner, 14.5 magnitude IC4263, faint but large.

While some of you were enjoying Riker Hill observing I was out with my Orion 80ED taking images of the Sombrero Galaxy (42 min less time than I wanted due to trees) and M51 just under one hour exposure. This was one of the absolutely dark, clear and possible clearest night of late, on a scale of 10, no doubt a 10. The edge on dark line shows much better in this image than previous Sombrero images I have taken. Hope you like it. Also in the image to the lower left is another galaxy, magnitude 13.7 NGC 4562.

This is a one hour image composite, 60 x 1 min exposures thru the new Astro-Tech 6" Ritchey Chretien telescope mounted on the Vixen GPD.  I expected more but when you go from 3" ED scope to a 6" RC detail needs longer exposures.  However I did an automatic processing in AIP for Windows and then experimented with additional processing manually.  I will need to get 3-5 hours exposure or more to get more detail.  And experiment with AIP. And I used a diagonal which is a boo boo !

Enhanced in Registax, looks more like other internet images.  Cropped image.