Orion M42

The great Orion Nebula (M42) and the Running Man Nebula (NGC1977) in Orion. Not bad for a 60% moonlit night on the Summer Solstice here in the southern hemisphere. This was one hour of light capture followed by too many hours of image processing in my new favourite app, Siril.

Star Rise

The stars are barely visible here fighting against the light of the near full Moon. The moonlight is so bright it scatters in the air and makes a near daytime appearance of the evening sky. In this image looking south above a young Bunya Pine is the Eta Carina nebula and toward the right, the Large Magellanic Cloud.

Sky Horse

The Horsehead nebula, Barnard 33 in the constellation Orion. This has been one of my dream targets for many years. Not bad for a 60mm refractor and Canon 60D. This is one hour worth of exposure time.

Nebulous

The always wonderful Eta Carina Nebula. This photo was taken with approximately 6 minutes of exposure time with a Canon 60D and Televue60is scope. It was stacked and levelled in Deep Sky Stacker. My best effort at astrophotography so far.

Orion Nebula

The Orion nebula, M42, as seen from Mount Isa in a 60mm refractor.

Astronomical View

The wonderful nebula of Eta Carinae. This is a great target to see and photograph in the clear desert nights during the dry season.

Star Trails

The tales a star would tell from its trails.  This is the Orion nebula (red glow, centre) as it moves across the field of view.  I finally got the chance to put my DSLR onto the telescope and this was the result.  Two minutes at f6, 360mm TeleVue.

Orion Reprocessed

This is a newly reprocessed image taken back in March of 2010. I think you'll agree it has some nicer details than this image last year.

Eta Carinae

Finally before leaving we pointed the scope toward Eta Carinae in the south and got this photograph.

Barnard 33

Next target was Barnard 33, the Horsehead nebula, and the flame nebula near Alnitak in the Orion constellation.

Orion

Last weekend we got some clear skies and headed out to the astronomy club for some viewing and photography. We used my Televue 60 and a friend's unmodified Canon 450D to catch some photons. This was one of the results of stacking a few 30 second exposures.