skypointer2000
Andromeda Station - NASA APOD 03-26-2020
At a distance of 2.5 million light years, the Andromeda Galaxy is not accessible by human space travel. To reach it, you'll have to wait a few billion years, until its scheduled collision with our Milky Way - or you conveniently take the cosmic cable car to Andromeda Station...
This image was on my to do list for quite some time and this February, I finally got the chance to capture it, but I had to fight a few problems that night:
My tracking mount partly froze after about an hour in the cold and produced trailed stars, caused by a reduced tracking speed.
Luckily, I had taken along my vintage Skytracker, even though I had left my second camera at home. I therefore was able to switch trackers and my old buddy did amazingly well, but I had to start imaging from scratch, as I was not able to reproduce the initial framing without a goto mount. Due to lack of time, I had to drop my plan to capture some H-alpha data to enhance the DSO image. Furthermore, a slight focus shift made my luminance subs unusable. Luckily my RGB subs proved to be good enough to produce a decent image of the Andromeda Galaxy, even without luminance and H-alpha data.
'Deepscape' images at higher focal lengths are still an uncommon sight and many are composites of a deep sky object over an unrelated foreground, but be assured that this line-up is real.
Capturing a deep sky image of good quality involves combining many individual sub frames and sophisticated post processing. This image therefore is far from a single exposure, but sky and foreground were captured back to back from the same position and with the same equipment and focal length.
'Andromeda Station' is better known as Weisshorn, the highest peak of the ski area in Arosa, Switzerland.
Prints available: ralf-rohner.pixels.com
NASA APOD 03-26-2020
apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap200326.html
EXIF
ZWO ASI 1600MM PRO (micro 4/3 sensor)
Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS USM ll @ 200mm
Effective focal length: 400mm
ZWO EFW with Baader LRGB filters
iOptron SkyTracker (version l)
ZWO ASIair
Celestron Power Tank Lithium
Sky:
20 x 40s RGB
Foreground:
20 x 30s RGB
60 x 20s L
Andromeda Station - NASA APOD 03-26-2020
At a distance of 2.5 million light years, the Andromeda Galaxy is not accessible by human space travel. To reach it, you'll have to wait a few billion years, until its scheduled collision with our Milky Way - or you conveniently take the cosmic cable car to Andromeda Station...
This image was on my to do list for quite some time and this February, I finally got the chance to capture it, but I had to fight a few problems that night:
My tracking mount partly froze after about an hour in the cold and produced trailed stars, caused by a reduced tracking speed.
Luckily, I had taken along my vintage Skytracker, even though I had left my second camera at home. I therefore was able to switch trackers and my old buddy did amazingly well, but I had to start imaging from scratch, as I was not able to reproduce the initial framing without a goto mount. Due to lack of time, I had to drop my plan to capture some H-alpha data to enhance the DSO image. Furthermore, a slight focus shift made my luminance subs unusable. Luckily my RGB subs proved to be good enough to produce a decent image of the Andromeda Galaxy, even without luminance and H-alpha data.
'Deepscape' images at higher focal lengths are still an uncommon sight and many are composites of a deep sky object over an unrelated foreground, but be assured that this line-up is real.
Capturing a deep sky image of good quality involves combining many individual sub frames and sophisticated post processing. This image therefore is far from a single exposure, but sky and foreground were captured back to back from the same position and with the same equipment and focal length.
'Andromeda Station' is better known as Weisshorn, the highest peak of the ski area in Arosa, Switzerland.
Prints available: ralf-rohner.pixels.com
NASA APOD 03-26-2020
apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap200326.html
EXIF
ZWO ASI 1600MM PRO (micro 4/3 sensor)
Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS USM ll @ 200mm
Effective focal length: 400mm
ZWO EFW with Baader LRGB filters
iOptron SkyTracker (version l)
ZWO ASIair
Celestron Power Tank Lithium
Sky:
20 x 40s RGB
Foreground:
20 x 30s RGB
60 x 20s L