Stuff in the Sky

[Canuck from Kansas]

Gonna resurrect this over here, well because I can and because this is the only social media I'm on and can post stuff.

I'll start with our old friend, the Orion nebula (Running Man at about 10 o'clock), it is just so stunning. You can actually see the this nebula with a good pair of binoculars and get decent photos with a telephoto (anywhere from 200 to 600 mm) and tripod - this was taken with a Zenithstar 81 559 mm refractor scope with 0.8x reducer, so the equivalent of about 450 mm, Sony Alpha 77II (ISO 800; 30 x 180 second exposures):



And my latest visit to the Andromeda galaxy, also easily viewable with binoculars.



Cheers

 

[Gyrfalcon22]

Glad you brought it over here !

 

[Long_Rod_Silvers]

Glad you brought it back!

 

[Canuck from Kansas]

Hope others will add content, doesn't need to be astro.

cheers

 

[Jim F.]

You have my thanks as well @Canuck from Kansas !

 

[Canuck from Kansas]

NGC 281, sometimes commonly referred to as the Pacman Nebula (it supposedly resemble Pacman, not sure if I would know him if I bumped into him though). The Pacman Nebula is in constellation Cassiopeia and was first described in August 1883 by E. E. Barnard, who described it as "a large faint nebula, very diffuse." I don't believe he called it PacMan though. It is a mere 10,000 light years away, almost in your back yard.



Not entirely happy with this. I have been using a OIII: Halpha dual narrow pass filter - think I'm actually filtering out too much light - have a multispectra filter on the way - should cut out most light pollution (Hg, Na), but let in a little more blue of Hbeta and of the far red SII.

Cheers

 

[Long_Rod_Silvers]

Stumbled across this today, it's a 2.5 gigapixel photo of Orion. Tool the guy 5 years. Zooming in is a bit of a trip seeing how much detail he captures. A year + old, but thought worth sharing in case some folks hadn't seen it.

Link to photo

Project Orion by Matt Harbison

Story:

This Insane 2.5 Gigapixel Image of the Orion Constellation Took Five Years To Complete

In a project that took 5 years to capture, 500 hours of editing, and 42 total hours to process, astrophotographer Matt Harbison has completed a dream

petapixel.com

 

[Canuck from Kansas]

Stumbled across this today, it's a 2.5 gigapixel photo of Orion. Tool the guy 5 years. Zooming in is a bit of a trip seeing how much detail he captures. A year + old, but thought worth sharing in case some folks hadn't seen it.

Link to photo

Project Orion by Matt Harbison

Story:

This Insane 2.5 Gigapixel Image of the Orion Constellation Took Five Years To Complete

In a project that took 5 years to capture, 500 hours of editing, and 42 total hours to process, astrophotographer Matt Harbison has completed a dream

petapixel.com

Crazy, thanks for posting. Guy spent a few hard earned dollars for his setup, not to mention the hours. Unfortunately, the links to his image don't seem to work for me, I have to fiddle.

Edit: @Long_Rod_Silvers, just saw your link to the image, that works - WILD!!! Guess I have my work cut out for me. Thanks again.

Cheers

 

[@Dryflyphotography]

I hope its OK to add this one...

 

[Canuck from Kansas]

I hope its OK to add this one...View attachment 3923

Absolutely, beautiful shot - star trails can be fun and really add to a shot.

Thanks for posting.

cheers

 

[swimmy]

Cool thread.

I’d love to practice this style of photography. I first need to figure out how to stay up past 8 pm.

 

[Canuck from Kansas]

Cool thread.

I’d love to practice this style of photography. I first need to figure out how to stay up past 8 pm.

Hah, this is exactly my issue - one solve, I am usually up at 4:30 AM, so an extra few hours early is not a big deal.

