Oh My, If Only

[barkis]

I thought I would submit thisas an indication of what I would eventually like to achieve as an astrophotographer.

The I gave myself a shake, and said "Don't be silly."

Barkis.

http://lunacie.com/re.aster/pages/imagePage/nebula/m42/m42_001.htm

[Caz]

Seeing the Horsehead and Orion's neb together is phenomenal, a lot of work, a lot of time, skill and patience to produce such a high quality image... 8) Never say never Barkis...

Caz

[blinky]

Ach It's only black & white! nothing special

[legion48]

I thought I would submit this as an indication of what I would eventually like to achieve as an astrophotographer.

The I gave myself a shake, and said "Don't be silly."

Barkis.

http://lunacie.com/re.aster/pages/imagePage/nebula/m42/m42_001.htm

As someone who's new toucam has hardly been out of the box for the last 3 months due to the constant cloud cover/rain/wind/wife, I sympathise with you. I thought by now I would have posted dozens of stunning images of the running man, a world first of planet X and at least a few near Earth asteroids. Yet so far, all I have to show for my efforts are a single, rather poor, image of the moon. And that's OUR moon! Not exactly a good return on my financial and emotional investment.

But so what. We will carry on and, eventually, be pleased with what we have achieved. There are worse ways of spending our evenings

[barkis]

I thought I would submit this as an indication of what I would eventually like to achieve as an astrophotographer.

The I gave myself a shake, and said "Don't be silly."

Barkis.

http://lunacie.com/re.aster/pages/imagePage/nebula/m42/m42_001.htm

As someone who's new toucam has hardly been out of the box for the last 3 months due to the constant cloud cover/rain/wind/wife, I sympathise with you. I thought by now I would have posted dozens of stunning images of the running man, a world first of planet X and at least a few near Earth asteroids. Yet so far, all I have to show for my efforts are a single, rather poor, image of the moon. And that's OUR moon! Not exactly a good return on my financial and emotional investment.

But so what. We will carry on and, eventually, be pleased with what we have achieved. There are worse ways of spending our evenings

I agree L48, I am really not a negative person, sure we get frustrated when we are denied access to the eyepiece because the weather is Rubbish, but after years of observing, and drinking the wine of the cosmos, I can always re fire my enthusiasm just by thinking of the clear skies that will surely come back eventually.

Then I get orgasmic with anticiipation. ( I apologize unreservedly if that last remark offends anyone) Like Spock, I can use my mind as a rejuvenator.

May your chip soon be full of photons.

Barkis

[MartinB]

He has put a huge amount of time and effort into that project and hats off to him it's a stunning result. Why do you feel you'd never be able to manage that yourself though Barkis?

[barkis]

He has put a huge amount of time and effort into that project and hats off to him it's a stunning result. Why do you feel you'd never be able to manage that yourself though Barkis?

Oh! Martin, it is nice to be optimistic. I am hopeful that with some help and guidance from the SGL library of knowledge, I would me more than satisfied with a Pic. Of The Week image of mine published on this site. I am looking forward to the weather conditions improving, for me to get my investments earning their keep.

[anthony]

Yikes

[anthony]

what an image

[Lunar]

Wow, is all that nebulosity really out there?!!! :shock: That just makes me feel even worse about light pollution

[tenbyfifty]

I don't know what's more amazing, the image itself or the fact that somebody can

create the image in the first place.

[lunator]

Barkis

Its a fantastic pic, but given time and experience there is no reason why your images would not be comparable.

Cheers

Ian

[Ant]

I've seen Roger send to the Recycle Bin better images than that!

Seriously though, I can remember starting out observing many many years ago. I really wanted to get into imaging and at the time the only path open to me was FILM. What a disaster that was, managed to get some nice moon shots and some wide angle constallations etc.

But that wasn't what I wanted - I wanted planets and DSO's.

Please excuse the following images (they are only thumbnails). So it took me a little time to get images that I'm happy with but I have managed a number of images with nice simple equipment.

These images were taken with a 6" F/5 Skywatcher on EQ5 and a standard Toucam Pro - total expenditure around £350 (not including laptop).

These with either 6" or 8" on HEQ5 with modified Webcam. Expenditure around £450

M27

M51

M57

M82

M104

My point is that you do not need to have images like that to be very happy with the images you get.

If I had the Astro kit that that guy has got - I could take images like that!

Ant

[anthony]

The kit you have got does make a big diference without a doubt. Knowledge comes in handu too. But what you need regardless of knowledge and kit is the wish/drive/ambition to produce images like that in the first place. Given kit and knowledge as "granted", it still takes a lot of time and love to acquire and process such a master piece.

Anthony

PS Ant - Jupiter Saturn and the lunar close up are superb images. I love images like these

[Ant]

I couldn't agree more Anthony, but I actually think that Luck and patience has a lot to do with it as well. Take for example the Jupiter image below. It is the only Jupiter image that I ever got that I was happy with, I did nothing different to the other hundreds of AVI's that I took in the year before and year after...

What made the different was that fact that I got up at 4am and imaged when the atmosphere was nice and steady. I guess a little luck in getting the focus spot on, but to be honest there is a lot of luck involved.

Cheers for the comments on the images.

Ant