Some Stars

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Apollo XX
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Some Stars

Unread post by Apollo XX »

How dense is the starfield in our summer milkyway? Very! In fact it's been said that if it weren't for the dust and gas in space we wouldn't see any darkness between the stars while looking toward our galactic center, and that all we'd see is uninterrupted starlight. This image gives us a clue as to what they're talking about. Taken from the dark skies of Peppermint Park in Plainfield, MA, we're looking at a region of the sky just forward of Cygnus' wings. Sometimes I see a hint of this sky-crowding in the eyepiece - a sort of mottled background to the stars I'm looking at - but there's nothing like having the camera write it down for you.

At the time this image was taken Cygnus was at zenith, giving me a good dark sky to work with. The image doesn't go that deep, really. It's a five high stack of one minute exposures taken with a hinge-tracker mounted DSLR equipped with a 50mm lens at F2.8, and ISO1600 was used. There are so many stars in the image that it was very difficult to find my way around at first, and only after careful side-by-side study with a planetarium program was I able to get a grasp on it. I'm saving you the trouble by providing an annotated version for comparison.

Behold, some stars;
Image

Image
"The purpose of life is the investigation of the Sun, the Moon, and the heavens." - Anaxagoras
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AndyG
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Re: Some Stars

Unread post by AndyG »

Marvelous image Mike! Great job on the processing, I really like the colors. Truly an awe-inspiring image. Congratulations!
I like the annotated version too.
Andy
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Apollo XX
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Re: Some Stars

Unread post by Apollo XX »

Thanks Andy!
"The purpose of life is the investigation of the Sun, the Moon, and the heavens." - Anaxagoras
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rjbokleman
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Re: Some Stars

Unread post by rjbokleman »

Cygnus was at Zenith around ~1:00am so you were an early riser! :lol:

Spectacular especially given that this was done by hand with manual tracking. How did you mount the tracker Mike?

Couple of extras on this. Peppermint Park is where the Rockland Astronomy Club (same folks who run NEAF each year) hold their Summer Star Party. The challenge for most of ASSNE is it's run at nearly the same week each year as Stellafane. :shock:

I'm working on NGC 6888 / Crescent Nebula (my first Nebula attempt) and have around 3 hours of it so far from home and am attempting to capture at least 10-12 hours. I am waiting to finish it off in Plainfield in a little less than a week. :P
Ron B.
T5i/700D, ASI1600MM-C, ASI120MM, ASI174MM, XAGYL 7x36mm FW
Astronomik Deep-Sky(RGB), CLS, Ha, OIII, SII
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AT65EDQ 65mm f/6.5 ED Quadruplet
SW ProED 100mm f/9.0 Doublet APO
C8 EdgeHD, AT130EDT
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http://www.astrobin.com/users/rjbokleman/
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