Saturday 25 January 2014

M101 Widefield

This image was taken on my first night out following the street light switch-off in the nearby towns (between midnight and 5:00am), helpfully the moon was also on the opposite side of the sky by this time. As you can see, I have also also managed to capture a fair few of M101's companion galaxies in this image, including NGC5474 just left of top centre.




Sunday 19 January 2014

M42 plus M43 - Unmodded DSLR Image

M42 - The Orion Nebula, plus top left M43 - De Marian's Nebula (aka "The Running Man Nebula"). This is 30 x 30 second exposures, plus 22 x 320 second exposures in an HDR composite, taken 11th Jan 2014.

Again I was battling a nearly full Moon as we seem to get nothing but rain around here when the skies are fully dark! This image was processed entirely in PixInsight. I hope to get some longer exposures to try to capture more of the surrounding dust.



Imaging: Sky-Watcher Evostar 80ED DS-Pro + 0.85x, Canon EOS 500D (Unmodified),  Hutech IDAS LPS P2, APT - Astro Photography Tool
Mount: Sky-Watcher NEQ6, AstroTortilla,  EQMod
Guiding: Orion ST80, QHY 5, PHD guiding
Processing: PixInsight
Subs: 30 x 30 seconds, 22 x 320 seconds, ISO 400
Date: Jan. 11, 2014
Darks: 109
Flats: 102
Bias: 330

Wednesday 8 January 2014

Do High ISOs Make DSLRs More Sensitive To Light?

Many new astro-imagers believe that they can make their camera more sensitive to light by using a higher ISO setting. This is not surprising given that there are a vast number of articles out there that continue to spread this myth (including photography magazines and other technical publications that really ought to know better).

After yet another misleading write-up, this time from the BBC promoted by Stargazing Live (no less!), I thought I'd do my best to set out a few facts which will help you to understand what is really going on and therefore to take better images. Read on for more.