We headed down to Goblin Valley for the weekend. This seemed like an ideal time to go… weather was forecast to be nice (and it mostly was)… and we were to be under a full hunter’s moon. Hunter’s Moon is the name given to the October full moon by native Americans. As it turned out, we never did get into Goblin Valley for a moon light hike. Skies were cloudy the only night that would have worked for us. We had to make do with sunny, day light hikes. This is, by no means a sad situation, as Goblin Valley State Park is amazing under almost any conditions imaginable. Anyway….

I caught the moon rising as I headed south on Highway 6, just north of Green River, UT. I pulled over, broke out the tripod and snapped a few shots through the Rebel XTi. The moon is a bit overexposed. I should try to clean this up with Photoshop or Gimp. I was setup right on the side of the highway, so I had to be concerned about the cars and trucks speeding by at 80mph. Anyway, it still manages to convey the beauty of the scene, with the orange moon rising above the red rock cliffs.

This shot is the second of a series taken on Thursday night (11/25/07). I took this shot of Comet Holmes without the barlow used in the first image. This (slightly) overexposed the inner portion of the comet, but nicely pulled in the surrounding stars to put the comet in perspective. Click on the image to see a higher resolution version.

For this shot, I used the Canon Digital Rebel XTi for a 15 second exposure at ISO200. I was shooting at prime focus through my Astro Physics Starfire 160 refractor. This is a pretty quick system… at f/7.5 over 1200mm focal length.

Need more? Checkout Comet 17/P Holmes at higher power and Comet 17/P Holmes II with some background stars. More recently, see how the comet has grown in Comet 17P/Holmes III.

I went out for a 2nd night of Comet Holmes… this was even better than the first Even the brightest full moon of the year couldn’t put a damper on the views. I pulled out the BIG scope just to get a feel for things. There is truly no substitute for aperture… 25″ worth of Obsession Dobsonian in this case. Anyway… I went back to the refractor to snag a couple of images. I exposed for a bit longer today… and revealed a greater extent in the comet and its surroundings. The first image made use of a 2x barlow thru which my Canon Rebel XTi shot at prime focus thru an Astro Physics Starfire 160. This revealed considerably more detail inside the comet. The second shot was without the barlow. This (slightly) overexposed the inner portion of the comet, but nicely pulled in the surrounding stars to put the comet in perspective.

Need more? Checkout Comet 17/P Holmes at higher power and Comet 17/P Holmes II.1 with some background stars. More recently, see how the comet has grown in Comet 17P/Holmes III.

I didn’t expect to get any deep sky imaging in because of the full phase of the moon. I figured I do some tweaking on my system (I actually did some). Then, I got an email alert of a new comet suddenly brightening to naked eye visibility. I figured, what the heck… I’ll go out and see if I could see it. Well… duh…. I certainly could… it was right there… as if a new star had been added to the venerable constellation Perseus. Reports were indicating that the comet had brightened from mag 17 yesterday (this is beyond the reach of backyard telescopes) to mag 2 (easily naked eye visible). This is a 500,000x increase in brightness… for the mathematically challenged Maybe there was more to it than I’d expected? Only a look through the telescope would tell for sure.

I’d rebalanced the telescope earlier in the day, so I figured I’d do a quick 3 star alignment. I did this quickly and pointed the scope towards what I assumed was Comet Holmes. At low power (40x) there wasn’t any doubt that I was looking at a non-stellar object. A round, ‘fuzzy’ star. I quickly cranked up the power and a bunch of detail in the comet’s core was instantly visible. The core was a bit oblong and somewhat off-centered. It was also surrounded by a bright, hazy coma. This was a really sweet surprise

Ok, so this is an astro photography site, right. Well, I did post an image of the comet… though I spent a fairly sizable portion of my time outside glued to the eyepiece. The accompanying image was a 2 second exposure at prime focus using a Canon Digital Rebel XTi at ISO 100. I was shooting through my Astro Physics Starfire 160 refractor.

Because of the nature of the comet, I had some trouble getting properly focused initially. I decided to slew the scope over to nearby Capella in the constellation Auriga. This object was bright enough that I could get a good focus. Next, I slewed over to Mirfak in Perseus. This was the nearest star to comet Holmes. From here, I slewed and centered by hand. I took a variety of exposures from 1/4 of a second up to about 20 seconds. The longer exposures were completely over exposed… showing none of the comet’s inner details. A series of stacked shorter exposures likely would have been the best approach. This would have given me the short quick detailed images… that combined would have given me the larger extent of a longer exposure. Regardless, this surprise comet was a welcome treat. I’m not sure how long it’ll be visible (its currently visible all night long… rare for comets), but previous outburst comets have stayed visible for many weeks. I’m hoping that Comet Holmes will spend a bit more time with us as well.

Need more? Checkout Comet 17/P Holmes at higher power and Comet 17/P Holmes II.1 with some background stars. More recently, see how the comet has grown in Comet 17P/Holmes III.

Astro Photo Details:

* Designation: Comet 17P/Holmes
* Constellation: Perseus
* Magnitude: 2.5
* Size: 15′ (roughly 1/2 the diameter of the full moon!)
NOTE: Now roughly 30′… same size as the full moon

Astro Photo Processing Details

* Canon Digital Rebel XTi
* Astro Physics Refractor
* 18 x 75s exposures at ISO1600
* Stacked using RegiStax 4
* Neat Image
* Photo Shop Levels
* Gimp Levels

Anyone who’s ever observed from a deck is painfully aware that the slightest movement, anywhere on the deck, is enough to cause enough image shake to ruin an image. As such, the pier that supports your telescope must be isolated from the deck or ground that you’re standing and walking on. If you skip this step, you’re sure to have years of frustrated images to look forward to.

