Astro-Photography

I experimented with astro-photography many years ago, using a film camera mounted on a contraption known as a "barn door tracker".  Although I got some surprisingly good results for the primitive approach, it was a painful and time consuming process, so I didn't try it again until late 2005.  Since then I have acquired a lot of astronomy equipment and skills.  It took three years to start getting images that I was really happy with, but some earlier ones are good enough for web display.

What makes astro-photography so difficult is that it requires long exposures at high magnification, making it very sensitive to any motion or vibration.  Unfortunately, because Earth is spinning around at 15 degrees per hour, everything out there is in motion relative to an Earth-bound observer.  The solution is to use what is called an equatorial mount that can be aligned to Earth's axis of rotation and then slowly driven by a motor to correct for the rotation.  The accuracy and stability of this mount is actually more important to astro-photography than the quality of the telescope or camera.

Most of the objects in these photographs are members of the "Messier" catalog of objects that are relatively easy to see.  They are identified as "M" followed by a number between 1 and 110.  Most of them also have common names.

Click on any image to see a larger version and read about it.

Copyright (C) 2008 Greg Marshall

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