My CCD Astro-Photography

    Since my interest in astro-photography began my excitement has been continusly growing. What is only a tiny foggy blur in the eyepiece becomes a mysterious work of art from the heavens. At present my favorite are nebulae and spiral galaxies. While M42 of Orion looks wonderful with the 2000mm f10 8 inch SCT through a 26mm Plossl eyepiece, it still leaves much unseen. Pictures on the cover of cheap telescopes boxes and in magazines are not representative of what one can actually see through a telescope. The CCD astro camera pulls in so much more detail in either black & white or color. The longer the exposures before saturation the better the image. I usually do many unguided 60 second exposures of any given space object and add the better images together. i will add a page on the details of ccd imageing later. these pages include my work from january 99 to date.

    All images are taken with the Celestron Pixcel 237 camera and Celestron Celestar 8-inch Deluxe Schmidt-Cassegrain Optical Tupe Assembly (ota). Focal ratios are f10, f6.3 and f1.95 with the Fastar lens adapter for a wider field of view. The color images are with the CFW5 inhanced internal (Red, Green, Blue, Clear) RGBC color wheel.     Below are images of Nebulae , Galaxies and Planets. Try varying the brightness and contrast of your monitor for more or less detail.

New Messier Marathon CCD / GOTO style.

Click on any of these images to see larger versions. The planets are already maximum size.

NEBULAE

Much of the Messier data is gleamed from Messier Marathon.com!

M1, the crab nebula in taurus M8, the Lagoon nebula in Sagittarius M16, the Eagle nebula in Serpens M17 the Swan nebula in sagitarius
M1              M8                 M16                 M17

M20 the Trifid in sagitarius M27 the Dumbbell nebula in Vulpecula M42 The great Orion nebula, small version M43 in Orion, a part of M42
M20                M27            M42                M43

M45 The Pleiades, This is a small part of M45 M57, the ring nebula in Lyra. M78, The brightest diffuse nebula located in Orion.
M45                M57                      M78

M97, NGC3587 The Owl nebula in Ursa Major
M97

NGC281, the Pacman nebula in Cassiopeia. NGC2024, the Flame nebula in Orion in color. NGC2175 and ngc2174, the Monkey's Head nebula in Orion in color.
NGC281              NGC2024          NGC2175/2174

NGC6888, the Crescent nebula in Cygnus in color. NGC6992 in Cygnus in color. Part of the Veil nebulae NGC7293. A bright Helical nebula in Aquarius. NGC7635. A bright nebula in Cassiopia in color. Part of the veil nebulae
NGC6888          NGC6992          NGC7293           NGC7635


GALAXIES

M31, our nearby
glactical neighbor. This mosaic shows m32 and m110 as well.

M31

M33, the triangulum spiral galaxy, small version M51,a face on spiral galaxy with neighbor, The Whirlpool Galaxy. M63, The sunflower galaxy.
M33                    M51                         M63       

M64, the Cats Eye galaxy. M65 and edge on galaxy in Leo. M66 a face on galaxy in Leo.
M64                 M65                M66


M81 in Ursa Major, Bode's Galaxy M83, a face on spiral galaxy in Hydra, The Southern Pinwheel M87, a small galaxy called the sunflower.
M81                  M83                  M87

M95, a small galaxy in LEO. Link to full resolution M101 black and white image. Black and white of M108 a type SC spiral galaxy, ngc3556 in Ursa Major.
M95               M101                      M108


NGC 253 a large edge on spiral galaxy in Sculptor, color. NGC2903 a superimposed (with ngc2905) galaxy pair in Leo
NGC253              NGC2903

NGC 3190 and neighbors in Leo, also known as the Hickson group. NGC6946 a large face on spiral galaxy in Cepheus.
NGC3190              NGC6946


Miscellaneous

M13, The great Hercules constellation star cluster. the horsehead nebula b33 in orion.
M13                   B33

Comet Machholz Q2 traveling between Pleiades and Perseus.
Comet Machholz Q2 with 6 hours of images making a short animation


PLANETS

Lower left Mars image inhanced to better match the expected color.

 Inhanced color Mars image taken September 25, 2005.  Color Mars image taken September 25, 2005.  Color Mars image taken June 11, 2001.

September 25, 2005 - MARS - 6/11/2.1k

 Color mars image taken April 10, 1999. COlor image of Jupiter taken October 7, 1999. Small black and white image of Saturn taken February 2, 1999.

 MARS 4/10/99                         JUPITER 10/7/99                      SATURN 2/02/99



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© , 1998, 2007
Last edited:10/16/2006, by Don Lewis, Wye Mountain Observatory