Pinwheel Galaxy (m33)

I finally got my telescope and 5DII to a dark site. Saturday I went camping with my 7-year-old daughter at Observatory Campground near Palomar Observatory. She fell asleep around 10pm, leaving me a couple of hours till moonrise, and the large galaxy m33 was well placed. I think it turned out better than what I was getting from my back yard.


The mach 1 mount was tracking so well no guiding was needed. It was pretty much just point and shoot :)


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m33, 5DII with AP130EDFGT (819mm f/6.3)


iso 1600, 8 exposures of 8 min each stacked with deep sky stacker


A higher resolution version is here. Click the magnifying class in the upper right to see full resolution.

Very cool!


Kind of makes you realize just how small we really are in the big scheme of things..

Now that is awesome!

Wow... amazing!

That is awesome!


Well done, Jon.

Wow!

Super shot! You've got to show us more when you get a chance to take some more.

Thanks for the comments. I'm really happy with the performance of the 5DII in this context. Most people use cooled ccds to reduce thermal noise, but the 5DII long exposure noise reduction (which I used) seems to work pretty well.

Really amazing image...

Thanks! :)

Nice shot! I need to try to get a shot like that sometime... :-)

if you don't mind me asking, roughly how much did all the equipment required to take this shot cost? i have access to a high-powered telescope with a computer tracking system on it through school, are there converters to mount your camera to telescopes? excellent picture by the way!

I don't mind you asking :)


The equipment is expensive. The mount is an astro physics mach 1 GTO, about $7000 with tripod. The telescope, also astro-physics, is a 130 Gran Turismo, and cost about $6000. And you know how much the 5DII cost.


To attach the camera to the telescope requires an adapter. Here is a picture, though it is a different telescope. The adapter is not expensive, and makes your camera think the telescope is a manual focus lens :)


Just curious, what kind of telescope is the "high powered" one?

to be honest i'm not sure. i know its $5k worth of glass then another $5k in the computer that operates it, made by M eade if that means anything. it's a permanent set up, definitely not portable.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rodger

Very cool!


Kind of makes you realize just how small we really are in the big scheme of things..
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Especially considering that the light from that particular galaxy had to travel several million years just to get here. Awesome!