M42 taken with Orion ST80

New to me ST80, traded an original Meade DSI color for it, the dsi would not update the screen fast enough to use it for manual guiding.
Canon XS prime focus, no filters, 75% Moon, this is cropped due to the bad gradients...stupid moon...
58 exposures @ 1:00
Deep Sky Stacker and StarTools

Orion, Running Man, Flame and Horsehead Nebulas

Canon XS, Tokina SD 210mm lens, DSS ansd StarTools
60 exposures @ 1:00
Larger version here: http://www.astrobin.com/full/24783/C/?

Pleides - M45 - 11/14/2012

M45, Pleides, 7 Sisters
Canon XS 210mm Tokina SD lens
60 exposures at 1:00 DSS and StarTools
Larger version here:
http://www.astrobin.com/full/25055/0/?mod=none&real=

Jupiter 11/10
 Canon XS 10" SCT 2x Barlow
EOS Mov Rec Autostakkert!2, Registax and Image analyser
Animation can be seen here:
http://www.astrobin.com/24645/

Jupiter 10.24.12 6:00am

Canon XS, 2x barlow, 10: SCT 5000mm Focal length

Orion 210mm lens

Only 13 frames at 5:30am, got up to get Jupiter and couldn't resist trying this

Andromeda 10.17.12

Finaly, been having balance issues pointing East so this has been a long time coming.
Andromeda galaxy, M31
Canon XS with Tokina 70-210mm @ 210mm and F5.6
150 - 30 second exposures, stacked in Deep Sky Stacker and processed with StarTools.

10.4.12 The Eagle Nebula

Focus was bad, so I got big ol bloated fat stars, tried to fix em but only so myuch I can do.
40 1:00 exposures

9.20.12 Dumbell

Up to 1:00 subs unguided, whoohoo!
Now using StarTools Alpha for processing

My Original Orion Nebula Redux

March 2011 I borrowed a DSLR from a co worker and 28 exposures at 30 seconds, plus darks and flats. I have been using the StarTools beta program and went back and reprocessed the data.

Swan and Eagle

Canon XS with Tokina 70-210 manual lens @ 210mm
15 2:00 subs with 15 darks, stacked in DSS

Jupiter 9.11.12

Getting a little better I think

Andromeda 8.25.12

30 minutes of exposure - 50 second subs.

Jupiter 8.22.12 and Worst Jup Animation Ever

But it was my 1st one, so can't complain.
 Had average seeing, and problems with seams in Registax, but hey, live n learn.

And 2 moons, one with shadow and Great Red Spot

Cygnus 8.11.12

Saw 60 meteors between 119m and 2:30am, got 13 5:00 exposures at 22mm, used scope for tracking. Higer resolution here:
http://www.astrobin.com/full/17231/?mod=none

1st Jupiter with DSLR

I really did not have good conditions, it seemed clear at 5:30am, I got focused on a star, and waited for Jup to clear the tree, Stellarium told me it would be 6:08...wrong, I did discover up has to be almost 50* to clear the tree, by that time it was 6:30 and daylight and clouds were a comin!
I couldn't figure out why is was so fuzzy, like a double image, no matter what I did with the focus, then realized I still had the mask on....doh! So that didn't go well. The seeing was horrid, but once the clouds flew by I got a couple of vids.
Anyway, here is my best Jupiter ever, all I had tried before this was afocal digital camera.
Meade 10"SCT
Canon XS with 2x barlow
EOS Movie Record @ 5x
Registax and Fitswork

Copernicus Crater

It is 57 miles wide and 2.3 miles deep...it's a big freakin hole in the moon. It's not a good picture, but the weather has been killin me lately so I had to image something. I had tried for Saturn but the battery died and the only image I got was horrid.

Bah! Clouds and Moon...

Sagittarius Widefield

Canon EOS XS 22-55mm lens @ 55mm
ISO 400 F6.3, 2 exposures of 5:00 stacked in Deep Sky Stacker, edited with Fitswork and Paint.net

I really wanted more exposures but the dew was relentless, couldn't keep it off the lens.

7/17 Cygnus Widefield

Pulling the Milky Way out of the muck is no easy task. Quite a bit of light pollution makes for headaches trying to show deep sky with a regular camera lens.
9 exposures at 4:00 each, 4 darks, ISO 400, F6.3
22-55mm lens at 25mm
Canon XS DSLR camera
Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker, processed in Fitswork and Paint.net

Meteor 7/13.12

22-55mm lens at 55mm, F5.6 iso 1600 30 seconds
Facing Zenith, focus was bad, I really need to mark infinity on the lens.

