Mike's Astro Photos

Here’s a picture of M101, the famous Pin Wheel Galaxy. This image is a 45 minute exposure containing 9×5 minute sub frames @ ISO800 stacked with DSS.

M101 Pin Wheel Galaxy - January 9th, 2010

I’ve been wanting to shoot a good picture of the Andromeda Galaxy since I got my telescope. Andromeda is the closest galaxy to the Milky Way and a very large target. Its proportionally a little larger than the full moon in the sky (no you can’t really see it with your naked eye, but if you could it would be as big as the moon). Andromeda is a hard target for larger scopes because of its size. Here’s the best picture of Andromeda I’ve been able to do yet. Its a total of 90×2 minute frames (180 minutes!) and it still doesn’t look the way I would expect it to.

Andromeda Galaxy - November 28th, 2009

Here’s a picture of M51 the Whirlpool Galaxy. This picture is the result of 18×5 minute frames – a total exposure time of 90 minutes. I used deep sky stacker to stack the sub frames and remove hot pixels and process the flat fields.  

M51 - Whirlpool Galaxy - December 24th, 2009

Here is a picture of the Triangulum Galaxy aka Messier 33, a spiral galaxy three million light years away. This picture is 20×5 minute sub-frames stacked with flats in Deep Sky Stacker.

M33 The Triangulum Galaxy - December 20th, 2009

Bode's Galaxy May 31, 2009

It may not look like much but this image is the result of about 3 weeks of work and about 1.25 hours of exposure time. The 3 weeks that led up to this image mostly centered around drift alignment and proper / perfect polar alignment. We had plenty of technical snaffus during the period, including shooting for a week at ISO200, bad balance and tracking problems. When all was said and done, I learned a whole lot and finally got a good shot of bode’s galaxy (good for me at least).

M82 First Try - Apr 18, 2009

I took this picture of M82 on Apr 18, 2009, the same night I got the whirlpool galaxy. It was a perfect night all around. I had near perfect polar alignment (bigest factor in taking good pics i’ve learned so far), the lights were out and the sky was very dark and very clear. I had spent most of the night photographing the whirlpool, it was after 2:00 AM and I was like… let me try and get one more object. On a whim, I set the goto to M82. The galaxy was perfectly framed in my eye piece so I took a few snaps (20 at 1-2 minutes each). I’m pretty happy with the results.

Whirpool Galaxy

I was plesantly surprised with this picture of the whirpool galaxy. I took this on the third night of a 3 night astro binge. I had perfect weather, near perfect alignment and pretty much everything was working great. I was not guiding during these shots and the longest exposure was 3 minutes. I took about 30-40 pictures, mostly 2 minute and 3 minute exposures on a DSLR. I took the best shots (about 15-20 pics) and stacked them in photoshop. Other than lining up the layers and smart fixes on 2-3 frames no other image processing took place. This image was taken on a wedge mounted 11-inch SCT with a Canon 20Da camera.

M66

Here’s a second attempt at m66. Better polar alignment, darker skies and a longer exposure (2 minutes) make this image look a lot better than my first attempt. This is 6 2 minute exposures primatively stacked in photo shop. There are no darks flats or advanced image processing going on here, just pretty basic stacking. This was an un-guided photo.

Sombrero Galaxy M104

Here’s my second attempt at photographing M104, the Sombrero Galaxy. I had a near perfect night when I took this. No moon, very little light polution and great polar alignment all contributed to this picture. This image is the result of stacking 10 2 minute exposures in photoshop. There was no guiding during this photo shoot.

M66 April 11, 2009

Here’s my first attempt at M66. I took it in the same session as M65, all conditions were the same. This is aproximately 7 frames at 1 minute each. This is a non-guided shot as you can see from the enlongation with the background stars. Not bad for the first time. I have to get my balance and polar alignment down better before I start guiding again. Still I’m happy with these results and look forward to when I can try this again with the auto guider on.

M65 April 11, 2009

Here’s a picture of M65. Its 10×1-minute exposures at iso800. Taken on a wedge mounted, imperfectly polar aligned CPC1100 with a Canon 20Da. There was no guiding during this session. This was actually pretty easy all things considered. Currently i’m dealing with balance and tracking issues, and I was more focused on getting those things right than taking pictures tonight. But I had a chance to get this shot and I’m pretty happy with the results considering the short exposure time, poor alignment and lack of guiding.

Hola. Here’s my first attempt at photographing the Sombrero Galaxy taken March 30, 2009.

Sombrero Galaxy

This picture contains 7 stacked exposures 1 minute each using a Canon 20Da DSLR on an 11 inch CPC SCT (f/10 focal ratio). There was no guiding during this photo session because I couldn’t aquire a bright enough guide star in the field of view.