Galileo's Camera

Owing to somewhat kinder weather, managed to have a small window two days ago for some astrophotography.Luckily for me, Orion becomes a good target straight from my balcony. M42, or the Orion Nebula is the first nebula that I tried to shoot. My first attempt was very unsuccessful and all I managed to get was a light patch that showed where the nebula was. This time I was determined to get something better. However, instead of using the 4SE for imaging, this time I decided to use the 100-400mm Canon lens while using the 4SE as a tracking mount. The results I should say are better than I expected. But I still have a long way to go. 22 light frames x 2-5sec + 10 dark; Canon 550D on 400mm telephoto lens   So far I have identified several problems with my astrophotography: 1. Unpreparedness Most of my astrophotography sessions are spontaneous. I am never prepared for those and don't have everything set up and calibrated. 2. Not the best equipment and  not using th...

The very first constellation I learned to recognise was Orion. Perhaps it's fitting that the very first presentable deep space image I did was also related to it. The Orion Nebula (M42/NGC1976) The Orion Nebula is visible to the naked eye, but cannot see much details to fully appreciate the beauty of it. The nebula is essentially what makes up the second star of Orion's sword. A wider field view of Orion with the nebula visible as a large bright blob is shown below (copied from Wikipedia): Orion (from Wikipedia) The first photo shown was taken from a Canon 550D fixed to NexStar 4SE on prime focus. 32 frames of 2seconds stacked with 10 dark frames on Deep Sky Stacker and then readjusted on Photoshop. It is obviously far from perfect. I think you need about 100 shots to make a good composite image. But as a beginner's attempt, I think it is pretty good.