Astrophotography is coming along :)Any photo links are going to my Flickr or Google+ page lightbox view of the photo(s), since I can't embed them here anymore.

So I got a new mount last month, one that tracks and is computer aided so it can swing around to find "X" object I want to look at. However, I wasn't able to really image anything as the focuser tube had some slack in it, hindering the flatness of the picture.

Enter the Orion ED80T CF! Should be an album of the Orion gear I have for AP and observing. This scope is the equivalent of having a 480mm f/6 telephoto lens on my Canon. I. LOVE. THIS. SCOPE. Such clear views and images from this beast. It's freaking light too, yay carbon fiber!

Friday nigh...

Astrophotography is coming along :)Any photo links are going to my Flickr or Google+ page lightbox view of the photo(s), since I can't embed them here anymore.

So I got a new mount last month, one that tracks and is computer aided so it can swing around to find "X" object I want to look at. However, I wasn't able to really image anything as the focuser tube had some slack in it, hindering the flatness of the picture.

Enter the Orion ED80T CF! Should be an album of the Orion gear I have for AP and observing. This scope is the equivalent of having a 480mm f/6 telephoto lens on my Canon. I. LOVE. THIS. SCOPE. Such clear views and images from this beast. It's freaking light too, yay carbon fiber!

Friday night was the "first light" of the scope, a term used when you break in a scope and see your first light through it. However, my battery on my camera was dead so I wasn't able to take pics. Though, last night (Saturday), I was. I should have stuck with one target rather than jumping to a few. I would've gotten more exposure time and gotten better stacks. All of these images are composite images from multiple exposures.

These are all from last night in a couple hours of shooting.

First up, my personal favorite, M42 - Great Nebula of Orion. I had the least amount of time on this object and it came out the best. The rest are just much fainter objects than this one. M42 is easily seen with binoculars and only ~1300 light years away. My alignment could've been better, but I'm pleased with this result. To the right of M42 is a collective object known as "The Running Man". You can barely see the nebulosity, but it's there. More time on this would've yielded a much more impressive stack, but time was not on my side, shortly after about 3 minutes of imaging, a roofline cut into frame.

Here's Bode's Galaxy and The Cigar Galaxy. I don't know as much about these objects, but they're referred to as M81 and M82 respectively. M81 isn't quite face on, and is sorta tilted away, but it's a similar galaxy to our own.

Here's the Sombrero Galaxy, again, all I know is that it's an on edge galaxy, similar to our own Milky Way and Andromeda.

Here's a faint Whirlpool Galaxy, or M51, it's a face on spiral galaxy. I don't recall much detail about the specifics either. I haven't been able to see these before so I've not yet studied up on them.

Lastly, not a galaxy, but a cluster! M13, this is sorta similar to what Orion's Nebula will look like in a few thousand years if not exponentially longer.

Last night was a learning experience mostly. Next chance I can, I'll stay on one target and take more shots, longer ones if I can too. Here's a daytime Moon shot I took while setting up things.