My latest Astrophoto

[orogenicman]

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.

Very nice, I admire the dedication of anyone that produces images like this. The time spent collecting and post processing is immense as I understand.

I have an 8" Meade LX90 just for visual, astrophotography is a big leap from that. The mount is most important from what I've read? Folk spend thousands on this kit even before taking into account the camera gear.

The mount is everything.  It must be rock solid.  It must have go to and guiding capabilities.  That means it will be heavy, and be more sophisticated electronically than a standard mount.  And above all, it needs to be a German equatorial mount, for precise alignment and guiding capabilities.  in addition, I've seen a lot of people who wanted to get into astrophotography make the mistake of buying a moderately priced mount and then going with an f9-11 system such as a Schmitt-Cassegrain.  And then realize that guiding is difficult at that f-ratio, and the mount usually doesn't have the needed precision for long exposures at that f-ratio.  The best bet is to buy a dedicated wide field astrograph and use a moderately priced go to mount such as the Orion Atlas mount. Then you can either go with off axis guiding or a dedicated guide scope.  The latter is what I use because it gives you more choices of guide stars.  I use a modified DSLR.  It has several advantages over a standard astronomical CCD camera.  Number one is the price.  Astronomical CCD cameras come with an astronomical price.  Since they are usually monochrome, it requires a filter wheel in order to obtain the requisite color images.  Then there is the fact that you have to take three times the number of images to get your finally RGB image.  On the other hand, astronomical CCD cameras give you the capability to take images using the "Hubble pallet".  If you go with a modified DSLR, you get the advantage of reduced imaging time, and a much simpler set up.  The disadvantage is that most DSLRs do not use CCDs.  They use CMOS imaging chips, which have a bayer layer pre-installed to produce the color image.  In addition, in order to get all that pretty red hydrogen alpha nebular emission in your finally, your DSLR must be modified.  Almost all DSLR camera manufacturers place a very strong infrared cut filter on their sensors.  They do this to obtain a proper color balance for standard photography, which is what the DSLRs were designed for in the first place.  Unfortunately, those filters block the near infrared hydrogren alpha emission that every astronomer is looking for.  My camera is a Hutech-Modified Canon T1i.  The infrared blocking filter has been replaced with a clear filter.  For astronomy purposes, I use a uv/ir cut filter, which cuts ambient UV in the atmosphere, and also the atmospheric ambient infrared, while allowing the near infrared (hydrogen alpha emission) to pass through.  The result is the image you see at the beginning of this thread.  I can also use this camera for standard photography by using an uv/ur cut filter with the standard kit lens, and doing a custom white balance to get the proper colors.  And finally, DSLRs tend to be noiser than dedicated astronomical cameras.  Noise is temperature-dependent, meaning that the colder it is outside,  the less noise the camera will produce.  DSLRs are not temperature regulated, whereas dedicated astronomical cameras are.  There are ways around that with DSLRs but that is a subject that requires more time than I have right now.