From what I've seen of your photos, you have a really nice telephoto - you can easily get started with that, get some really good shots of Orion, Andromeda, you've also got a nice wide angle for shots like @Dryflyphotography - give it a try - you may live to regret it, it can be addicting.

cheers

 

[@Dryflyphotography]

Some of my favorite shooting memories are from night captures. Its amazing to stand next to your tripod in pitch black moonless night and watch that little red "shutter open" light glow on the camera for 20-30 seconds, then see things on the back screen that your naked eyes could not. But for me I like the wide lens images. Here are my three favorites including the Milky Way from Haleakala that won us a Hawaii Mag grand prize package one year. I still want to shoot Mt Rainier and the Milky Way and possibly Smith Rock & MW too. But like Swimmy, each year I fall asleep earlier and earlier, so who knows?

 

[Long_Rod_Silvers]

Holy shit those are awesome.

 

[Canuck from Kansas]

Some of my favorite shooting memories are from night captures. Its amazing to stand next to your tripod in pitch black moonless night and watch that little red "shutter open" light glow on the camera for 20-30 seconds, then see things on the back screen that your naked eyes could not. But for me I like the wide lens images. Here are my three favorites including the Milky Way from Haleakala that won us a Hawaii Mag grand prize package one year. I still want to shoot Mt Rainier and the Milky Way and possibly Smith Rock & MW too. But like Swimmy, each year I fall asleep earlier and earlier, so who knows?
View attachment 4398View attachment 4397

View attachment 4400

Really nice shots. Hoping to make a trip out to the coast and Cape Blanco in late spring to get a MW shot over the lighthouse/cliffs/ocean - clear nights there are the problem.

cheers

 

[@Dryflyphotography]

Really nice shots. Hoping to make a trip out to the coast and Cape Blanco in late spring to get a MW shot over the lighthouse/cliffs/ocean - clear nights there are the problem.

cheers

Sounds like a great photo excursion. Add some fly fishing along the way and you have an awesome trip!

 

[Canuck from Kansas]

Got this image of Bode's nebula the other night.

Bode's Nebula is actually 2 galaxies, M 81 and M 82. By strange coincidence, Bode's Nebula was first discovered by Johann Elert Bode in 1774, who described it as a "nebulous patch", which "appears mostly round and has a dense nucleus in the middle." Pierre Méchain independently rediscovered both galaxies in 1779 and reported them to Charles Messier, who added them to his catalog in 1781 (hence the "M" designation). M 81 is probably about 12 million light years away, as determined by Hubble Space Telescope observations of Cepheid variables within it (whatever that means). The true diameter of M 81 is at least 70,000 light years; its mass has been calculated to be around 250 billion suns. This makes it somewhat heavier than our Milky Way.

In 1994, investigations indicated that M 81 contains little dark matter. For many galaxies, including our own Milky Way, the rotation rate increases outward with distance from the core. However, the total observed luminous matter - stars and nebulae - is typically insufficient to explain this behavior; thus it is assumed that a significant portion of mass in such galaxies is non-luminous, dark matter. In contrast, M 81's rotation rate was found to decline in the outer regions. Thus for M 81, the percentage of dark matter is now estimated to be lower than average.



All factual information on Bodes Nebula from SkySafari 6 Pro.

cheers

 

[SilverFly]

Good to see I'm not the only astronomy buff here. For years I thought about buying finished optics to build a 12" Newtonian, but life and other interests kept getting in the way. Then once Hubble came online, and I picked my jaw off the floor, I didn't see much point. Seeing some of the awesome stuff here, is making me reconsider that. Fingers and toes crossed that the optics align and instruments work for the James Webb Space Telescope. Can't wait to see images that will blow Hubble away!

 

[Canuck from Kansas]

@SilverFly, not sure if you checked the link posted by LRS, was created by an amateur - Makes me want to go back to bed:

Project Orion by Matt Harbison

Cheers

 

[@Dryflyphotography]

It always blows me away to look at photos of other parts of our universe. Life, and all that is in existence that we know, don't know, understand, and don't understand, is so very mind blowing. Thanks for the photos and the link to the photo. Wow.