New Year's Eve Astrophotography

Hi Lads,
The skies cleared for a few minutes last night and I finally got a chance to take some more images. I'm still experimenting with wide-field astrophotography. However, with a little practice I'm slowly starting to get the hang of it. Must try some really long exposures next time, just for the heck of it.
All images were taken on an equtorial mount. Images processed in Photoshop CS. All images sized down to approx 60kb for dial-up users.

The first image is of Gemini & Saturn.
Focal Length 21mm--Aperture:f5.6--Exposure:1min--ISO800


The second image is of Orion, Taurus & Comet Machholz.
Focal Length 18mm--Aperture:f5.6--Exposure:2min--ISO800


The final image is of Auriga.
Focal Length 21mm--Aperture:f5.6--Exposure:2min--ISO800


Clear skies,

Michael, I assume these are digital images? What with?

Keith..

Oh yea, meant to say that they were taken with the Canon EOS 300d digital slr. :oops:

Michael,
Nice images there, I find the Canon difficult to focus to infinity, there are no indexes or markings to indicate the infinity point, so I marked it with a tiny bit of tipex in a location thats not going to destroy to astetic look of the camera.

Its a good start, the pleiades is a great location for wide field shots.
you should try longer exposures, the Canon is well able to get more stars in that area of the sky.
By chance here is a pic I took a few months ago of the same area of sky.


homepage.eircom.net/~sac/graphics/const/pleiades%2Bhyades.jpg

It has to be said that this camera is the bees knees for this job.

Nice images there, I find the Canon difficult to focus to infinity, there are no indexes or markings to indicate the infinity point, so I marked it with a tiny bit of tipex in a location thats not going to destroy to astetic look of the camera.

I turn on the Autofocus, focus on some distant house, place the camera on the tripod and then switch the focus from AF to MF. However, it would be great if infinity was easier to find manually.

It has to be said that this camera is the bees knees for this job.

Yep, I have to agree. The only thing limiting it is the user!

BTW, that's a superb image you have there Dave. You got very good focus and I especially like the way you got the colour in Aldebaran.

Clear skies,

Thanks Michael,
They are 2 images merged together, no stacking.
We had a club observing session that night up on our local observing hill, it was a particularily dark night, I piggybacked the camera on the LX200 and took 2 x 2 minute pictures.

Lets hope its clear the night the comet passes the pleiades next week, reminds me of Venus passing the Pleiades last year.