My Astrophotography

My Astrophotography

I use two image sensor types for image capture - CCD and CMOS. I capture planetary images with a ToUcam Pro 740k CCD webcam, and I take longer exposures of deep sky objects using Canon's EOS 300D CMOS digital SLR camera. Webcams are very good for capturing planetary images where many very short exposures can be taken as an AVI (movie) file. Individual frames can then be extracted, aligned, and stacked. There is a variety of freeware and shareware applications for achieving these functions. Film, long exposure modified webcams, digital cameras with a bulb function or long exposure options, and traditional (and prohibitively expensive) astronomical CCD cameras are used to capture long exposures of deep sky objects to varying degrees of success. In these pages, I display some of the images I have taken with the ToUcam Pro webcam and the Canon 300D digital SLR. Comments and questions are always welcome (see the Home page for contact details).

New Images | Total images: 1 | Date added: 04.04.2005

This folder contains any new images for display prior to moving them to their respective galleries or test images that I am seeking some feedback on.

Galaxies | Total images: 4 | Date added: 30.11.2004

This folder displays the galaxies that I have imaged thus far. There's nothing spectacular here yet, however I am refining my technique moving to autoguiding and longer exposure durations.

Globular Clusters | Total images: 6 | Date added: 30.11.2004

This folder contains my attempts at imaging globular clusters. I find these deep sky objects the easiest to photograph. One of my Omega Centauri images will soon be published in a forthcoming book by Robert Reeves.

Nebulae | Total images: 6 | Date added: 30.11.2004

This folder contains my nebulae images taken to date. I am relatively pleased with these images but there is a huge amount of room for improvement.

Open Clusters | Total images: 6 | Date added: 21.12.2004

This folder contains a few open clusters that I have thus far imaged. There is nothing really special here as yet, although I'm working on it.

Solar System Objects | Total images: 13 | Date added: 30.11.2004

This folder contains solar system objects. To obtain planetary images, I almost exclusively capture AVIs using a ToUcam Pro 740k Webcam through my Meade LX90.

Wide Field Images | Total images: 2 | Date added: 04.04.2005

This folder shows my wide field images that don't easily fit into any other folder. These images are all taken with a short-tube 80 mm achromatic refractor piggyback mounted on a 203 mm SCT.

Comets | Total images: 4 | Date added: 07.12.2004

This folder contains images of comets taken using my LX90 and Canon 300D combination. I have a lot to learn about capturing these periodic visitors.

Aurorae | Total images: 4 | Date added: 07.12.2004

This folder contains images of Aurorae. Aurorae are not uncommon events from my viewing location but they are sufficiently rare to guarantee that this folder is unlikely to be updated very often.

April, 04, 2005

Uploaded 1 wide-field image of Crux region captured on the night of April 03, 2005 with Canon's 300D kit lens.

December, 07, 2004

Uploaded 4 images of aurorae captured on October 11, 2004.

December, 03, 2004

Uploaded image of comet Machholz (C2004 Q2) plus finder details for my location in Tasmania, Australia.

November, 26, 2004

My image folders are finally up and running. A few of the images specifications still need to be added.