Lagoon and Triffid Nebulas

[Jon Ruyle]

I shot these last night, so I guess I just missed the "what did you shoot" ending June 13


I posted a pic of this same field last week, but that was a 2 minute exposure. Here is a 15 minute autoguided exposure.


[img]/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Components.UserFiles/00.00.00.25.93/lt-800.JPG[/img]


5DII + AP130GT (819mm f/6.3) 15 minutes, ISO 400


The technology we use these days for our hobbies is amazing.


For those not familiar with astrophotography, shots like this are done with the telescope on a mount that rotates as the stars move. This rotation is never perfect, however, so to take care of errors for long exposures one uses a second smaller telescope (called a guidescope) mounted on top of the main scope. A second ccd is attached to this smaller scope, and the ccd is connected to the mount and to a laptop computer. The computer watches the image of a star (called a guide star) through the guidescope, and whenever the star moves it instructs the mount to compensate. This process is called "autoguiding". In the old days, one had to look through the guidescope and compensate by hand if the guide star moved (and in the old days, I never dreamed of doing astrophotography [])

[jake66]

Wow. Amazing shot []

[Sean Setters]

That is completely amazing....

[Mark Elberson]

For those not familiar with astrophotography, shots like this are done with the telescope on a mount that rotates as the stars move. This rotation is never perfect, however, so to take care of errors for long exposures one uses a second smaller telescope (called a guidescope) mounted on top of the main scope. A second ccd is attached to this smaller scope, and the ccd is connected to the mount and to a laptop computer. The computer watches the image of a star (called a guide star) through the guidescope, and whenever the star moves it instructs the mount to compensate. This process is called "autoguiding". In the old days, one had to look through the guidescope and compensate by hand if the guide star moved (and in the old days, I never dreamed of doing astrophotography [img]/emoticons/emotion-1.gif[/img])

A while back you posted a pic of your rig. I think you should post it again so everyone can really appreciate what you're working with!


Incredible work Jon :-)

[Jon Ruyle]

Thanks, Jake, Sean, and Mark. It's a far cry from what some people are doing with similar equipment, but I'm still enjoying myself


Mark, here are links to pics of the setup. The first is a pic of the thing set up at Joshua Tree National Park, with my 25" dob in the background (the pic is underexposed on purpose because it was getting dark []):


http://picasaweb.google.com/jonruyle/JoshuaTreeJune11#5483070189252949234


http://picasaweb.google.com/jonruyle/GranTurismo#


The main camera is not attached but you can see a tiny camera attached to the small scope- that's the autoguider.


On the Joshua Tree night last week, I was really looking forward to seeing what I could get in skies far from light pollution. It got cloudy, though, so I didn't get any pictures that night[8o|]


The little scope on the top is the guidescope I was talking about.


I also uploaded a larger version of the nebula picture:


http://picasaweb.google.com/jonruyle/Astro#5483054389621324786


Click the magnifying glass at the upper right of the picture for higher resolution. Notice how good a job the mount/autoguider does: the thing stayed rock solid and tracked the stars almost perfectly for this 15 minute exposure.

[Richard Lane]

Hey..., that's really cool stuff Jon.

[mikehillman89]

Amazing shots Jon! The set up looks crazy, but awesome!

[Dave Johnston]

I was just talking about how awesome your work was today to one of my coworkers, Jon. Thanks for sharing!

[btaylor]

Gees Jon, that's incredible. Thanks for sharing.

[Jon Ruyle]

Thanks guys!


I'm having a lot of fun with the setup, but I have to be careful not to get *too* obsessed. Last night instead of hauling out the scope to take a long exposure, I watched a goofy romantic comedy with my wife. (After all, if I ignore the telescope, I still have a place to sleep[])