Saturn 7/6/12

Gettin a little better

Andromeda Reprocessed

Took 37 30 second exposures of this August last year. I tried reprocessing it. I had to crop it quite a bit due to bad flats.
Canon EOS XS, 10" SCT with .63 focal reducer
 20 flats, 20 darks, DSS and Fitswork

Saturn 4th of July - DSLR

Between the fireworks and smoke and the clouds clearing after being rained on, I went for Satun again.
This time moving the 2x barlow as close to the camera as possible trying to get a smaller image scale.
Both were shot at iso 1600 and I played with the color balance a little, so one came out really blue. They are a little brighter, but noisier, although the atmosphere was very turbulent, so I wasn't gonna catch a great pic anyway.

M27 Dumbbell Nebula from last year

Taken 8/3/2011, 31 subs at 30 seconds. Reprocessed. Focus was a bit off, this was back when I used to setup and polar align in the front yard. Hopefeully I will get another shot at this one this year.

Saturn 6/29 My 1st decent result with DSLR

Shot with Canon XS DSLR prime focus
EOS Movie Record 5x
 But this time I used the Steadypix camera adapter and put a barlow in front of the sensor.
 1st one is ISO 800 and 1/2 second exposure
 2nd is iso 1600 and like 1/4 second

 I have no way to measure the distance between the barlow and camera sensor, so it's a guess what the F ratio really is. I could shorten that distance, giving a slightly smaller image scale, but hopefully sharper detail.
 Not sure why the pixelated apperance is so prevalent, maybe it was just the heat. It wasd 105 here toay, all time record.

Saturn 6/28/12

Shot with Canon XS DSLR prime focus
EOS Movie Record 5x

Larger ones resized 150 and 170%
And the Moon from night before, best Moon shot so far!

Moon and Saturn with Eyepiece Projection Experiment

Used the DSLR with Eyepiece Projection last night. 15mm EP, Tring Tadapter to camera. Recorded in EOS Movie Record at 5x, which is supposed to give 1-1 pixels. Seemed to work on the Moon but Saturn was very dim and soft. I think it was to much image scale for the scope/camera/seeing adn my lack of expierence at higher focal lengths.
According to Starzonia's webpage calculation this gives a focal length of 6667 and F27, a bit much! So I backed off and used Prime focus and EOS Mov Rec normal and at 5x for the Moon and Saturn, these came out much nicer than any of my previous attempts with the digital camera.
 I am looking forward to trying a 20mm EP tonight, which should yield around F18 adn 4375 FL.

Moon Saturn and Mars with New Camera

Picked up a Canon EOS Rebel XS (1000D) 10.1 MP DSLR camera body for 125 bucks.
 1st light shows this will be a fine performer for Moon and Planets as well. I forgot to take the focal reducer off fro Saturn and Mars, and the wind was blowing the whole time, seeing was absolutely horrid. Can only get better from here, I'm stoked!

Venus Trasit Movie

This is a compilation of the 5x Magnifications Videos I took during the transit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48QlCHg7ECA

Not the greatest but I kept having to jack up the exposure to see through the clouds.

Venus Transit...of course

Some clouds but we were able to view most of the transit until sunset, about 2 hours. I also got the black drop effect and one vid with a plane crossing the sun. I setup the laptop and a 19" LCD to live view the transit through EOS Movie Record with a a Canon XS, that way we could all see it and I could record video and stack it later. The clouds came and went over and over, so I was having to change exposure and ISO constantly to see the Sun through the clouds. Some of the videos were over exposed as a result, but hey, whatchagonnado?
This is what it looked like 30 minutes before the transit started:

My Gear, notice there are no shadows....stupid clouds...

But I did end up with over 40 vids to process and some single frame shots. It has taken me all day jsut to stack 20 of them in Registax. The 2 below are single frames from videos that would not stack due to the clouds.

The famous "Black Drop" effect below.

Milky Way From Foothills Parkway

7 30 second exposures with 7 MP digital camera and tripod. My 1st Milky Way shot. Sagittarius area.
There is a bunch of deep space stuff in this photo, surprising what you can capture with a cheap digitatal camera. Click link to see all the stuff mapped out- http://www.astrobin.com/12077/

Sun on lunch 5/25/12

Sunspot 1486 is the big one up top.
Taken with a borrowed Canon XS DSLR using "EOS Movie Record" to record an AVI and stack in Registax, best 700 frames....I gotta get one of these cameras....

Sombrero Galaxy

I think the DIY Lightbox will work. Sombrero from last night,
83 30 second exposures unguided.
Canon xs