Backyard Astrophotography 2
Here are a few more the astro photos i have taken. All taken with a Nikon D5300. Some with just the camera and an NEQ6 Equatorial Mount , and others with those two and either an Orion 120mm refactor with a 600mm focal length or a 250mm Newtonian with a focal length of 1250mm.
So this one is an overall shot of the Milky Way in which you can see the Lagoon Nebula (My last astro post has a shot of this taken with the Orion 120mm) to the left of center , slightly below the middle of the picture from top to bottom. It's the brightest nebula in the picture. Slightly down and to the right is the Trifid Nebula. To the right of center and slightly above the middle from top to bottom is the Omega Nebula and a bit to the right of that is The Eagle Nebula. And just as an extra, the bright red 'star' in the bottom of the picture left of center , is actually Mars. Taken with the NEQ6 and the D5300 at 55mm, ISO 1600 , Exposure of 264.8s.
The Trifid Nebula taken with the D5300 , NEQ6 and the Orion 120mm. ISO 400 , Exposure 120.2s.
The Carina Nebula (mentioned in my previous post in a wide shot of the sky) This is one of my favorite ones to try to get a good picture of. This one was taken with the 250mm Newtonian. This is quite a big one , so it doesn't fit in one frame. Not my best , but i still think it came out pretty good.
The Carina Nebula , from a different angle and more of the main part of the nebula in the frame this time. Still not perfect , but i like this one too , and i think i just love the colors in this nebula. This one was also taken with the 1250mm Newtonian. I think some people may also refer to this nebula as the Keyhole Nebula.
Are you using a tripod?
Yep. So that is what the NEQ6 is. It's an equatorial mount that tracks the sky , well , when set up properly anyways :) . Without tracking the sky , you are limited to about a 30sec shot before the stars start trailing in the picture , depending on what magnification you are at. The higher the magnification , the more accurate the tracking needs to be.
I mostly take about 1 to 2 minute exposures when i am using a telescope and sometimes up to 5 minutes with just the camera if the mount is set up good. Some people also use auto-guiding to take astro photos , which is a separate camera and computer to correct any errors in the tracking while taking an exposure. Or manual guiding , which is the same , except you are correcting the tracking errors instead of a computer. I haven't tried either of those just yet.
thank you for this guiding :)
You're welcome. :)
Excellent work! I like night sky photos!
Thank You. Yeah i think astro photos and sunset photos are my favorite , although i haven't taken a good sunset one in a good while now.
Amazing! I love the last one :) Great work.
Thanks :) ... The Carina Nebula is my favorite one to photograph. Even when i have a list of things i want to go photo for the night , I still wind up moving the scope to this one at some point in the night.
Awesome! I'm following you!
Hey ganjafarmer , cool ... thanks for the comment , compliment and the follow. :)
Your welcome! Can't wait to see more stars. I'm northern hemisphere.