Once again the weather is foul here and the promise of getting the telescope out for the night has been washed away
So I've been mopping up the editing room floor and stuck a little collection of globs together. These were taken on my final night of my recent trip to AstroFest in nice dark Queensland, after I'd ruined my polar alignment by tripping over the tripod (in daylight!) and failed reasonably miserably to get it back anywhere near where it was.
This is for those in the northern hemisphere who wonder why we rave about the southern hemisphere sky
and for those of us here that get to enjoy the wonder
I had been thinking of doing something like this for a while, so the relatively short exposure times I could sustain before seeing star trails suited the bright objects...a little too much as it turned out, as I could have done with a little less exposure time and/or ISO so as not to burnout the core
The sequences of images were taken within minutes of each other, using the same equipment (Canon 1100D + WO Zenithstar 71 + EQ6), with no other adjustments...same exposure time of 1 minute, ISO1600. The best 30 out of 65 were stacked in each case, and the same curves applied to each. I have tried (and not been wildly successful) to get the colour balance comparable which required minor deviations with the RGB levels, but nothing more than a notch or two. They're a little overcooked, but I wanted to try to bring out the extension of each of them.
They need no further introduction...
- The Great Cluster in Hercules
- 47 Tucanae
- Omega Centauri
