Astro-nuts

So, I've never put any of my astro photos online before, since I don't really feel like any of them are particularly good yet.  I hope that I can take some better ones eventually, but I guess I should put up what I have so far, just to share them.

For starters, here is a collection of my best Solar System shots:

The Moon - through a blue filter, hence the color

Mercury - This one is pretty crummy; poor focus, no detail.  Mercury is incredibly hard to photograph, both because of its size, and because it is so close to the Sun that you always have to shoot close to the horizon.  Still, you can see the crescent shape of the current phase.

Venus - This one turned out pretty nice.  This was actually through a blue filter to cut down on some of the prism-like effects of shooting something this small and bright.  I then digitally adjusted the color back to natural tones.  I'd like to try this again some time with my infrared filter.  Infrared light is not affected by the Earth's atmosphere as much as visible light is.  When we get to the Saturn picture, you can see what I mean.

Mars - I like this one pretty well - some nice suggestions of surface detail come out in this one.  I've seen much better online, but this is my best so far.  This was taken before I got my infrared filter, which I mentioned on the Venus picture, so one of these days I'd like to try this one again with that filter.

Jupiter - The detail is fuzzy on this one, but there are some very cool things going on in this picture.  The most familiar one is the Great Red Spot, in the lower left of the disc, looking bright orange in this picture.  What you might not catch at first, however, is Jupiter's moon Io.  A little up from the center of the image is a dark spot - that's Io's shadow on the surface of Jupiter's clouds.  If you go a little to the right, following the same reddish band that the shadow falls in, you can see a lighter spot - that's Io itself, moving across the face of Jupiter.  This was neat to see live, as I could actually sit and watch it move across Jupiter over the course of about a half an hour or so.

Saturn - This is my best Saturn shot, and possibly my best planet shot period.  This was done using my infrared filter for the luminance channel, and then imposing that on the color shot.  You can see Cassini's division in the rings, and the difference in shades of various bands in the atmosphere.  I think the only problem with this shot is that the color channels and the luminance channel were not exactly aligned, so that the left edge of the planet becomes completely gray.  Still, it looks pretty nice.

Uranus - This doesn't look like much, and I really only include it for completeness.  Like a big game hunter, I was looking for trophies when I shot Uranus.  It's incredibly hard to get a good image of something so far away, and this is the best I have of this one.  It's not much to look at, but it's nice to be able to include it, just to be able to say I got it.  Now, all I need is Neptune, and I'll have a full set!

Comet Holmes - Not a planet, but definitely a Solar System object.  This comet was a bit unusual in that it didn't develop a distinct long tail, but rather grew this massive coma.  At one point, that dust cloud coma grew bigger than the planet Jupiter!  While its lack of a real tail made it less attractive than other comets, its sheer size made it easier to photograph.

And, to round things out, some of my deep space shots:

M8 - The Lagoon Nebula - One of the first images I did with my digital SLR.  The focus isn't very good on this one, and I suspect that some of the redness isn't actually nebula, but rather digital noise.  Still, it's not bad looking.

M13 - The Hercules Cluster - Again, the biggest problem with this picture is probably the focus.  That's something I really need to work on.  Also, I would like to get more exposure on this object - I probably didn't shoot for long enough to really get a good representation of the variance in star brightness in this cluster.  That's my other thing that I really need to work on.  Patience.

M31 - The Andromeda Galaxy - Focus and more exposure time, again.  Still, this one looks really quite nice.  I particularly like the coloring I got here.  This one probably looks better if you shrink it down a little, or step back from the screen a little, so the focus problem isn't so obvious.  One of my favorite objects to look at - I definitely plan to shoot this one again sometime.

M42 - The Orion Nebula - Hands down, my favorite deep sky object to observe or shoot.  This suffers from the same problems as my others, though perhaps not quite so much.  Focus and exposure time.  The focus isn't as bad on this one as on some of my others, but I really could use a ton more exposure time.

M45 - The Pleiades Cluster - Another favorite.  The focus on this one is much better than most of the previous images, but my impatience is a problem here as well - I could really use more exposure time to bring out the blue nebulosity that floats around these stars,  The distinct cross "star" patterns were added later, digitally, because I like the way they look.  My telescope is a Cassegrain, so it doesn't produce these star spikes naturally.  Those are caused by the wires that hold the secondary mirror in a standard reflector.  Still, on this cluster, I like that look, so I added them after the fact.

All right, so there you have it.  A selection of my best astro shots so far.  I hope to get some better ones in the future.  I just need to go out and do it again.