This is my meager attempt at copying what the Hubble Space telescope can do from my back yard. *Note* My computer screen shows these images nicely but my other screen shows very dark images with only a few stars. The M109 image shows only a bright star in the upper right corner, its reflection just left and low of center, and a few dimmer stars, but my M109s image shows the galaxy nicely simply because I edited it on the better screen. I don't know which screen is setup right so let me know how all the images look so that I can edit them correctly.
Unless otherwise specified; These are all shot with a Canon D350 through an 8 inch SCT with a 6.3 corrector and guided with a piggybacked 80mm F/5 refractor.
Globular Clusters
Globular Clusters are thought to be old galaxy cores where a larger galaxy has swallowed up its arms. Each globular cluster can have many thousands of stars and in some cases many hundereds of thousands of stars all packed into a tinny ball. Our Milky Way Galaxy has about 150 of these globular clusters orbiting it.
- M2:(Aug-24-'09)This cluster has about 150,000 stars all grouped together in a ball 175 light years in diameter and is 38,000 light years away from Earth.
- M15:(Sept-25-'09)This cluster of stars could number in the range of a half million in about the same size diameter ball as M2 above.
Nebulae
Nebulae are gassious clouds floating In and around each galaxy. Some are from the formation of the universe while others are remnents of old stars that have long died. M42 is easily seen with the naked eye because It Is The Middle Star of Orions Sward. Using Binoculars you will have the field of view of the first M42 image above and you should be able to see it in more detail
- M42(May-05-'05) My very first image of deep space. This was shot using an early 1980's Olympus OM-1 Film camera piggy backed on the LX90. I don't remember the Exposure length, Lens used, or the Film IS0.
- M42(Jan-16-'10)Among my last images. Shot through a wide field telescope piggy backed on the LX90. The Orian nebula and its neibor M43. One hour and fourty minutes worth of five minute exposures.
Planetary Nebulae
Planetary nebulae are stars that have gone through their life cycle and are now just puffing away their outer shells of gas. Our sun, when it comes time, will do the same thing.
- M27:(Oct-04-'08)Located 1300 light years away in the constallation of Cygnus the swan is big and bright enough to easily be seen in a pair of binoculars.
Galaxies
We live inside the Milky Way Galaxy and there are billions of Galaxies in the Universe.
- M31:(Oct-04-08)..and..
M31:(Sept-25-'09)
One part of our local group of galaxies M31 is located 2.5 Million light years away in the costallation Andoromeda. This galaxy is bright enough you don't need anything but your naked eyes to see, though a pair of Binoculars will help. This is a part of our local group of galaxies and possibly our distructor because it's speeding toward us at 225,000 miles per hour and will colide with our galaxy in 4.5 billion years.
- M65 and M66(March-16-'10)These two galaxies are 35 and 36 milion light years away from us in the costallation Leo.
- M109(March-16-'10)This galaxy is 55 milion light years away sitting right next to the lower-inner bowl star of the Big Dipper. This image exposure was 54 minute long.
- M109sZoomed in on M109 and set next to an image from Kitt Peak, Hawaii for comarison.
Telescope Tests
Did a complete re-Polar alignment of the scope in hopes of taking care of some tracking errors I have noticed recently. Below is my results with Canon D350 at prime focus of the LX90 and a web cam guider at prime focus of a piggy backed 80mm scope.
- Focus; Focusing a telescope is quite easy, just turn the focus knob till you see the stars as focused as you need them to be. Unfortunately it's not quite that easy when photographing, being off just a smidg will show up in the finished photo like a sore thumb. So, to help get to that perfect sweet spot we'll use some tricks in optics such as using a special "mask" that fits over the front of the telescope. This mask will create three sets of defraction spikes, Two form an X over the star and one | that moves with the focus knob and splits the X in two. In order to get as close to perfect focus as we can we have to try and get that center spike as close to the center of that X as possible. I think I accomplished this nicely with this image.
Some test shots specifically designed to find problems with the tracking systems...
North is Down, East is Right..
- Test Image #1;Pointed the telescope to a star in the Southern sky and turned the tracking motors on for a five minute exposure. If everything is setup correctly I should have pinpoint stars but instead I have short streaks.
- Test Image #2;Pointed the telescope to a star in the Eastern sky and turned the tracking motors on for a five minute exposure. Again, If everything is setup correctly I should have pinpoint stars but instead I have short streaks.
- Test Image #3.Pointed the telescope to a star in the South and turned the tracking motors on again. this time i also turned on my guiding camera to aid in guiding precision.
- Test Image #4Pointed the telescope to a star in the South and turned the tracking motors on again. this time i also turned on my guiding camera to aid in guiding precision.
What these four images tell me;
- The Focus image shows an "oval" shaped star even though it is perfectly focused. This says the telescope optics need to be aligned, needs to be cullimated. This is not a hard task, it takes just a few minutes and a good eye to correct.
- The difference in direction the star "streaks" says the telescope is not balanced properly and I have some mount flexing from this. It just needs the counterweights to be adjusted which only takes a minute or two.
- With no star streaks in the guided images tels me the entire system is in very good shape.
So, the problems I thought I had where not problems, I just have to cullimate the optics and move the counterweights and I'll have sharper images!
