Distant Lightning and More Distant Stars

Stars, far off Lightning and Etoile-Saint-Cyrice in the foreground

Time-lapse of the Night Sky

Watch in HD: http://www.youtube.com/v/kiRvtZCvAKk&hd=1

A 4 hour timelapse, made up of 483 separate 30 second images.
The video shows the apparent movement of the stars and Milky Way across the skies of Laragne-Montéglin, in the High Alps of Southern France.
Higher resolution star trail image in this post http://horizonastro.blogspot.com/2010/12/pole-star.html
Canon 450D, 18mm F/3.5

NGC 7380 - The Wizard Nebula (Ha)

Dug up one last narrowband image from Les Granges
http://horizonastro.blogspot.com/2010/12/les-granges-2010.html

Found in the constellation of Cepheus. The nebula spans 110 light-years and is relatively young, with the stars having emerged from this star-forming region in the last 5 million years.

Object: NGC 7380 (7,000ly)

Telescope: Tak FSQ85

Camera: Atik 320E

Exposures: Ha-30x300s

Processing: Darks, Flats, Bias, DSS, PS CS3

IC1805 - Heart Nebula

This is my...

... first go with my newly modded 450D!

... first go with the new 7nm Ha filter from Santa!

... first 20min sub!

The Heart Nebula is an emission nebula located in the Perseus arm of the Galaxy in the constellation on Cassiopeia. The nebula's light output and shape are driven by the radiation of a small group of stars near the nebula's centre.

Object: IC1805 - The Heart Nebula (7,500ly)

Telescope: Skywatcher ED80

Camera: Modified Canon 450D

Exposures: Ha-1x600s, 2x1200s

Processing: DSS, PS CS3

450D Mod Complete!

Everything's gone red! Yay!

Finished the Mod on my 450D a few days ago. The original IR cut filter (which also blocks the Ha wavelengths a lot) has been removed and replaced with an Astrodon Inside filter.

I found the mod reasonably ok, following the online guide by Gary Honis and his YouTube video made it a lot easier. The trickiest bit was reinstalling the shutter assembly, but carefully does it, after a few anxious moments it went into place...

Looking forward to trying the camera out and my new 2" 7nm Ha filter from Santa as well, when this bloomin' weather clears up!

Clear skies!

IC1396 Reprocess

I feel my processing techniques have come along a bit since I started out and the weather is awful. This was one of my first images and was featured on the Sky At Night Magazine cover CD.

The new version is a bit toned down colour wise and smoother.