West Texas September 2015 Astronomy Pictures
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This is my September 2015 Davis Mountains astronomy pictures page. This trip marked to first real time out for the Nikon D810A, a DSLR designed for astronomy.  It replaced my Canon 20Da, which I sold right before the trip.  Scenic and daylight pictures from the trip are here.
 


Time Lapse: 9/13/15 Clouds to Night to Day, Facing North

December 2015: Friday Night's Time Lapse is up.  Sunday 9/13's time lapse tracks the Milky Way all night.


Central America and the Gulf of Mexico: Hubble Palette

This is a narrowband version of a section of the North American NebulaThis page features the bright the Cygnus Wall area of "Central America".  This part of the sky has some very interesting components but is often kind of overlooked given the spectacular neighborhood (NA & Pelican Nebulae.)  Details: SBIG ST-8300m monochrome camera and the Takahashi FSQ-85 telescope (no reducer).  Exposures are Sulfur (Red) at 33 * 5 min, Ha (Green) at 42 * 5 min, and O3 (Blue) at 40 * 5 min; total 9.6 hours.  My equipment rides on the AP 900GTO mountMy processing techniques are discussed here.


Southern Milky Way: Nikon D810A & Nikon 85mm Lens

More from the Southern Milky Way is on my page dedicated to that area here.  Technical discussion:  This is 55 minutes total exposure (11*5min) with the Nikon D810A camera, Nikon Nikkor 85mm f1.8 lens at f3.5 and ISO 800.  I haven't had a chance to tackle the gradient or slight flat-fielding issues but I wanted to get something posted.  This is ever-so-slightly trimmed from the final stack, maybe 10 pixels, to clean up the edges.  Reduced (flats and darks) and converted to .tif in ImagesPlus 6.5, stacked in Registar, final processing in Photoshop CS6.


Central America and the Gulf of Mexico

This a quick and dirty version of H-alpha component, 3.5 hours total exposure (42*5min), of this section of the North American NebulaThis page features the bright the Cygnus Wall area of "Central America" and a properly "cooked" version.  The sky here has some very interesting components but is often kind of overlooked given the spectacular neighborhood (NA & Pelican Nebulae.)  Details: SBIG ST-8300m monochrome camera and the Takahashi FSQ-85 telescope (no reducer).  My equipment rides on the AP 900GTO mountMy processing techniques are discussed here.


Cygnus Area: Nikon D810A + 85mm Lens

Details: 2.4 hours exposure (29 * 5 minutes) Nikon D810A camera, Nikon Nikkor 85mm f1.8 lens at f3.5 and ISO 800.


Satellite Flash Near the Galactic Dark Horse

This is a satellite flash in what I think is the most interesting part of the sky.  Below the flash is the Antares area.  Just to the left is the Pipe Nebula and/or Galactic Dark Horse, and on further to the left is a nice bright swath of the Milky Way.

Check my fixed tripod astronomy page for this image in context, along with additional details and pictures.


Phil at the Telescope


Click Here: Short Rotating Milky Way Time Lapse

Time Lapse:  Setting up the telescope, clouds, then using the telescope against a backdrop of the milky way.

Time Lapse:  Short evening to night time lapse with clouds dancing around the Milky Way.

Time Lapse: Nikon D750 & Storm Blowing Up over Blue Mountain

Time Lapse: Losmandy Starlapse and Nikon D810A, 28mm evening to night lapse

Main West Texas Astronomy Pictures Page Is Here

Wide Angle Astrophotos

Main West Texas Scenic Picture Page is here

Dick Locke's Astrophoto Gateway page....

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