Archive for July, 2011
Lightning Over The Caribbean, Atlantis Bahamas
by Mike Hankey, under Clouds
I was on vacation last week at Atlantis in the Bahamas. Here are some pictures I took of a lightning storm over the Caribbean.
The constellation in the background is the big dipper.
I caught a faint meteor during the session.
This is the third year in a row we’ve been to Atlantis Bahamas for vacation and it was the best one yet.
Atlantis Final Launch Photos
by Mike Hankey, under Misc
One of my neighbors went to Cape Canaveral for the final Space Shuttle launch. I asked her to send me some pictures. I strung them together in this quick animation of the launch. Thanks Caron! You did a great job!
Messier 5 – First Color CCD Photo Ever
by Mike Hankey, under Stars
I had a good run on globular clusters during last month’s new moon phase that culminated with this color shot of M5. Note the faint green trail of a satellite in the upper left. The only reason its green is because I was shooting through a green filter when the satellite crossed the field of view.
I have been transitioning from DSLR astrophotography to CCD photography. The CCD cameras are way better and the quality and overall ease of things is much better, but there is a bit of a learning curve. I’m still working out some issues with the optics and guiding combos. This photo guided perfectly with the MOAG, but due to the way things are connected, I can’t use the field flattener / corrector when I’m using the MOAG. As a result, there is distortion and stretching at the outer corners. I have since setup a guide-scope, so I can use the corrector and I’m getting worse guide results now. So there’s still work to be done… All this aside, M5 turned out pretty good for the first attempt at a color shot and July is starting out nicely too.
Photo Details
30x30x30 RGB
Camera SBIG ST8300
Guiding off-axis with a 402 mounted using a MOAG.
Paramount ME Mount
William Optics FLT98
CCDSoft / The Sky X / CCDStack