Some Winter favourites

[Irish stargazer (John)]

Hi

Here are a few shots I took over the last four days from my backyard during some of the coldest winter nights I can remember.
All the shots were taken through a WO Megrez 72 with an unmodded Canon 450D and skywatcher field flattener mounted on a CGE mount without autoguiding. Stacked in DSS with levels and curves in Gimp 2.0 only.

Rosette nebula 17 x 5 minute frames

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4063/...0e0442a5_b.jpg

M42 Orion Nebula 13 x 5 minute frames

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4015/...07330b51_b.jpg

Flame and horsehead 13 x 5 minute frames

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4050/...244b9043_b.jpg

Pleiades M45 9 x 5 minute frames

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2779/...91985cc2_b.jpg

[batema (Mark)]

These are favourites. Nice shots. Maybe try longer exposures with the Rosette and pleiades but overall very nice. It must be nice and cold outside and probably inside.

Mark

[CoolhandJo (Paul)]

I like the nebula in the Pleiades you teased out!

[toryglen-boy (Duncan)]

Some good images there to be getting on with mate, my ma tells me Glasgow has been -18 for 6 weeks or something to, i would be makeing the best out of it as well!

Slainte.

[TrevorW]

Just imagine the low noise from the camera at those temps

more exposures and possibly a tad longer is all you need

well done

[Irish stargazer (John)]

Originally Posted by toryglen-boy

Some good images there to be getting on with mate, my ma tells me Glasgow has been -18 for 6 weeks or something to, i would be makeing the best out of it as well!

Slainte.

Its unbelieveably cold here. The water mains have frozen so no running water. The only advantage is that the skies are relatively clear which we haven't had for a long time. Still, I am planning to move to Brisbane in a few weeks time. Better and clearer skies and nice balmy evenings. Bliss

[Irish stargazer (John)]

Originally Posted by CoolhandJo

I like the nebula in the Pleiades you teased out!

I stacked some 3 minute frames to the 5 minute ones in my M45 picture that I had taken the previous night to give a 1hr 25 minute capture in total. It has teased out a bit more of the nebula and is a little less grainy. The bottom of the picture is bit clipped due to a mismatch in the framing between the 3 and 5 minute exposures. I think it looks better though.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2715/...13e7beee_b.jpg

[Hagar (Doug)]

Nice collection of images. From what we see on the news here about the UK weather of late it is a wonder you can get any imaging at all.

Well done.