Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Re-Processed M42

Since I'm still relatively new to astrophotography, I'm still learning how to improve my image processing. For now I'm happy with how this image turned out. :D

5 comments:

Alex said...

Hi Norman. First let me say that your astro photos are amazing! I see you have a Travel Scope 70 and you attached your DSLR to it. Can you please expand on how you went about doing it? Did you just attach the scope to the camera with a T-ring or you had to use an extension tube as well?

AstroNorm said...

Hello Alex. First of all, I'd like to thank you for your comment. I'm glad you liked them. :)

With regards to my set-up, I attach my DSLR to the TS70 with the use of a T-ring only. The same goes for my Skywatcher Explorer 150PL.

Alex said...

Thanks for the quick reply!

Sorry if this bothers you, but I have another question: what exposure time did you use and how come you didn't get any star trails?

I just tried to capture M42 with the TS70+SLR at ISO160 and everything longer than 2.5 seconds gave me star trails.

AstroNorm said...

I used a Nikon D3100 coupled with the TS70 at ISO3200. My exposure time for imaging M42 is roughly 1-1.6sec. Although lower ISO means faster gathering of light, it takes a longer time when the object is faint. Higher ISO means you are more sensitive to the light, so you can go with shorter exposure times.

AstroNorm said...

Actually, there is still an amount of motion in this picture. However it is significantly smaller compared to my previous images.