M31 Andromeda w/Meade 70mm f/5 Quadruplet Astrograph

[Hankmeister3]

Captured last Friday evening under Bortle 3 to 4 skies overhead, slightly above average transparency and Pickering 3 to 4 skies. Sky conditions were constantly changing a bit during the four hours I was imaging. I captured more than several DSOs with both my Orion 6-inch f/4 astrograph Newtonian and my piggy-backed Meade 70mm f/5 quadruplet APO ED. I thought I'd just post two of the better grabs. Representative examples of both my Stakker-lite technique further enhanced by layering and Single-Frame of Pleiades with 4 layers. Pleiades was imaged by my Orion 6-inch f/4 Newtonian astrograph.

SW EQ6-R Pro (sidereal + PPEC only guide)
Both Canon EOS 80D and 77D DSLR (unmodded)

[Shabadoo]

Nice!

[Hankmeister3]

Thanks, Jeff. I appreciate you looking.

[Mac]

Great captures Henry with wonderful colors.

[Greenman]

Nice Henry, impressive, looking at the number of frames

[TheButcher]

Great Images Henry!

[Hankmeister3]

Great captures Henry with wonderful colors.

Thanks, Steve. You know me ... lots o' color and contrast! These old eyes and all that.

[messier 111]

very nice capture .

[BABOafrica]

Those old eyes are doing just fine!

Nice captures.

BABO

[Juno16]

Really nice images Henry. I especially like M31. Wow, almost 19 minutes!

[Graeme1858]

Nice nebulosity in the Pleiades there Henry.

Regards

Graeme

[Lady Fraktor]

Very nice images Henry

[Hankmeister3]

Nice Henry, impressive, looking at the number of frames

Thank you Greenman and Butcher. I like the challenge but the images I generate can certainly be made better with more data. It is what it is but I'm still entertained by the ability of all this modern digital technology to capture what some of us old school film-based astrophotographers dreamt of capturing on a single frame of film.

Hypered film was the rage back in the 70s an 80s to help overcome reciprocity failure (essentially ASA/ISO 400 film lost its sensitivity to light over a long period of exposure and soon became something like ASA 32 film stock). I should have availed myself of that "technology" but didn't. So I was stuck with 10 to 20 to 30 minute guiding sessions. What used to take us 20 to 30 minutes of manual off-axis guiding to generate a decent DSO image now takes about two minutes at ISO 1600 using our mount's PEC feature or an auto-guider. Particularly us old folks like all these modern whiz-bang gizmos and technology! And the GoTo technology ... WOW! Easy peasy. Saves a LOT of time ... and oaths and maldictions, too. And focusing vintage 35mm SLR cameras like the Olympus OM2N that I had ... that was an experience I don't care to repeat. A neat camera but still very difficult to get precise focus. Lots of wasted film, time and patience and I was doing my own color processing at the time to cut down the turnaround time. Plus lab processing never got the sky background right or even close to right.

Yep, this is the golden age for not only stacking frames and post-production tweaks of celestial wonders but also for single-frame grabs.

[Hankmeister3]

Really nice images Henry. I especially like M31. Wow, almost 19 minutes!

Yeah, Jim, almost a personal record for me.

[Hankmeister3]

Those old eyes are doing just fine!

Nice captures.

BABO

Thank you, Joe. BTW, happy birthday! May you have many many more and keep those images rolling.

[Hankmeister3]

Very nice images Henry

Thank you, m'Lady Fractor. How has the weather and skies been treating you there in Slovakia? We've taken a real beating here in the American midwest with the unpredictable bad weather and smoke outs. Only lately have we've been able to string together several nice observing nights in a row ... that is if one doesn't mind sitting in the outdoor equivalent of a Frigidaire freezer. Heh!

[Lady Fraktor]

If you enjoy clouds stacked on clouds the skies are perfect!
There is a possibility for Tuesday night though

[Astrovetteman]

Those are two very nice images Henry!
Great Job!!
Tom

[Hankmeister3]

Those are two very nice images Henry!
Great Job!!
Tom

Thanks, Tom. I appreciate your comment.

[StargazerQ]

Beautiful! Both are so sharp and clear! That astrograph seems a little gem.