Special M8

[TheAstroGuy (Shane Ross)]

This Shot of the Lagoon has a good Astro-Newby story behind it.

It represents another mind opened to our great passion.

I've been meaning to get a friend of mine to join me on my galavanting trips to Golden Grove for a while now, he finally caved and came on Sunday evening... somewhat reluctantly.
After a tedious two hour set-up his attention was beginning wane like an early morning moon until the first Sub of Lagoon appeared on the laptop screen. His reaction was one of sheer astonishment. Between that image, a glance at Jupiter in great bird like seeing and finally finishing up on the spiral arms of the Triangulum galaxy he is now officially hooked!!
I am happy to report he is already spousing words like what's an Equatorial mount and who's a Takahashi?

Here is the final image that caused the financial whirlpool of yet another human being.

www.theastroguy.com.au/images/lagoon.jpg

Kind Regards

Shane

[leinad (Dan)]

Nice image Shane
Smooth detail, any dark subtraction here?

Isn't it funny when another realizes what our setups can capture compared to what they may often only see in books and magazines.
It's as if a new beautiful other world just suddenly appeared in front of their eyes, that they've never experienced before.

Welcome to our universe my friend.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Very Cool story Shane ...and a great M8 too, lovely colour.

Reminds me of exactly my reaction when I first saw a sub from my first CCD camera back in 03, this was that sub. I fairdinkum was over come with delight and disbelief and started running around the scope singing halellulia, no joke . I ran inside and dragged the misses and kid out and said look at that!..that's another galaxy . Unlike your friends reaction though......my wife said the obligatory "Oooh that's nice dear" but my 11 yrold son was a bit more accomodating and hung around looking at a few more subs before going back in out of the Canberra cold.



Mike

[TheAstroGuy (Shane Ross)]

Thanks Dan,

Indeed it is good to see people's reactions.

I got so side-tracked trying to show him stuff i ended up inputting a very random exposure time of 210secs and i had no matching darks in my library, too lazy to take them at home, so its just 210 secs x 8.

Blackpoint clipped by quite a margin. The DF spikes continue to impress me after some stretching and saturation, Thanks to the H glatter.
I could carve a frozen loaf with the DF spikes it produces

Shane

[TheAstroGuy (Shane Ross)]

Michael

What's funny about that shot?? that's a ripper for Number 1 i'll dig out one of mine, it was soooo average but i couldn't stop looking at it for days.

Two types of people in this world, one that sees a Globular cluster and says " What am i looking at? some dots or something?"

And the other who's mouth drops open and says" Oh my god that is unbelievable look at all those stars, that is incredible".

I like the latter but unfortunately my partner is the former too

[Ken]

Nice image Shane I had a similar experience with M8 as this was my first image on my then new Fuji s2 digital camera. I remember climbing the ladder on the 18" to look at the small display screen at the end of the 5 minute exposure the colour and detail was so great I almost fell off the ladder.
Clear skies Ken

[RobF (Rob)]

It was a faint pic of NGC 253 on someone else's laptop screen that did me in!
Nothing quite like that first thrill at what's possible.

You've probably said many times before, but what was your equipment for that shot Shane?

[Alchemy (Clive)]

That's a good shot, like mike the colors are right there, I didn't have anyone to give me the push into the hobby, I did lots of tripod based images in film out the back of healesville, happy with a couple of minutes on film, my first scope was a dud as I had not the knowledge, my first images on a scope were trailed, blurry, noisy...... But I was stoked.

How far it's all come to images like this, it's a great time to be involved.

[astrospotter (Mark)]

Besides the overall great image quality, a great job of capturing the wide dynamic range of M8 so well. Thanks for sharing the shot.

[TrevorW]

Nice one Shane