M27 20110724 mcrae 3x drizzleCanon 1000D; 150P; EQ3-2; APT; DSS; PSe7

Hi, Rik.

These pics are incredible!

I've got a similar-ish scope, and a 550D, but I'm not getting close to images like this. Can you let me know what you're doing with the camera to get these? Exposure times, etc? How many shots?

I took a 30 minute exposure at ISO100, through my 5 inch aperture scope with 2x barlow lens and got nothing but faint stars. :)

Thanks.

This was loads of short 90sec exposures. Then using Deep Sky Stacker, I combined the images to produce one single image with a lot more detail than the originals on their own. During this stacking process, I selected just the centre part of the image and used 3x drizzle, which basically zooms the image 3x larger, but more acurately than simply resizing in Photoshop.