Want an expensive, frustrating hobby – take up astrophotography

But you get to photograph galaxies from your back garden! Ok I’ve spent more nights freezing my bollocks off achieving precisely zero or just staring at clouds but I’ve finally got a half decent image out of it all :).

Anyone else dabble in the art?

class image, tell us more about it?

I use to but stopped my eldest is doing A level photography and she’s not too shabby.

I love the idea of being good at astronomy as I’m always staring into the night skies and I wish I was good at photography, but i’m shit at both.

Well done. great pic 🙂

@seosamh77

The image is made up of a series of sub-frames or ‘subs’. I use a special mono astro camera and then colour filters to build up the RGB plus a luminance channel.

Each colour channel is made up of multiple 5 minute exposure subs which are then stacked in special software to maximise the SNR and then combined into the final colour image. The whole image sequence is automated with the filters being in a motorised wheel and swapped by the software.

So far this photo is made up of about 2 hours of data but it could do with another 4 hours at least to be really good.

Some people take 40-50 hours of data on faint nebulae etc using narrowband filters. You can get colour astro cameras but they are generally not as sensitive or you can even just use a dSLR and an adapter but a mono camera with filters is usually the best option ultimately but also the most fiddly.

Processing the image can take many hours to get right and is a while other learning curve on top of the learning how to take the image in the first place.

The camera is mounted to a telescope which is on a special mount which is guided by a piece of software. I have a second smaller telescope with a little camera on it whose sole job is to lock into a single star and send guide pulses from the software to the mount.

Using another piece of software the main camera and scope can take a short image of the sky and work out exactly where the telescope is pointing using star maps.

Using this the mount will automatically move around and find any object in the night sky regardless of whether I can actually see it or not.

All incredibly cuddly and a lot of the time through user error or weather or a million other things it doesn’t go to plan but when it does it’s awesome 🙂

Fabulous. 10/10 for effort, would love to have the gear and the know how, I’d be right into it! Absolutely love the night sky, so really looking forward to seeing more of your images, don’t be shy in sharing them with us!!!

What is the actually image of btw? I’m guessing it’s 2 colliding galaxys? Do they have names or designations?

You should also be giving these images your own imaginative name btw, think you’ve earned that right! 😆

That is an absolute ripper! Well done. I occasionally dabble, but the faff is spectacular so I rarely have the patience (or skill!). I did get a nice M13 a while ago, but can’t find the damn image.

I must admit, for galaxies like M51 above, its the pleasure of finding it and viewing it ‘live’ that does it for me, so taking me down a path only slightly less financially damaging and obsessive: aperture fever.

@seosammyh77 – yes this is Messier 51, or M51 for short. More accurately the big galaxy is M51A and it’s slowly consuming M51B.

The Messier objects are a catalogue compiled in the mid 1700’s (from memory) by Charles Messier who was cataloging things that comet hunters might mistake for comets but that weren’t. They didn’t know what they were either, just that they definitely weren’t comets.

At about 24 million lightyears away so I guess B could have been completely consumed by now.

Stunning capture. A truly fascinating subject

@big_scot_nanny that’s a beast of a scope. My visually obs are not helped by living in the city centre under bortle 8 skies so it can be just as frustrating.

I do own a rather nice TMB Optics 105mm frac that was hand built by Thomas Back which is just sublime for both astro and visual with though. LZOS objective as well – just a lovely thing.

I tend to do lunar visual obs though as that’s easy regardless of light pollution. I do have a Meade 10” SCT and a little Skywatcher 150P next as well which is fun to get out every so often but it’s the TMB that gets the most use.

Thats really good, well done. I’ve a large reflector, 12″ Skyliner Dobsonian, and tried a few shots of the moon using the techniques you describe, but to a lesser degree. Took ages and I didnt get such a good result. But seeing yours I’m motivated to try again.

There is something so special about a nice ‘frac, that sounds like a ripper. I am truly in awe of the shot, you must be well chuffed, it is a heck of a lot of effort!

My big scope is a 20” David Lukehurst dob, goes with the 12” Lukehurst dob (which is the designated grab n go). I like dobs 🙂

My first view of M51 with the 20” from a nice dark site was jaw dropping. Virgo cluster makes you laugh out loud at the eyepiece.

But I share your challenge – getting to dark site, on a good night, with good seeing, is a rare event indeed.

