2017 Refocusing
Aims for 2017 were to use New Moon dark sky opportunities at Perth Observatory or elsewhere to try some wide-field milky way shots as well as more faint nebulous objects.
I continued to have hopes, not progressed in the last 3 years, to try some mosaics and some HDR images in order to challenge me to improve my Photoshop skills and possibly even have a look at PixInsight, that is now an an entrenched Astrophotography software toolkit item. I did managed to experiment with EQMOSAIC for mosaic navigation and Microsoft Image Composite Editor (ICE) early in the year. No HDR and a Pixinsight trial expired before I could trial it :(
I continued my involvement with Perth Observatory's Volunteer Group (POVG) for Perth Observatory's public outreach programmes including coordinating the 4-person private 'star adoption' tours and involved in the Training of new volunteers with reference material and hands on training for equipment.
Unless stated otherwise, images are from my home location in Willetton, 12 Km south of the centre of Perth, Western Australia, though I used this far less now as it is unsuitable for faint objects using one-shot colour DSLR.
My favourite shots can also be found on AstroBin http://www.astrobin.com/users/scottastrophe
Caldwell 91 - NGC3532 - Wishing Well Cluster - 24/2/2017 (Processed cropped stack)
Testing gear at home in the suburbs. See also uncropped version.
DeepSkyStacker 3.3.4 Stacked 80% (13) of 17 Images ISO 800 @ 30 Sec, 121 DARK @ 120 Sec, 32 BIAS, 18 FLATS, Post-processed with Adobe Photoshop CC 2016
Telescope - PowerNewt 200mm f/4 with PowerNewt(ASA) f/2.84 Reducer/Coma Corrector, No filter, Baader BCF modified Canon 70D DSLR field 90' x 134' , Ambient 21C. EQMOD EQASCOM with Ascom 6 for mount control. Backyard EOS Pro 3.1.2 for Image acquisition. Mount - Skywatcher NEQ6 Pro. Guidescope - Orion ShortTube 80 with Starlight Xpress SuperStar (Mono) CCD Auto Guider and Stark Labs PHD auto guiding software.
CaldwellC91 Wishing Well ClusterNGCNGC3532 C91 Wishing Well ClusterOpen Cluster
- No Comments
Galleries
Gallery Comments
Kim McAvoy
on January 27, 2017Great shots so far!