-
Leo Constellation
This is Leo, the constellation, or better said, the asterism.
The image covers a field of 41x19 degrees approximately, and it's formed by 54 different subframes, that is, it's a mosaic of 54 frames. If you can recognize the Leo constellation, next time you're under dark skies, look at...
-
Head to toes, large scale!
For the AIC 2011, a group of dedicated imagers (Bob Caton, Eric Zbinden, Al Howard and myself) worked on a fine display of The Clouds of Perseus. What most people don't know is that, since producing that image was becoming increasingly difficult and we were almost out of time, we actually had a backup in case we couldn't complete the image on time for the AIC. The backup was also used as a test, to make sure things would look okay in the huge 14-feet display.
We finally did finish on...
-
Revolcadores, new astroimaging spot in Southeast Spain
My favorite location in southeast Spain, Pinar de Araceli, being as it was a private business (rental of cabins high in the mountain), depended on its economic success to survive. And sadly, it didn't survive. And so the place was closed "for good" when I arrived Spain earlier this past January. Suddenly I had no clue where to go to do my astro thing...
Some research via satellite imagery, light pollution maps, etc. let me to pinpoint a site, away from a barely traveled road, behind an old house in ruins, in the "Bortle gray" area, at about 5000...
-
San Francisco New Year 2012 Fireworks
Click here for a larger version
My idea was to build a panorama that would continue the above image both left (to show more of the Bay Bridge) and right (to show more of the city all the way to the Golden Gate bridge), but the road was small, we weren't legally parked, and right after the moment I decide to take the tripod out to take some photos, a friendly CHP car drove by and started kicking everyone out. At least they arrived near the end and just enough time for me to...
-
Lunar Eclipse
Click here for a larger version
On December 10th, 2011, I woke up at 4:45am, loaded my mount, Canon camera and the FS152 in the car and headed to the Windy Hill area in Skyline Boulevard.
My original plan was driving to San Francisco and hopefully catch a wide view of the Moon during totality with the Golden Gate bridge in the foregraound, but unfortunately, I didn't get up early enough, so I went for Plan B (Skyline).
Once there, by the road, there were a few cars from people who had also got up...
-
Simeis 147 and surroundings
Simeis 147, a supernova remnant also known as Sharpless 2-240, is an object typically photographed with narrowband filters, because under visible light it just appears too "poor" in comparison, mainly due to the fact that this object is extremely faint when imaged through RGB filters - and not too bright when using narrowband filters either! Narrowband data however deprives us from viewing the many other things happening...
-
The Great Square of Pegasus
Click here for a larger version
Earlier this year, when I was done with one of my projects (I think it was the teapot), I told Eric Zbinden " I'm not sure what to go for next"...With a mysterious voice he said " I have a suggestion for you" ... " Yeah, what?" ... " The square in Pegasus".
We both laughed. Yeah... sure!
But despite I didn't even consider for a second to go for Eric's "suggestion" at that moment, I did a bit of study on the area that revealed that there are indeed...
-
From the Pleiades to the Hyades
Click here for a larger version
Here's one of the projects that kept me busy the month of October.
It's a 12 pane mosaic of the area that goes from the Pleiades (M45) all the way to the Hyades. An area that we know well it's quite "dusty" around M45, in part contributed by the Taurus molecular cloud, but that as this image shows, and as expected although not commonly imaged, it really extends all the way to the famous V-shaped open cluster that lies behind the...
-
Overcast in the Constellation of Aries
Click here for a larger version
The constellation Aries is bathed with numerous dust clouds. This image shows a small region - small in comparison to the constellation - near the also dusty constellations of Taurus and Perseus.
The dusty clouds you see in the image may feel a bit soft, prompting the trained observer to think that noise reduction was heavily applied. However, that's not the case in this image. Although I did apply a bit of noise reduction during the post-processing, it was in fact very mild, and the reason for the...
-
The making of Clouds of Perseus - Part I
Clouds of Perseus is a collaborative project between Bob Caton, Eric Zbinden, Al Howard and myself. This article describes how this project came to be, from beginning to end.
Part I mainly talks about the planning and data acquisition.
Part II will talk about the post-processing of the data into the final image.
Part III will talk about the making and testing of the light box.
The idea
Early in the summer of 2011, Bob Caton approached Eric and I and told us...
-
Clouds of Perseus
Click here for a larger version
This image is a collaborative project between Bob Caton, Eric Zbinden, Al Howard and myself. A 2x5 mosaic of sorts. Four FSQ106 scopes, two SBIG STL11k and two FLI Proline 16803... Some insanity and a lot of coffee (for me at least, the others I think only drink Red Bull :-).
128 hours of data. Many more hours accumulated in driving to darksites - mainly to the DARC Observatory and the Central Nevada Star Sarty - and over 7,500 miles...
-
Extreme Nomadic Astrophotograpy
I don't know if this is "extreme"... To some, this story may just sound nuts. Others, I think they understand perfectly what I'm talking about and have their share of stories even much more extreme than this one... Yeah.. I think sometimes I've gone to extremes way beyond than what I'm about to relate, but the title seemed catchy enough, and so it'll stay :-)
...
Well, it's no secret anymore that a few colleagues (Bob Caton, Al Howard, Eric Zbinden and myself) have invested over 125 hours of imaging (and probably even more of driving combined)...
-
Circumpolar from the Central Nevada Star Party
Click here for a larger version
Here's a circumpolar image I captured the last night at the 2011 Central Nevada Star Party.
Get a poster, t-shirt, mug, mousepad... with this image!
[ Hide image details]
|
DATE September 24th, 2011
PHOTO Exposure: 72 x 2' (2.4 hours total)
|
EQUIPMENT Camera: Canon 40D
|
SITE & CONDITIONS Near Tonopah, California
Seeing: Good
Transparency: Very good
|
-
The Teapot in Sagittarius
Click here for a larger version
Get a high quality print, poster, etc of this image!
This is a 16 pane mosaic of the "Teapot", a famous asterism in the constellation Sagittarius. I started this project early June from DARC. I didn't continue capturing data for it during the GSSP early July because at 41 degrees of latitude, this object was just way too low in the sky (not that it isn't at 36-38 degrees).
So it was only during my visit to Spain that...
-
The value of an astrophoto
Can an astrophoto represent reality of what is out there? Can an aesthetically-driven astroimage have scientific interest? Can we talk about science versus art, when comparing astroimages that have been minimally processed with images that have gone through some more complex post-processing? Do minimally processed astroimages have more value than those with a more involved post-processing?
These being recurring topics in the astroimaging community, I've decided to post my thoughts here - it will make it easier next time someone brings these issues, once again, somewhere.... :-)
(I use the terms "minimally processed" and similar throughout this...
|
2012
