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My latest Astrophoto
July 7, 2015 at 11:05 pm
Beautiful skies, indeed. Here is the result of perseverance. I spent the evening of June 20th (2015) with two other astrophotographers from the Flint River Astronomy Club (central Georgia), Alan and Felix. I stood in awe of their rigs. Alan has Celestron C11 Edge mounted on an 1100GTO German Equatorial Mount with Servo Motor Drive, while Felix has an Astro-Physics •130 mm f/6.3 StarFire EDF 'Gran Turismo' Triplet Apochromatic Refractor with 3.5" Focuser (you get put on an 8 year waiting list to get one of t...hese) mounted on an •1200GTO German Equatorial Mount with Servo Motor Drive. Wow, what beauties those beasts are. You can view them in the images below.
The night started out completely clouded over. Ever the optimists, we decided to set up anyway and trust in the weather gods. Finally, at about 12:30 A:M the gods cooperated, and the sky cleared. Felix imaged a dark nebula in Ophiuchus. Alan imaged M17. Not to be outdone, I decided that since Sagittarius was looking so stellar, I would image M17 as well, but also because the last three attempts never were very satisfying for me. I took 22 five-minute images at ISO 800. My perseverance paid off. Here is my result. enjoy:
Here is Alan's badass rig. You can mine in the background:
![[Image: alanscope.jpg]](https://images.weserv.nl/?url=i1012.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Faf250%2Forogenicman%2Falanscope.jpg)
Here is Felix's badass rig:
![[Image: _MG_5381_1.jpg]](https://images.weserv.nl/?url=i1012.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Faf250%2Forogenicman%2F_MG_5381_1.jpg)
Here is the image I took that night:
Messier 17, the Swan Nebula, in Sagittarius
![[Image: a_1_a_1_m17_mxm3c.jpg]](https://images.weserv.nl/?url=i1012.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Faf250%2Forogenicman%2Fa_1_a_1_m17_mxm3c.jpg)
'The difference between a Miracle and a Fact is exactly the difference between a mermaid and seal. It could not be expressed better.'
-- Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemens
"I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin not with the scriptures, but with experiments, demonstrations, and observations".
- Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
"In short, Meyer has shown that his first disastrous book was not a fluke: he is capable of going into any field in which he has no training or research experience and botching it just as badly as he did molecular biology. As I've written before, if you are a complete amateur and don't understand a subject, don't demonstrate the Dunning-Kruger effect by writing a book about it and proving your ignorance to everyone else! "
- Dr. Donald Prothero
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RE: My latest Astrophoto
July 7, 2015 at 11:07 pm
Magnificent, Oro.
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RE: My latest Astrophoto
July 7, 2015 at 11:12 pm
Spectacular
Playing Cluedo with my mum while I was at Uni:
"You did WHAT? With WHO? WHERE???"
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RE: My latest Astrophoto
July 7, 2015 at 11:12 pm
Thanks, Min. Considering the competition I had, I was very satisfied with my result. In fact, after seeing my image, Alan, the one with the rig in the first picture, e-mail me with compliments, as did Felix. Alan's was very good, but the magnification of his scope is so powerful that it only got a fraction of the field of view my image has. I've always said that magnification isn't everything in astrophotography, and neither is it important to the most expensive optics on the market.
'The difference between a Miracle and a Fact is exactly the difference between a mermaid and seal. It could not be expressed better.'
-- Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemens
"I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin not with the scriptures, but with experiments, demonstrations, and observations".
- Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
"In short, Meyer has shown that his first disastrous book was not a fluke: he is capable of going into any field in which he has no training or research experience and botching it just as badly as he did molecular biology. As I've written before, if you are a complete amateur and don't understand a subject, don't demonstrate the Dunning-Kruger effect by writing a book about it and proving your ignorance to everyone else! "
- Dr. Donald Prothero
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RE: My latest Astrophoto
July 7, 2015 at 11:13 pm
Thanks, Beccs.
'The difference between a Miracle and a Fact is exactly the difference between a mermaid and seal. It could not be expressed better.'
-- Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemens
"I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin not with the scriptures, but with experiments, demonstrations, and observations".
- Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
"In short, Meyer has shown that his first disastrous book was not a fluke: he is capable of going into any field in which he has no training or research experience and botching it just as badly as he did molecular biology. As I've written before, if you are a complete amateur and don't understand a subject, don't demonstrate the Dunning-Kruger effect by writing a book about it and proving your ignorance to everyone else! "
- Dr. Donald Prothero
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RE: My latest Astrophoto
July 7, 2015 at 11:17 pm
That's pretty sweet, oro.
I bet that apo takes some purty pictures. I haven't priced out any astro gear lately, but I bet that setup cost several multiples of what I paid for my SCT.
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RE: My latest Astrophoto
July 7, 2015 at 11:22 pm
![[Image: tumblr_m5iovxNtzi1qlpp33.gif]](https://images.weserv.nl/?url=media.tumblr.com%2Ftumblr_m5iovxNtzi1qlpp33.gif)
About all I can say really. Truly a splendid picture, well done 
![[Image: rySLj1k.png]](https://images.weserv.nl/?url=i.imgur.com%2FrySLj1k.png)
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RE: My latest Astrophoto
July 7, 2015 at 11:23 pm
(This post was last modified: July 7, 2015 at 11:23 pm by orogenicman.)
(July 7, 2015 at 11:17 pm)Cthulhu Dreaming Wrote: That's pretty sweet, oro.
I bet that apo takes some purty pictures. I haven't priced out any astro gear lately, but I bet that setup cost several multiples of what I paid for my SCT.
Indeed. I have something like $5,000 in mine, and theirs are orders of magnitude more than what I paid. But they are using the latest ccds and filter wheels with expensive filters, whereas I am using a modified Canon DSLR. The f-ratio is much too high on Alan's to be trying to take widefield images. But he could beat mine hands down imaging galaxies and other very deep sky objects. I'm a Milky Way sort of fella.
'The difference between a Miracle and a Fact is exactly the difference between a mermaid and seal. It could not be expressed better.'
-- Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemens
"I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin not with the scriptures, but with experiments, demonstrations, and observations".
- Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
"In short, Meyer has shown that his first disastrous book was not a fluke: he is capable of going into any field in which he has no training or research experience and botching it just as badly as he did molecular biology. As I've written before, if you are a complete amateur and don't understand a subject, don't demonstrate the Dunning-Kruger effect by writing a book about it and proving your ignorance to everyone else! "
- Dr. Donald Prothero
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RE: My latest Astrophoto
July 7, 2015 at 11:23 pm
Amazing, as always, oro.
I'm so freaking jelly.
"There remain four irreducible objections to religious faith: that it wholly misrepresents the origins of man and the cosmos, that because of this original error it manages to combine the maximum servility with the maximum of solipsism, that it is both the result and the cause of dangerous sexual repression, and that it is ultimately grounded on wish-thinking." ~Christopher Hitchens, god is not Great
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RE: My latest Astrophoto
July 7, 2015 at 11:56 pm
(July 7, 2015 at 11:12 pm)orogenicman Wrote: Thanks, Min. Considering the competition I had, I was very satisfied with my result. In fact, after seeing my image, Alan, the one with the rig in the first picture, e-mail me with compliments, as did Felix. Alan's was very good, but the magnification of his scope is so powerful that it only got a fraction of the field of view my image has. I've always said that magnification isn't everything in astrophotography, and neither is it important to the most expensive optics on the market.
Nature did a great job.
Better than any god.
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