M42 & 43 - First Post

[cwjames]

FHi All,

Happy New Year to you all.

I am a newbie both to Astronomy and this forum. I only purchased my scope 12 months ago and in the past couple of months have build up enougth of the skills required to begin doing Astrophotogtaphy.

I have had lots of fun getting this far, but I have a long way to go yet.

This is the latest image I captured last Friday Night at Orange Grove (Western Australia). The was done with my 20D at Prime Focus on a SkyWatcher ED80 piggy backed on the Mead LX200R.

I have yet to produce a proper web site to display these images, however you can see it at the url's below.

http://cwjames.bigpondhosting.com/goldengrove20080105/index.htm

http://www.users.bigpond.com/chris.w.james/


Se Ya
Chris

[leon]

Hey Chris, not a bad effort on M42, well done mate, :thumbsup: had a sticky at your web page/site as well very interesting indeed, very personal. ;)

Leon :thumbsup:

[iceman]

Hi Chris and :welcome: to IIS, great to have you here.

That's a very nice M42. For 7x 211s, I'd expect to see a burnt out core. Did you mask it with shorter exposures?

Also next time, take care with the composition and try to frame the nebula a bit better.

btw, did you attach the image properly? It doesn't appear to be fullsize. Just attach the normal websized image, and the forum will create a thumbnail for you.

Cheers and I look forward to more!

[zipdrive]

Good to see you on the forum Chris :thumbsup:

[cwjames]

Hi All,

Mike - yes I only attached a thumbnail, I will use normal size web image in the future now that I know how it works. You are quite right, I think I also had about 5 images exposed for the core which I combined with the 211 second shots in PhotoShop using a mask for the core area.



Dave - Once I saw how you did the your posting, I thought I would give it a go.


Leon - Thanks for comments - Yes the web page is not really setup for displaying astrophotos - Something I need to work on in the future.


Thanks
Chris

[browndog]

Hi Chris - that is a great image to start off your account. :thumbsup: (I wish mine were as good as that)

You should be very proud of that achievement - well done. Looking forward to more postings.

[jase]

Welcome aboard Chris. I feel certain you'll have some fun around here and glean plenty of information to assist in your astrophotography pursuits. A good opening image too. Look forward to seeing more.

[dcalleja]

Chris
Beaut images. Pretty amazing for a 1st time (you should see my 1st efforts). I had a look at your website - can I borry a couple of DVD's - impressive collection.

[Ric]

Hi Chris and welcome to IIS, That's a very nice image of M42 that you have presented. You've captured some lovely colour and detail.

Looking forward to seeing more of you work.

Cheers

[EzyStyles]

welcome to IIS chris. that is one fine image for a first! you sure that is your first? :lol: keep it up .

[spearo]

Welcome to IIS Chris
nice shot
amazing for a first post wish I had done as well when i started
well done and looking forward to seeing your next shot
frank