The Orion Nebula - M42

This is my first picture of The Orion Nebula - M42, taken by myself and Doug Elick at Hueston Woods this past evening.

The sky conditions were not the best.  There were a few clouds around at times and the atmosphere was a little turbulent.  We used Doug's camera at about a 15 second exposure to capture this image.  The Orion Nebula is probably the easiest nebula to find in the night sky.  If you look below the 3 belt stars of the Constellation Orion(depending on it's position in the sky), you should be able to see the faint glow of the nebula on a clear night.  I am able to see it from my backyard with less than idea conditions on most clear nights.  The nebula is classified as a magnitude 4.00 object making it extremely bright as nebula go.

Over all I am very happy with this picture and hope to snap another when the sky conditions are much more clear.  Since the Constellation of Orion is a winter constellation,  there should be plenty of crisp, cool, turbulent free nights coming.

Near Full Moon Capture

 JUST PAST FULL MOON - JUNE 2012

I took this photo of the moon this past summer using my Skywatcher 8" reflector telescope and a Cannon Powershot A2200 14.1MP camera.  I shot this picture looking straight into a 20mm eyepiece using the camera.   This type of astrophotography is called the 'afocal' method.  Almost any type of digital camera can be used.  Simply hold the camera lens up to the eyepiece, make sure you are in focus, and fire away.  It can be a little tricky to get the object centered in the camera preview screen and to keep it steady.  So patience is necessary.  Camera holders can be purchased to hold it at the eyepiece for you.  I don't own one myself but may buy one in the future.

This picture of the moon was taken just past full moon, about less than a day I suspect.  You can see on the left side it is just slightly cutoff, waning its way to a 'new moon'.  I was surprised at how good the quality was for my first moon shot with this camera.

I'm not sure what the correct orientation of the moon is, but I'm pretty sure that it is not as it appears if you look with the naked eye.  I would have to flip my picture top to bottom and left to right to match most pictures I viewed on Google.  I'll double check the next time I see the moon ;)

My Telescope And Gear

I realized that I have not posted any pictures of my telescope and gear.

 This is my 8" Skywatcher reflector scope with an EQ5 mount.  The focal length of the tube is 1000mm and the primary mirror aperture is 200mm, making this an F/5 telescope.  I added an Orion Duel Axis controller afterwards for about $125.  Two Plossl eyepieces came with it:  a 20mm and a 7.5mm.  Also purchased separately is a 2x Orion Shorty barlow lens.





I have owned this setup for about 3 years and I thoroughly enjoy using it.  The shipping weight was somewhere around 65 lbs, which makes it fairly difficult to move around when fully assembled.  I was completely lost on how to operate the equatorial mount the first time I attempted to do so.  It doesn't have free range of motion, but moves along the declination axis and right ascension axis.  This was a little tricky for me as a beginner.

The eyepieces are decent quality Plossl style and are pictured below.  They are both 1.25" and fully coated.  Calculating the magnification that each eyepiece with deliver is pretty simple.  Just divide the focal length of the telescope(in mm) by the focal length of the eyepiece(in mm).  So for my 20mm eyepiece I divide by the focal length (1000mm):  1000mm / 20mm = 50.  My 20mm eyepiece with magnify objects 50 times bigger than the naked eye.  My other eyepiece is 7.5mm.  1000mm / 7.5mm = 133x.  This makes objects appear 133 times bigger than the naked eye.  Using my 2x Shorty barlow will double the magnification of both eyepieces.  This sounds good but a lot of light is lost at these high magnifications.  I tend tend to only use the barlow when looking at brighter objects.

7.5mm and 20mm Plossl eyepieces.



Object tracking was something I realized right away that I really wanted.  Not only is it nice to have an object stay centered in the eyepiece, but I wanted to take pictures also.  I bought this Orion Dual Axis device:

  Orion True Track Electronic Drive

Powered by 4 D size batteries or an AC to DC adapter, this unit controls the declination and right ascension motors attached to the scope via two cables.  While tracking, only the RA motor is utilized to follow an object across the sky.  The DEC motor is only used to slew the scope to the desired position.
Of course the only way to get decent tracking is to have a properly aligned and leveled mount.  Doing so will provide up to 15 to 20 seconds of tracking good enough for a little astrophotography.  If you simply want tracking good enough to share the view with friends without having to constantly adjust the scope, this works very well.






 That's my brief introduction to my telescope and gear.  If you have any questions, please leave a comment.