Image Creation: Astrophotographers Share Their Stories

[owlice]

I've started this thread with the hope that some of the astrophotographers who have shared their images with us will also share the stories behind capturing their images. Thanks in advance to all who do!

[Oztronomer]

This post refers to the "sunring" photo under recent submissions May 24-26 2010.
The photo was taken on the 30-4-2010 by my dad who was doing a packaged tour of the Himalayas at the time; with a Canon ESO 400 camera set on auto. He was walking through the center of Lhasa in Tibet photographing stuff when a local who could not speak English pointed up at the sky.My dad then saw a huge ring around the sun which was close to zenith.We had seen such a ring/halo numerous times around the moon at night but never around the sun and the local seemed surprised as well.Since making the photo we have learnt that it is a fairly common phenomenon visible from all parts of the world at any time of year (22 degree halo,see http://www.atoptics.co.uk/opod.htm ) but from Melbourne,Australia we haven't seen this in over 30 years.

[nerbyon]

Hi Owlice and dear Group,

This is not exactly a story but more a description, I think it complements and helps to better understand each photograph. Owlice I'm sorry, but I thought that this Topic can also be used for this purpose, am I correct ?

Image: Espichel Skygazer....

The image was taken in the last 2th June, 2010 at 02h18 A.M.

Canon 50D -ISO800 F/5.6 Exp-30" 20mm

The image was made in the Cabo Espichel (lit. Cape Espichel) that is a cape located to the west of Sesimbra, Portugal, about 45Km south of Lisbon.The place has a breathtaking views of its cliffs,168 meters high and facing the Atlantic Ocean.


Canon 50D -ISO800 F/5 Exp-30" 10mm

In the picture above we can see the silhouette of the skygazer José Formiga, an old friend of mine, enjoying the beauty of the sky, with the moon rising on the left in the constellation Capricornus. In one of the images, he pointed his finger to the constellations of Sagittarius and Scorpius that were beginning to rise behind the rocky cliff. In the top left, you can see the star Altair in the constellation Aquila, as well part of the constellation Ophiuchus, and in the right corner, the star Zubeneschamali in Libra. Entirely, close to the center of the image can be seen the constellation Scutum. The reflection of the Moonlight in the clouds,makes an interesting combination of blueish tones, mixed with a hidden starry sky...

Thanks for your time....I hope you enjoy it

Miguel Claro

http://miguelclaro.com

[owlice]

About this image, which appeared here



the astrophotographer has this to say:

Astrophotography is a passion for me, even if i live in a very bad sky area with a lot of LC.

Unfortunately the weather conditions are getting worse when you live in the city, and this picture is just the result of a test to see what could be retrieved from an object located at such a low altitude from my location, but I liked the result though the short exposure time, and obviously the credit belongs to this object so bright and interesting.

I have only a very short focal length scope (Takahashi FSQ106) but a friend borrowed his FS102 (820mm FL) to try some globulars, and this is one of the best i know about, and in this time of the year it´s located the best position on the sky I can see it from home. The image of NGC5139 (Omega Centauri globular cluster) was taken at the lower altitude from my location (20°), just over the observatory wall, and over the city. On May 5, 2010 i took two 5 minutes images with each Astronomik II RGB filter with a FLI ML-11002 camera and a Takahashi FS-102 mounted on a AP1200 mount. The slow telescope allowed me to see details of the core of the globular and somehow minimized the LC.

[hassel]

Hi Owlice and Group

Narrowband NGC 7000

Link:

http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/11496571 ... cn7m-X3-LB

I’m a London, UK, based astro imager who is constantly attempting to wrestle fine detail from distant sky objects from a very light polluted location. This example of the North America and Pelican Nebula region was captured on one of those rare occasions here, three simultaneous nights of relatively clear skies which allowed me to collect around 8 hours of data from which I chose the best 6 hours to create this image. This is a fabulous widefield region of the night sky with knots of darker and lighter nebulousity, greatly enhanced with the use of a widefield telescope and large chipped camera. I’m still somewhat amazed I can capture such detail from a location only 12 miles from the centre of Europe’s largest city.

Here ate the technical details:
Telescope: Takahashi FSQ 106 EDX
Camera: Artemis 11002 -10 cooled mono class II chip
Mount: AstroPhysics 1200
Guidescope: Takahashi 102nsv
Guide Camera: SBIG 4200
Filter: Astronomik 12nm Hydrogen Alpha

thanks for looking

Malcolm Park
http://www.malcolmpark.com

[Max Alexander]

I took the photograph of the Sun rising over Stonehenge in the 'summer solstice week' two years ago, in June 2008. It's not possible to get a shot of the site without people on the summer solstice day itself; as many of you will know, the guardians of Stonehenge, English Heritage opens up general public access to the stones on the summer solstice morning itself. So I waited until close to the solstice (which turned out to be June 17th), to get a picture for my IYA2009 project 'Explorers of the Universe' (that was subsequently exhibited at the Royal Albert Hall in London; http://www.maxalexander.com/astronomy). I had a favourable forecast, and drove several hours from London, arriving at about 2:00 in the morning, followed by a quick and cold nap in the car. I then went onto the site to look for the 'best' position to get my shot. English Heritage, who is a client of mine, had given me special permission to be onsite. However, I decided I had a better shot from outside their perimeter fence, across the A303, which is a main arterial road in the west of England.

Looking towards the rocks, in the early morning light was an evocative scene, emphasised by the morning mist that serendipitously appeared; however, when I was setting up and taking the picture, cars and trucks were whosing past my ladder and tripod/camera setup at a great rate of knots, and I did have to wait for the camera to settle to get the pictures. It was my first attempt at getting the shot, so didn't know where precisely to stand. It was trial and error, until I saw the Sun come up (which was spine chilling; that said, obviously exercise extreme caution when photographing the Sun including not to look at it directly, especially with a long telephoto lens, and use a proper solar filter to assist with the framing), and this involved racing up and down the roadside with ladder & tripod to get the Sun rising directly over the stones. Things happen fast, especially with the narrow angle of view that this lens gave me, so I had to react very quickly, and the peak of the shot was over in a flash.

I thought it would take several attempts to get the picture, but I got lucky.

Effectively, I used a 600 mm lens - 300mm with a 2x converter on a full frame. It's all in one shot, with no manipulation, and the Nikon D3 has a fantastic feature called Active D-Lighting that records the high contrast scene in a way that is close to how the eye sees it.

Finally, Stonehenge is around 5,000 years old, and while not agreed universally, is said by many historians to mark the beginning of astronomy in the UK.

[mexhunter]

Hello to all:
The history of this photography is quite peculiar, considering the vicissitudes of our hobbie.
Ever since I ignited first swich, equatorial mount, camera, system of guidance, PC, focus and five hours acquiring light, passed without some incident. Hopefully it would respond all good that always.
The later days, during the processing of the photo, I was advancing by images with 2 filters (Ha-O3) and later added the S2, which was producing each of these three images.
Ha+O3



Ha+O3+Part of S2



Ha+O3+S2, finale



What it seemed to me a quite friendly processing.
Good, it is a history where everything was easy. Hopefully that is repeated but followed.
Many greetings

Cesar
http://www.astrophoto.com.mx