Trials and tribulations of imaging M16 from a suburban observatory

Click on an image to get a closer view.

This image reveals the narrow time slot I have for imaging M16. I have an imaging window of about 16 degrees, that is, about 50 minutes of imaging time.

This is a single, 60s sub-frame of M16 rising above the rooftop. The camera was set on 2 times bin mode to increase the sensitivity of the camera.

This image of M16 is a composition of R,G,B colour data with narrowband luminance data

I was using my 80mm refractor at f/6.3, a Vixen Atlux mount and an Atik 383L mono CCD camera. The data for this image were captured on three seperate evenings. On the first evening I captured 5-minute subframes with matching dark-frames and combined them with flat fields with the camera set to times one bin mode. I captured three sub-frames for each narrowband filter SII, OIII and H-alpha.

On the second evening I set the camera to times two bin mode to increase the sensitivity of the camera using a H-alpha filter for luminance.

On the third evening I captured 30 minutes using a SII filter, and 25 minutes using a OIII filter using 60s sub-frames.

This image is a composition of data taken from three different telescopes, a 10" reflector, a 4 " refractor, and an 80mm refractor.

This is an image of M16 taken with a 10" reflector with colour data obtained with an 80mm refractor

M64, the Black eye galaxy

I captured this image under moonless sky conditions with stars visible down to magnitude 4.6. I was using an 80mm, f/6.3 refractor with a Vixen Atlux mount, PHD autoguiding and an Atik 383L mono CCD camera.

I captured ten-minute sub-frames with matching dark frames, and flats to remove the effect of vignetting in the final image.

The total exposure times were 60 minutes for each filter, H-alpha, SII and OIII. I sued H-alpha for Red, SII for green and OIII for blue.

Click on an image to get a closer view

M64

Cropped

M44 The Beehive Cluster

This iamge was taken with my 80mm refractor, a Vixen Atlux mount, PHD autoguiding and an Atik 383L mono CCD camera.

I captured ten-minute sub-frames with matching dark-frames, and combined them with flat-field frames to reduce the effect of vignetting in the final image.

The total exposure times were 20 minutes using a H-alpha filter, 10 minutes using a SII filter and 20 minutes using an OIII filter. I used H-alpha for the red channel, SII for the green channel and OIII for the blue channel.

M44

M13

This image was captured under a Full moon with very clear sky conditions.

I was using a Vixen Atlux mount, an 80mm refractor at f/6.3, PHD autoguiding and an Atik 383L mono CCD camera.

I captured five minute sub-frames with matching dark-frames and combined them with flat-field frames to reduce the effect of vignetting in the final image.

The total exposure times were 60 minutes for each filter, Ha, OIII and Blue.

M13

Closer view

Simple way of adding diffraction spikes to images taken by refractors.

Crossed wires in front of the objective cause diffraction spikes in the image.

M87 and Markarion's Chain

This image of M87 was taken under moonless conditions with only light-pollution to contend with. Stars were visible down to magnitude 4.8

I was using my 80mm, f/6.3 refractor, an Atik 3.83L mono CCD camera, a Vixen Atlux mount with PHD auto-guiding.

I captured 5-minute subframes with matching dark-frames and combined them with flat-field frames to reduce the effect of vignetting in the final image.

The total exposure times were 60 minutes using a H-alpha filter, 60 minutes using an OIII filter and 90 minutes using a blue filter.

M87

This image of Markarion's chain is a reprocessed image with an extra 90 minutes of luminance data added using a blue filter.

Markarion's chain

Mosaic composition of the Markarion chain with M87