Construction of our new home gave me the perfect opportunity to ensure that my observatory rested upon a solid base. While everything was wide open and heavy equipment was on-site, I made sure that my telescope would have a solid foundation. Here, a worker aligns the frames just prior to pouring the concrete for my pier. As you can see, the pier is quite substantial. It measures 2′ x 2′ and was set on a concrete footer poured down below the frost line. This would give me the solid base required for precisely tracking deep sky objects

NOTE: Even having somebody walking by when imaging from your driveway is enough to cause image shake. If you’re planning to image from such a solid location, you’ll want to look into some sort of vibration dampening pads. These are available from a number of locations and will help considerably. You may also want to have some sort of rule that nobody can walk within 5 or 10′ of the scope during imaging sessions. You may cause image shake if you need to be close to your scope to start/stop the image.

Ok, I purchased a new digital camera in late September. I chose the Canon Digital Rebel XTi for a number of reasons. First up, I’d had a film version of the Rebel years ago and it was awesome. I also still had the lenses from this camera, so I was able to save a bunch of money by just getting the camera body. Additionally, the newly updated Rebel now sported over 10 mega pixels. This would (hopefully) allow me to get some large scale prints down the line. I’ve wanted a full on CCD astro-cam for years. However, even as the price of these has dropped considerably, I figured that it was better to get started with the digital slr now than wait to get the camera of my dreams later. Given how much I need to learn, the sooner I get started the better.

The first few images got me really excited. Sure, they contained a bunch of issues. Most of these initially were the result of improper alignment of the mount. I’d been using the mount for visual observations and it was aligned well enough for that, but… for longer exposure astro-photos… it just wouldn’t cut the cake. I even had a bunch of vibrations coming through the mount in into the image. (click on the image to see the two distinct times that Jupiter (roughly 90lbs) ran by the mount). But, these were (for the most part) easy things to fix. I could align the mount (we’ll discuss this in greater detail in a future post)… and I could keep my puppy Jupiter from running around on the deck while I image. I could also isolate the entire imaging system from the deck. This slow moving project will find its way into a number of subsequent posts. What really got me excited was simply the amount of raw data that I was able to capture. The image shown here was a simple 2 minute exposure with no image processing whatsoever. I was salivating just thinking about what I could do when I’d addressed the first couple of sets of issues…. and started stacking many, many 2 minute (and longer) exposures. I was also itching to get seriously under the covers with PhotoShop. I knew instantly that I’d be taking some pretty spectacular shots in the not too distant future. All I needed to do was to fix a few things here and there

Ok, you’re probably wondering… and I’m certainly dying to show off a shot that did come out nicely. The following shot was another 2 minute exposure on M42, The Orion Nebula. This was taken after I’d put Jupiter inside… and after I’d gotten myself properly situated. I made sure to take very shallow breaths so as to not vibrate the camera again Again, no processing of the image has been done on this. I simply shrunk the image a bit to save on bandwidth. A quick critique would say that this was an ‘OK’ shot. A bunch of details within the nebula were revealed, it nicely framed, but… where’d the Trapezium go? In case you’re not familiar with this, the Trapezium is a grouping of stars at the very core of the nebula. These are completely lost inside the overexposed core of the photo. This can be remedied in the future via Photoshop… though I’ll likely get a better series of photos and stack them before I get into this. And so the journey continues…

My name is Anthony. I live in Park City, Utah. I have been obsessed with the night sky for over 10 years now. This site will attempt to convey my experiences in capturing the night sky digitally. For much of the time I’ve been interested in astronomy, I’ve been amazed by the ever improving results of “amateur” astro-photographers. Many of these so called amateurs are producing images that exceed the quality of top notch observatories only a decade or two ago. I have always wanted to join the ranks of this elite group. I’ve finally obtained the caliber of equipment that will (hopefully) allow me to venture in that direction.

Pictured here is a shot I took of myself and my trusty Astro Physics Starfire (AP-160) refractor. It was taken on the front deck of my home just before sunrise on August 13, 2007. This was the morning that the 2007 Perseid Meteor Shower peaked. This is where I’ll be doing the bulk of my imaging. Skies are not quite ideal here… not anymore, anyway. But, they are still pretty nice. I’ve estimated them to be in the neighborhood of mag 5.5. I can drive an hour or so and get to mag 7 skies, but… the ease and simplicity of walking out my front door makes this a good compromise.

Ok, so the site is entitled “Adventures in Astrophotography”. I came up with this a bit tongue in cheek. As I am currently not an “A-List” astrophotographer (or even B-List for that matter), I am setting out to become one. I have much to learn… and will undoubtedly make a bunch of mistakes along the way. I hope to share these experiences with you… and perhaps help you to take better images of the night sky… or at least share my photos with you.

I have been taking astro photos for a number of years now, so I’m not an absolute beginner. That said, my only real successes have for the most part been for short exposure, shallow sky images. The Sun, the Moon, Aurora, Meteors. I’ve never had the setup to be able to do my passion justice. I’m hoping and actually expecting that this will change over the coming months. Stay tuned, and wish me luck.