Roy Foreman

That is a real compliment - thank you so much !

Oops - forgot to attach jpegs.

I don't do a lot of lunar and planetary imaging, but when the moon is about I give DSO's a miss for a while and turn my imaging equipment towards our nearest neighbour. I don't consider myself an expert at this, but in the twilight skies of March 23rd I think I got some reasonable results. In the image of Plato I count 11 craterlets in it's floor, so I've included a selective enlargement of the crater itself. Have a look and let me know if you think I'm doing ok at this. Equipment - 16" F/4.5 Reflector, Baader FFC set to 3x amplification, ZWO ASI 183MM, 15% of 900 frames, processed in Auto Stakkert and Photoshop Thanks for looking - C and C's very welcome !

Well done - very nice images !

Tough call, but I think B just has the edge for me

Better than my first attempt at the DC - well done ! Surprised you are getting blue halos. I have an Equinox 120 ED and never get blue halos. I often get red ones when used with an astro modified DSLR (Nikon D810a) in combination with a IDAS LPR filter, but I think that is quite common. Nice image

Very nice image Gerr - well done !

Thanks Gerr. I image Betelgeuse each year just in case it blows ! Could be tomorrow, could be in a million years - who knows !

Hi Gerr - thanks for your response. Shooting stars is not as straight forward as it might seem. You need to have pin sharp focus and correct exposure - there is a fine balance, which varies with the star field and atmospheric conditions. I find a DSLR gives better results than a dedicated astro camera, in terms of colour balance and ease of use. You don't need a modded camera. I generally use 4 sec at ISO 200. And yes I do have a shot of Betelgeuse - see below.

Before an imaging run, and often while it is still twilight, I will use a bright star to sync the scope to that part of the sky, and take a few images of it to check focus etc. I eventually started processing these test images and grew to like the results. I now have a growing collection of stars like Vega (shown below), Regulus, Betelgeuse etc. against their starry backdrops. Had a quick search through the SGL galleries but could not find any 'single star' images done by others. Am I alone in this, or is anyone out there doing the same ?

Increasing light pollution is the bane of all astronomers - particularly those doing imaging. I am fortunate enough to live in an area where light pollution, although present, is low enough to enable imaging without the use of filtration on occasions. My big problem is - pollution. It feels like I am constantly trying to image through a fog of water vapour and other airborne rubbish. And not all of it is airborne. Recently, trying to image in the constellation of Orion, an alarming number of my subs were ruined by satellite trails. This reminded me of an imaging session a couple of years back, taking wide angle shots of the whole of Orion. I guess about 25% of the frames had satellite trails on, and one had captured five trails in a single 60 sec exposure ! I am now starting to take additional subs just to compensate for this. It seems, not content with polluting our own planet, we are now starting to clutter up space as well. Heaven help us.

I have a Baader FFC and can confirm that it is a top notch piece of kit. As well as amplifying the image it doubles up as a field flattener, and a coma corrector as well, and provides a flat field 90mm in diameter. But be warned, it is not an item to be trifled with. Two of it's four elements are made from REAL calcium fluoride, with all the thermal limitations that go with it. Take it from the cold night air into a warm room and it will damage beyond repair. And the warranty does not cover for this. The minimum magnification is 3x, for which requires 100mm of spacing from lens to sensor. Maximum 8x magnification requires a substantial 370mm spacing ! Telescope balance very quickly becomes a problem. You need to be using a pretty serious setup before thinking about acquiring an FFC.

I like the first one best, but they are all good. Well done under moonlight !

Thank you ! In reality I wasn't expecting it to turn out well at all !

What do you do if your thing is deep sky imaging and the first decent run of clear nights in nearly 5 months occurs under a full moon ? And what do you do if all this happens when you have a new camera to try out ? You go for the only object likely to shine through the glare - good old Orion Nebula ! Started imaging as soon as it was reasonably dark and used a dual band filter to hopefully get better results. Vital stats are as follows :- 16" F/4.5 Reflector ZWO 6200 MC Pro full Frame OSC Optolong L-enhance Dual Band Filter 20 x 30sec at gain 414 20 x 30 sec at gain 305 Sensor Temperature -25C I'm reasonably happy with it apart from the star colours !