Indeed!

I introduced my cousin to astrophotography about 5 years ago.

He hasn’t forgiven me…

…although he did win Newcomer of the Year in the International Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition- b*st*rd 😉

I’m not into it personally but spent a week at a place called Domaine du Pradine in France last year during the Causse Noir Astronomie week, which was amazing the evening sky’s were amazing but also the sheer amount of enthusiasts with all their gear was a site to behold. I could have stayed forever

Each colour channel is made up of multiple 5 minute exposure subs which are then stacked in special software to maximise the SNR and then combined into the final colour image. The whole image sequence is automated with the filters being in a motorised wheel and swapped by the software.

So far this photo is made up of about 2 hours of data but it could do with another 4 hours at least to be really good.

I used to work with a guy who worked for toshiba/bell amd howell and jvc and various other camera companies doing clever things with the sensors and electrics. He still couldnt explain why multiple exposures over the same time had lower SNR than a single long exposure. So if anyone can figure out the maths let me know!

@thisisnotaspoon – interesting question and one that is debated a lot on the astrophotography forums but phrased slightly differently.

Multiple exposures, together with calibration frames, allow the software to enhance the signal and reduce the noise. The question that is often asked is which is better – 60 x 1 minute frames or 12 x 5 minute frames.

I don’t profess to understand the maths but start with this thread and have a browse around the astrophotography sections of SGL. Vliad is the man for the maths on this subject.

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/344422-does-signal-strength-depend-on-exposure-time-and-or-number-of-stacked-subs/

Awesome, that looks great.

I’ve just started learning the basics of astrophotography, and astronomy in general. My local university have been running some astrophotography workshops where we’ve learned the basics of equipment, selecting targets and what the software does. This month is the final workshop, where we process some data images into a final image.

We were lucky in that there are knowledgeable people on hand to offer guidance, and we’ve been able to use the university facilities, including their telescope for the imaging and their computers for the image processing.

Nice M51, sadly I don’t have the focal length to do that target justice. I started dabbling in astrophotography last year and like you said it is the most frustrating hobby I’ve ever tried and the faffage is on another level to anything else. Great feeling when you get something right though 🙂

Here are a few of my attempts from the past year

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Interesting topic & a great pic. There’s a bloke at our work who recently started & used to be into it. He was telling me all about the tech he had to take his pics – water cooled sensors & god knows what else!

I’m tempted to have a go at this & see what I can get out of it…

OpenAstroTracker

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4167783

https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenAstroTech/

Lovely photos.

And a ‘photographer’ I was speaking to recently thought cycling was expensive… I did say, “OK, what have your lenses cost you”, he acknowledged good stuff costs ad realised bikes are expensive too, even for half decent ones.

@stumpy01 that astro tracker looks pretty cool 🙂

Great photo’s. I purchased a cheap scope from the local auction house just to have a dabble.
It soon became clear that it wasnt that easy. Those bright spots where still just bright spots that moved at a fair rate across the sky.
Moon looked good though.
Anyway it soon went back in for resale as I very quickly realised astromony was not for me.

@typer – lovely photos, only one I’m pretty sure I know, the middle one is the Horsehead Nebula or Barnard 33 in Orion, itself a mass of interesting objects, Betelgeuse being a media favourite at the moment!
There’s a comet that’s getting some attention at the moment, it’s called Atlas, is currently close to Venus and in the region of Auriga and Taurus. It’s bright green, which should make for some interesting photos with the right kit!

Just checked, it’s in the North-west, above Auriga in the region of Camelopardalis. Even with LED streetlights there’s too much light from the moon and general town light pollution to be able to pick it out with binoculars, sadly.

@CountZero thank you, yes the middle picture is the Horsehead Nebula along with the Flame nebula to the left, the top is a widefield image of the Orion’s belt area including the horsehead and great orion nebula to the bottom. The last image is of NGC700 or the North America Nebula within the constellation of Cygnus.

Yeah I’ve seen some nice images of comet Atlas on instagram, they are hopeful it may become naked eye visible late april to early may so I’m keeping my fingers crossed 🙂

Not quite at the same level but I was reasonably happy with this I took a few years ago using a Samsung Galaxy S2 held up to a telescope borrowed from a mate

@verses that’s exactly how I got started 🙂