Astrophotography in Urban Environment

Date: 7/2/2011 and 7/6/2011

Orion Mak-newton 190mm
Qhy8 with CLS-CCD filter
San bruno CA – seeing 3/10, transparency 3/6

Processing:  Maxim DL5, Noise Ninja, Sharpener Pro, Photoshop CS4

This part of the summer sky has spectacular nebulae.. I am using the Maksutov Newton I got at a bargain price from Orion  at is best potential  now that I moved  to a more robust Mount (Takahashi NJP-Z).

First, the Omega Nebula,

This picture is the result of 35 exposures of 300 sec each – almost 3h of exposure. The picture capture the full extent of the nebula (shorter exposures will only reveal the “Cygnus” shape part of it…).

Second, this is a picture of the Trifid Nebula- the best picture  I got from my light-polluted site.

The reflection nebula (blue…) shows many details. The reflection part of this nebula is challenging to capture at the Bay area latitude especially in urban environment. The blue part of the spectrum tends to fade fairly quickly compared to the red when objects are low on the horizon. In this case this relatively long exposure time (combination of 24 exposures of 300 sec each) combined with the fast focal ration of this instrument (f/d 5.2) managed to bring a fair amount of detail in the reflection nebula.