New Years Day found me driving out to Joshua Tree to capture the Leonard Comet before it's gone forever. There was clouds in the sky, which made for an awesome sunset, but had me a bit concerned for the night as I had hoped to spend a couple of hours doing Deep Space Astro after capturing the comet. Fortunately shortly after the comet disappeared behind the horizon the clouds in the sky also disappeared.
With running late after stopping to shoot the sunset, I had minimal time to set up the SkyGuider Pro to capture the Leonard Comet, so my Polar Alignment was close, but I didn't have time to spend really fine tuning it. Which wasn't an issue for the comet as I was shooting pretty short exposures (10 to 20 secs), but for Deep Space which I wanted longer shutter speeds, so I was limited especially since I planned on shooting at 600mm. So, I limited myself to 60 second exposures, which was good to keep the stars sharp, and let me shoot at ISO 1600.
This is the Bode's Galaxy Area. I have cropped in closer for a photo I will post later, but I like this wider view also which shows 4 different Galaxies.
Here are the Galaxies:
1. Bode's Galaxy - M31 or NGC 3031 - It is a Grand Design Spiral Galaxy
2. To the left is the Cigar Galaxy - NGC 3034
3. Towards the bottom is NGC 3077 - A small disrupted elliptical galaxy.
4. To the right is NGC 2976 - A dwarf galaxy
60 - Lights @ 60 secs, ISO 1600
46 - Flats
15 - Darks
53 - Bias
SkyGuider Pro - Tracker
Nikon D850 - Not Modified
Tamron 150-600mm @600mm
Stacked in DeepSkyStacker
Processed in Photoshop
All comments are welcome,
Jim
With running late after stopping to shoot the sunset, I had minimal time to set up the SkyGuider Pro to capture the Leonard Comet, so my Polar Alignment was close, but I didn't have time to spend really fine tuning it. Which wasn't an issue for the comet as I was shooting pretty short exposures (10 to 20 secs), but for Deep Space which I wanted longer shutter speeds, so I was limited especially since I planned on shooting at 600mm. So, I limited myself to 60 second exposures, which was good to keep the stars sharp, and let me shoot at ISO 1600.
This is the Bode's Galaxy Area. I have cropped in closer for a photo I will post later, but I like this wider view also which shows 4 different Galaxies.
Here are the Galaxies:
1. Bode's Galaxy - M31 or NGC 3031 - It is a Grand Design Spiral Galaxy
2. To the left is the Cigar Galaxy - NGC 3034
3. Towards the bottom is NGC 3077 - A small disrupted elliptical galaxy.
4. To the right is NGC 2976 - A dwarf galaxy
60 - Lights @ 60 secs, ISO 1600
46 - Flats
15 - Darks
53 - Bias
SkyGuider Pro - Tracker
Nikon D850 - Not Modified
Tamron 150-600mm @600mm
Stacked in DeepSkyStacker
Processed in Photoshop
All comments are welcome,
Jim
Neat capture.
And sometimes it seems I have to really work at getting the correct WB for it too. But this one was really nice as it took minimal effort and the colors lined up really nice I thought.
