I feel much more comfortable now with my astrophotography setup and processing routines. I’m not where I want to be with the hobby, however, I’m really enjoying every opportunity to get out and photograph. This is especially true when I have a son or two in tow. And I believe they are starting to see the fun side of astrophotography and why I enjoy it so much. There is a method to the madness and the mangle wires dripping off my camera gear. And with the solstice in the rearview mirror, there’s plenty to look forward to in the coming months as the nights get longer.
A couple of clear nights over the past week were a welcome relief. So I decided to challenge myself a bit to try something new and experiment with something old. And at the risk of spoiling anything below, I’ll just say that all in all, things went quite well.
The Elephant’s Trunk Nebula
The Elephant’s Trunk Nebula region has been on my list for a long time to photograph. I’m not sure why I never got around to it. At 2.4M lightyears away with an apparent magnitude of 3.5, it’s an appealing target. What interests me the most about this target are the massive dust and gas pockets that are woven throughout the structure. So on one clear night last week, I decided to finally give this target a go.
I’m sticking to 30-second exposures as they seem to be the most reliable with Star Tracker Gamma. So I’m left with configuring the rest of my setup accordingly. I decided to shoot at f/4 with an ISO of 400 although I had some concerns about underexposing the image. Setup was a breeze and before I knew it I was polar aligned.
I managed to image for just over 3 hours which included taking darks and flats. And importantly, no issues whatsoever using the ASCOM DSLR driver. Postprocessing also went without a hitch. It’s sessions like this that make astrophotography a fun and engaging hobby. And I’m pretty happy with the results.
I would have liked to pick up a little more detail and color from the nebulosity. But I was surprised overall at how well this image turned out. And I absolutely love the color of the Garnet star!
Pinwheel Galaxy
Another night, another target. The Pinwheel Galaxy has actually been in the news lately as a supernova recently became visible on one of the galaxy’s spiral arms. Now at 21M lightyears away, one must temper their expectations. But incredibly, the supernova is prominently visible. I suppose my thinking goes something like this – I’d kick myself if I didn’t point my camera in this direction for this very unique event. I’ve had a love/hate relationship with this target because when shooting at 135mm, I’m really pushing the limits of what I can decently image with a target this small.
Once again, I decided to shoot with 30-second exposures. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I wasn’t sorely tempted to try 45 or even 60-second exposures but I decided against this in the end. But I did open up the aperture to f/2.8 and once again shot at an ISO of 400. I processed this image slightly differently than normal. After calibrating my images in SIRIL, I cropped the entire sequence (SEQCROP in Commands) and then registered the images with drizzle. This worked quite well as I didn’t have to worry about drizzle blowing up my hard drive. It also made things like background extraction much easier.
I think what I like most about this photo is that it was taken with my second son. He was really itching to get hands-on with the setup. I think next time we head out, I’ll let him try to run the whole setup himself. It’ll be cool to continue to share the fun and joy of astrophotography with the next generation. And as he’s growing up fast I need to step back and enjoy these nights for what they are – a treasured memory.