The Milky Way

After 1:00 am, when the full cutoff LED street lights are turned off, the difference in the sky is remarkable; stars become visible overhead down to about magnitude 5.3.

The following image was captured using a Canon 10D set at ISO 3200 with an 18mm lens at f/2.8. I took twelve ten-second subframes along with matching dark frames to minimize noise in the final image.

Another image was taken from my backyard in Newport at 2:00 am after the street lights were off. The Milky Way was clearly visible with stars down to about magnitude 5.4.

For this, I used my Canon 10D DSLR camera set at ISO 3200 on a tripod, with an 18mm lens at f/2.8. I captured 16 fifteen-second subframes with matching dark frames and stacked them using Deep Sky Stacker software.

M11 and M27

M11, The Wild Duck Cluster: Captured using a 10-inch f/4.8 reflector, Vixen Atlux mount with PHD auto-guiding, and a Canon 50D DSLR camera. I took 30-second subframes, integrating them with corresponding dark and flat field frames to minimize noise and vignetting. The total exposure time amounted to 15 minutes.

M27, The Dumbbell Nebula: This image was obtained with a 10-inch f/4.8 reflector, Vixen Atlux mount, PHD auto-guiding, and a Canon 50D DSLR camera. The camera was set to ISO 3200, capturing 30-second subframes, which were then merged with matching dark and flat field frames to lessen vignetting effects. The cumulative exposure time was 20 minutes.

M27, The Dumbbell Nebula: The image is a composite of data from two cameras, a Canon 50D DSLR and an Atik 383L mono CCD, utilizing narrowband filters: H Alpha, OIII, and SII.