First Astrophoto



M3 Globular Cluster - 20 x 60s exposures taken with a C8 SCT. Darks and bias frames, but no flats


It's took me 6 weeks from getting my telescope in late January 2011, and a few weeks later a new QHY8L camera, to produce a reasonable astrophotograph.

During this time, I did a lot of reading about polar alignment, light pollution, exposures, guiding, set up, and all the other skills required for astronomy and astrophotography. I learnt it all from practically zero knowledge beforehand, and it has been a difficult but very rewarding experience.

It was only on Monday 7th March that the skies were clear enough in London for me to take 20 or so images of this globular cluster (M3), which I then processed and stacked in MaximDL.

Even 3 months ago I never would of thought I'd be taking images of globular clusters in the freezing cold March weather. It's an addicitive pastime that has grown on me very quickly.

More about my telescope and setup in the next post, but briefly:
Celestron 8 inch telescope - C8 SCT XLT on CG-5 Mount
f/6.3 reducer / Astronomik CLS-CCD filter / QHY8L camera
20 x 60s stacked in Maxim, curves and levels in Photoshop
Guided on PHD (although possibly not required on such short exposures if my polar alignment was any good!)

The main lesson I have learned, apart from the huge amount of patience required, is that you have to choose your target carefully, and then set up everything for the evening with this in mind.  For the first few nights out I often took few images of very many different objects, and for astrophotography this is absolutely no good, as a lot of data (images) are required to get the desired end result.  Images are processed and stacked to reduce noise and increase signal.