An exercise in 50mm from Cambroon 01-01-06

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Here's a collection of images from last nights outing at Cambroon. It was a brillant night. Seeing around 8-9/10 most of the time with transparency about the same. Unfortunately the seeing lately at home has been attrocious, so I wan't expecting these condition. As a result I didn't take any equipment sufficient for any deep work.

All images taken with the Canon 300D with 50mm f/1.8 lense stopped down to 2.2. (still a lot of curvature even then. I'll have to try slower settings next time). ISO800 and exposure times @ 4.5 min. and cropped to about 2/3 size. Unguided on Losmandy GM8.

Eta Carina. 5X4.5min, dark subtracted and combined in ImagesPlus. Post processing in PS 7.0. I was trying for max stars and dust lanes rather than colour of the neb.

Large Magellanic Cloud. 9X4.5 min, dark subtracted and combined in ImagesPlus. All post processed in PS. Number 1 is subtracted, aligned and stacked only. Numb 2. as previous but with Digital development adjustments, Numb 3 as previous but inclucing contrast and brightness adjustments firs in IP before exporting to Ps. Here I was trying to get the bar of the galaxy as visible as possible but without overdoing the nebulous areas

Orion. 4X3 min. Same as LMC except no third image. Here, just trying to see what I could get compared to the 20Da and 5D getting around.

Another challenge was trying to deal with the Chromatic Ab of this lense.

[beren]

Wow Paul, beautiful images mate

[Striker (Tony)]

Nice work Paul,

Not taking your DSO equipment...how dissapointing would that have been....not to worry maybe next time.
I like your LMC shots the best.

Who turned up last night????

[avandonk]

You have just convinced me, I must get to a dark sky site. The contrast is between the nebula and surrounds is very good. Very nice shots.

I am now going to shoot it with the camera oriented according to your picture to get more in.Thanks.

Bert

[atalas]

Nice work Paul !