Original size: 977x651
DATE
December 3rd, 2007, 10pm to 10:30pm PST
PHOTO
Exposure: 1 x 3 minutes
Focal: 600mmm, f/7.5
EQUIPMENT
Imaging Scope: Orion 80mm ED Apo
Camera:Canon 400D Stock (unmodified)
Guide camera: None
Guide scope: None
Mount: Orion Sirius EQ-G
SITE & CONDITIONS
Dinosair Point, Gilroy, CA
Seeing:Good
Transparency: Excellent
SOFTWARE
Stacking: None
Processing: Photoshop
AUTHOR
Rogelio Bernal Andreo
COMMENTS
What can you do when you're not guiding, with a "cheap" mount and scope, one single shot
and on top of that, during your "first night out"? If it's winter and your mount is at least OK,
you can get a nice image of the Orion Nebula and amaze yourself. The problem? You might just get
hooked on astrophotography :-)
All by itself, this image has nothing special. It's a classic and simple photo of the Orion nebula,
and not a very good one depending how you look at it (very little data other than the brightest parts of
the nebula, the trapezium is completely burned out, bloated and oversaturated stars, odd colors, etc.).
But it was my very first "serious" astrophoto, and for me that makes it special of course :-)
::
4 Comments
Comments
Dan (Contact, Page), October 1st, 2009, 14:49
Thanks for showing us what can be done "easily"! It's especially interesting to see the performance of an unmodified DSLR on nebulae.
Peter Simmering (Contact, Page), February 17th, 2010, 4:04
Hi Rogelio!
Excellent website! Superb photo's!!
I'm curious about the oldest images (dec 2007): how on earth did you get already such beautiful results without guiding of any sort?? Amazing!
I do polar alignment as precisely as I can, spending an hour on it to get it right, then after 2 min.s exposure time already I get elongated stars...
Kind greetings,
Peter Simmering
(beginning) astrophotographer
V.W.S. Thales (astronomy club)
Zwolle - The Netherlands
Hi Peter,
When you don't do autoguiding you may get more or less elongated stars depending on the focal length of your scope. What is the focal length of your scope?
Fernando Gómez (Contact, Page), March 21st, 2010, 7:43
I get in touch with your website from a link in the NASA page.
All your pictures are really impressive but I prefer to comment on this because I am doing my first steps with astrophotography with a similar beginner equipment like yours in this picture of the Orion Nebula.
I agree with you that your first M42 nebula picture is something that you will never forget and it is really special.
Congratulations for the great improvement you made since that time and let me tell you that being published by the Nasa in the "Astronomy Picture of the day" (March 19 - "Seagull and the duck")is just like wining a Nobel Prize
Finally, as I live in the Southern Hemisphere I am lucky to have Orion up in the sky during summer time which is more pleasent for doing astrophotography.
Regards
Fernando Gomez
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