Messing with deep sky

I had no idea you could do that much without an observatory full of equipment.
I had a 3" Newtonian reflector when I was a kid, but I never tried taking pictures through it.

The NEX can do much the same. You just won't have quite the "reach" until you aquire a new lens.
Set it up on a tripod and fire away with what you have.
Wide angle sky shots have a beauty all their own.

Gotta like those tracking mounts.

They're a must have with any long glass.
I'm just using a CG-4 with a battery powered tracker.
Still trying to work up the nerve to start hitting minute or longer shots.

That last shot!!

This is something I would like to try at some point, although I'll have to get out of the suburbs of Boston and the light pollution.

I remember as a kid in Maine getting home on crystal clear nights in the winter with the Milky Way visible stretched out across the sky. Just Beautiful.

Fantastic shots and thanks for posting.

Moon was so darn pretty the last couple mornings, I decided to hit it.
Tripod mounted of course.
5D with 100-400 at 400 with a 1.4x TE (560mm equivalent)
1/8sec; f/11; ISO 100
Stack of four, with Registax 6, then cropped.

that was some cool shots i ever saw....... great work

He's still not safe.
The last five days, I've been hitting the moon every morning at the same time.
The idea is to follow the terminator as it moves across.
Kind of a pain cause I shoot at least fifty eac time, then cull through them for a couple good ones.
I'll try for a sixth series tomorrow, then stick the final six in here.

Bad part...
Jupiter popped up and I couldn't resist going after it to see what I got.
Took fifteen, and this turned out best.

Same set-up as used with lunar shots.
All four major moons are visible.
Callisto is the "attached" dot sitting at the nine oclock position of Jupiters limb.
At the seven oclock position and down, are two dots. The upper is Io, and the lower, Europa.
Further down from them, is Ganymede.


This the full frame (reduced in size to fit in here), prior to zooming.cropping.

Took far longer than I thought it would.
Ended up with seven days of lunar shots.
Starts the morning of the 7th and ends the morning of the 13th.
Some mornings were good, others, not so much.
I learned a little from this excersize.

I used my nikon d7000
sigma 120-300 f.28
sigma 2x teleconverter
sigma 1.4 teleconverter
combined total focal length of 840mm
1/25 sec at f8
iso 100
I used lynkeos to stack 7 images together. first time i ever used that program.

moon 840mm by rdking647, on Flickr

I've been watching it pass all week here in NE Ohio where evenings have been clear as a bell. I tried looking through binoculars, but they don't help much. It's too fast for my telescopes.

Thanx for posting!

Ran some 30 second shots toward M31, a couple mornings ago.
Stacked three and tweaked to result. Cropped of course.
M32 and M110 also showed up.
3x30 sec. 185mm f/5.6 800ISO

how hard was it to point the camera at m31 since you reallly cant see it in the viewfinder

I know where it is, and point the camera as close as I can.
Take one test shot, check screen, then adjust to get it closer.
If you saw the full frame, M31 is considerably smaller than in the image I posted.
Due to light pollution, Mag 3 and sometimes 4 is about as good as it gets.
I can get Mag 5 if I drive north 30 miles.

I've found that exposures over one minute will require a tracking scope.
Did a few longer runs and saw the star images start to football on me.

I did find out that I can get down to the 14th magnitude (sort of).
Now, the mission is to image Pluto, with a 200mm lens.
Got my doubts, gotta try it.

BTW, I have done this with a old Sony F717, mounted afocally on a large SCT telescope.