Members Astrophotos

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Comet 17P/Holmes, taken on November 3, 2007 by Chuck Higgins

Description:
This image was taken through my TeleVue 85. I used a 4x Powermate to make the comet image large enough to fill the frame. This shot is actually a combination of 18 individual images. The first six images were exposed for 30 seconds each, the next six for one minute each, and the final six for two minutes each. You may notice that the stars don't look completely round. This is because the comet is moving, which causes star trails when images taken several minutes apart are combined.
You can see a bit of a “bow shock” on the left side of the comet. You can also see that the comet is not completely round, a bright area extends toward the right side of the comet. Visually, the left side of the comet is “sharper” and the right side tapers off a bit.

Comet 17P/Holmes, taken on October 28, 2007 by Don Yacco.

Description:
Seeing was good, and although the moon was almost full it was further from the comet than when I first tried to photograph it a few days earlier. In this trial, I shot a test image at the 5 second exposure and I noticed that I didn't get a bright enough image. Perhaps the size of the comet got larger and the overall light from it was more spread out? I tried 10, 15 and then 30 second images and the 30 second seemed to give the best results. So I ended up shooting 10 images with dark frames subtracted in RAW mode. I used ISO 100 so that I ended up with a cleaner image. I then stacked all the images in Registax V4. I like the way the image has an overall cleaner appearance. You also can see some faint stars through the image. In my original image I can actually see several 14+ magnitude stars throughout the comet. I seemed to have lost those fainter stars when converting to JPEG.

The Great Orion Nebula, by Chuck Higgins

The North America and Pelican nebulae, by Kevin Wigell