Telescope Reviews: Congrats to David Rosenthal

We are very pleased and proud to present the September 2012 CCD Imaging Semi-Finalists in the Cloudy Nights Imaging/Sketching Contest.

Jared:

M27--The Dumbbell Nebula
Oakland, CA, 15-Sep-2012
4.8 NELM, 7/10 seeing

45 minutes luminosity (five minute subexposures); 15 min each RGB
Exposures binned 1x1
Calibration with darks, flats, and bias frames

SBIG STL-11000 camera with Astrodon TrueBalance filters (Gen II)
SBIG AO-L adaptive optics, 2s exposures
Planewave 12.5" CDK @ f/7
Astro-Physics 900 GTO mount

alpal:

M8 Lagoon Nebula.

Distance 4100 ly, Magnitude 6.
11th Sept. 2012.
Melbourne Australia - outer suburb.

3 x 3 minutes each of LRGB plus 10 minutes of Ha 7nm Baader.
All binned 1x1, darks, flats & bias frames applied.
Camera gain 5% & offset 100, Sensor Temp - 34.2 °C.
Total 46 minutes of data.
Telescope 8" custom built Newt. f6, modified NEQ6 pro mount, QHY9 camera,
RCC coma corrector - ( not perfectly adjusted yet.)
Guided with TS9 OAG, PHD guiding & Lodestar guide camera,
used Ezycap for capturing subframes.
Stacked & aligned in DSS.
Photoshop CS5 & Fitswork4 for processing.
Cropped & rotated from original frame.

Large size 1.2 Mbyte here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/24719437@N03/8019427244/sizes/h/in/photostream/

Thanks for looking.

Mike Wiles:

Date: August 26 & 27, 2012 and September 14, 2012
Location: Goodyear, Arizona & Happy Jack, Arizona
Telescope: Explore Scientific ED127CF Refractor - 127mm f/7.5 Carbon Fiber Triplet
Mount: Astro-Physics AP900GTO CP3
Camera: SBIG ST-8300m and SBIG FW8-8300 filter wheel
Guiding: SBIG ST-i Mono and SBIG OAG-8300 off-axis guider
Exposure: 7 hours (Ha: 7 x 30 min, OIII 7 x 30 min)
Capture: CCD AutoPilot v5, Maxim DL 5.18
Calibration & Processing: CCDStack 2, PixInsight 1.7, Photoshop CS5

Larger Size here

David Rosenthal:

Here is my entry for September.

Target : NGC7380 (The Wizard Nebula)
Dates : 9/17, 9/19 & 9/21/2012
Location: 20 miles outside New York City
Optics : Borg / Pentax 125SD @ f/4.6 [Oasis #7878]
Camera : SXVR-H18
Filters : AstroDon 5nm Ha, OIII, SII
Guiding : Off Axis, Gemini Direct, SX ExView Camera
Mount : Losmandy G11 Gemini I on an AP Wood Tripod
Exposure: R:G:B = SII:Ha:OIII = 10*1200:9*1200:8*1200
Software: MaximDL, Registar, PSCS5X64

1280 X 1024 Version
http://www.pbase.com/djrlx90/image/146201604/original

Please note that voting will conclude on October 8th at Midnight EST.

Many thanks to all who took part in the contest!

*

Which Image goes to the Finals?
Users may choose only one (30 total votes)

Jared

6 20%

alpal

7 23%

Mike Wiles

7 23%

David Rosenthal

10 33%

Edited by Charlie Hein (10/09/12 07:03 AM)