Telescope Reviews: Mar09 CN Imaging/Sketching Contest Poll!

Welcome to the March 2009 Cloudy Nights Imaging/Sketching Contest poll!

Each month the best images selected from the individual Cloudy Nights Imaging and Sketching forums will be presented for the userbase to vote on. The monthly winner receives the coveted Cloudy Nights t-shirt! At the conclusion of the poll, the entry with the highest total will be the winner of the contest..

Please choose your favorite out of all the images. This poll will remain open through March 15th at midnight.

Here are the entries for March!

Beginning Imaging's Finalist - DaemonGPF:

Horsehead (IC434)
8x300 sec AT66 APO, Starshoot II mono
Lumicon Hydrogen Alpha filter
Manually guided on CG5 mount
Processed in Photoshop 7

Film Astrophotography's Finalist - Nightfly:

The Taurus Dark Cloud, Barnard 22 is visible to the unaided eye under very dark skies. This region is rich in dark nebulae, star clusters, and emission nebulae. The image includes other dark nebulae Barnard 219 and 221, Messier 45, IC 405, NGC-1746 and 1499.

Details:

Pentax 67 with 165mm f/2.8 @ f/4
One 45 minute exposure
Kodak E200 Film pushed +1 stop
Camera piggybacked on 8" SCT / manually guided
Scanned on an Epson 4490 and processed in Photoshop

Cropped slightly from the original.

DSLR & Digital Camera Astro Imaging & Processing's Finalist - hewholooks:

M51 "Whirlpool Galaxy" in Canes Venatici
Canon 350D Hap Griffin Baader Mod
94x180sec at iso 1600
30 Darks/Flats/Bias
Celestron 9.25 reduced 0.63
Astro-Physics Mach1GTO Mount
60% Crop

CCD Imaging & Processing's Finalist - Doug6952:

This is a hybrid image of M81 & M82.

Scopes: EON 72mm and 8" Meade starfinder
Camera: DSI Pro III
Filters: Baader LRGB and Ha
Mount: CG-5ASGT
Guiding: F50 with 2x barlow, SSAG and PHD

Solar System Imaging's Finalist - siriusc:

Here's Saturn with just one degree of ring tilt, the Cassini Division is barely visible inside both east and west ring ansas. The northern polar and temperate regions contain several beautiful teal-blue colored belts and zones, the North Equatorial Belt-north is a rich green color, while just to its south lies the golden North Equatorial Belt-zone, and below this is the greenish colored North Equatorial Belt-south. The razor sharp and ink black ring shadow spans the entire width of the sandy colored North Equatorial Zone, curving as it approaches each limb. Saturn's sharply angled globe shadow is visible on the back ring located behind the planets western limb. A couple large swirling cloud tops are visible inside the South Equatorial Zone, and to their south lies the large (red or salmon colored) South Equatorial Belt, it's split by a thin light zone, and south of these are located many colorful light and dark (tropical/temperate) belts and zones, next is a wide copper colored band the South South Temperate Zone, and finally the South Polar Region and South Polar "Olivet" Cap are indeed olive colored. The (950 mile diameter) moon Rhea is totally eclipsing the Sun and casting its shadow on the dark green cloud tops of the NEBn.

Meade 10" SCT, Celestron's Ultima barlow (extented to F/44), no (UV/IR or IR Cut) filters were used so that I could capture the full color spectrum. Philips SPC900NC webcam, frame speed: 5fps, shutter speed: 1/5th second, recording: 10m 40s. Processing: Registax v4, stack size: 2,222 frames. Post processing: MS Digital Image and IRIS. Image aquisition: 1/22/09, 9:29 UT from the "Chiefland Astronomy Village", Florida.

Sketching Forum's Finalist - Aldebaran:

Object: Messier 51
Time: 19/20.3.2009
Observing site: Länsi-Turunmaa, Finland
Instrument: Newton 10''
Conditions: Clear sky, calm, 17,6 F (-8 C degrees)

Good Luck to all our finalists!

Which Image/Sketch is our winner?
Users may choose only one (46 total votes)

Beginning Imaging's Finalist - DaemonGPF:

3 06%

Film Astrophotography's Finalist - Nightfly:

5 10%

DSLR & Digital Camera Astro Imaging & Processing's Finalist - hewholooks:

17 36%

CCD Imaging & Processing's Finalist - Doug6952:

9 19%

Solar System Imaging's Finalist - siriusc:

9 19%

Sketching Forum's Finalist - Aldebaran:

3 06%

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"He's dead, Jim - I'll get his wallet, you get his tricorder." - Leonard "Bones" McCoy

Weston CSC: