Welcome to Our Astrophotography Photos
You will find our Member’s work here, the things they’ve been photographing, and all the rewards from the dedication they commit to the task.
Keep in mind, these images belong to the respective photographer and use is strictly prohibited without expressed permission. They are all copy write protected.
Please enjoy their work; We sure do!
Great work Everyone!
Bob Colvert
Bio:
Bob does Electronically Assisted Astronomy (EAA). EAA sits between visual astronomy and astrophotography. A camera replaces the eye piece and gives live viewing on a screen. For faint objects software stacks up photons in real time, results show on the screen in seconds and improve with exposure time. None of these EAA photos have had post processing accept perhaps croping.
Bob uses a Celestron 8″ NexStar Evolution Computerized Telescope with StarSense autoalign. The image train is a Optilong L-pro filter, a Starizona Night Owl .4x SCT Reducer and Corrector with a ZWO asi290 color camera. Camera control and image stacking and capture is done using SharpCap software and a laptop PC.
Dave Elder
Bio:
I am in my 70’s, am retired accountant who started my astronomy hobby when I retired out here in Arizona in 2000 although I did have one of those department type telescopes when I was in Junior High School in Indiana. My equipment now is a Celestron Evolution 8 with 5 Explore Scientific eyepieces which I haven’t used now in the 5 months since I started using a camera to see the sky objects. I also owned a 82mm binocular telescope for a while, but after a while I wanted to see things a little closer so I purchased an 8 inch telescope, then a different 8” telescope. You really can see more with a camera than with an eyepiece. More detail can be seen from my back yard than I could ever see with an eyepiece.
With EAA (Electronically Assisted Astronomy) you have two options, you can take pictures of anything you like or you can just use the camera to look at 20 objects in a night session. Open clusters are nice to look at but doesn’t do much in photos. Galaxies are better in photos than in an eyepiece though. My main object starting out with a camera is to photograph all the Messier objects. Using cloudynights.com you can see what others are looking at and using their photos to find things that I think I would like to see. I try to learn more about my camera using what others do and say about the camera online. Same thing can be said about my ZWO equipment. My equipment other than the telescope consist of the ASIAIR Pro which is more or less the brains of the system which is used to find objects, plate solve the objects, & live stack the photos. My camera is the ASI294MC Pro Color which has a wide FOV which makes it easier to find objects in the sky although it is overkill on small objects like galaxies. I also have the HyperStar 8 which attaches to the front of the telescope by removing the secondary mirror which takes me to f 1.9 from the normal f 10 of an SCT or the f 6.3 with a reducer. My camera is then attached to the HyperStar.
Larry Matney
Bio:
Larry is a long time landscape and wildlife photographer. In 2016 he purchased his first telescope and started visual astronomy.
A couple of years later he started to take photographs with the telescope and has been learning how to photograph objects in the night sky.
Larry’s equipment consists of two telescopes. The largest one is an IStar 150mm f8 (1200mm fl) refractor telescope and the smallest is a SkyWatcher 200mm f4 Quattro Astrograph. Both scopes are used on a Celestron CGEM DX mount. For visual use he has an assortment of eyepieces. For astrophotography he uses an unmodified Nikon D800e or a ZWO ASI2600mm Pro camera. The ZWO camera is monochrome and uses a filter wheel with LRGB and narrowband filters (Ha, OIII, SII) to produce color images. For guiding he uses an off axis guider with a ZWO ASI174mm Mini camera, or a 50mm f4.2 guide scope with a ZWO ASI120mm-S camera.
Larry uses NINA or APT and PHD2 for imaging sessions. For post processing he uses Deep Sky Stacker (DSS) and Adobe Photoshop. Other software may be used as needed.
Amin Patani
Bio:
Amin’s foray into astrophotography began with capturing the comet Neowise with a point and shoot camera! His setup has expanded to two scopes (73mm refractor and 8” Celestron Edge with Hyperstar), a couple of Astro cameras (ASI533MC and ASI2600MC), a couple of mounts (iOptro CEM70G and Skywatcher Star guider) and a number of filters. He is considering getting a mono camera but before that needs to sharpen his skills and learn planetary and solar photography.
Chuck Willford
Bio:
Started Astro Photography during Covid. Went thru the 4 stages of change to end up with low end in terms of cost of the next to the last stage of high end professional gear. Self taught with the great help of Google search. And my new friends at West Valley Astronomy.
Mount: Celstron AVX mount
Imaging Scope: William Optics Red Cat LX 51 Refractor, 250 fl, 51mm aperature
Guiding Scope: ASI 120 mm fl, 30 mm aperature
Imaging Camera: ASI 183mc Pro OSC camera
Guiding Camera: ASI 120 MM mini camera
ASI AIR Plus Controller
Samsung S4 Galaxy Tab video interface
Ryan Morrell
Bio:
Ryan is a Network Administrator/engineer by day and a astrophotographer/photographer by hobby. Ryan also happens to be our webmaster and so, is a very busy person. He does his best to get out and capture as many images as he can when time permits. His setup is a Celestron AVX mount, Celestron 8SE scope, and a Canon 6D MkII unmodified; he uses guiding and multiple software. Most recently he’s been working more on wide-field imaging as he finds it more in line with his time restraints.
Many of Ryan’s photos can be found on our site, this collection better represents his asperations with a repeat or two.
Thomas Mastrocinque
Bio:
Thomas learned an appreciation for naked eye stargazing during his time in the military where he spent many a night under dark skies. He started visual astronomy around 2010 with an inexpensive 70mm Celestron refractor. Aperture fever soon took hold and he was forced to purchase a 10” Orion DOB to keep the illness at bay. Eventually this wasn’t enough so he bought a 16” Explorer Scientific DOB, which truly showed him the wonders of the universe. He continued with visual astronomy until April of 2021 when he decided to experiment with astrophotography.
After selling off all of his visual gear to fund this new venture, Thomas purchased an AVX mount, a 6” TPO Newt, and a Canon T3i. Realizing he would never get the results he pined for, he began slowly upgrading. Today Thomas owns an EQ6-R Pro mount and a variety of scopes. His scopes include the RedCat51, the Meade 70mm Quad, an Explorer Scientific 8” Imaging Newt, and a 130mm TS Optics Photoline. His cameras include the ZWO ASI533MC-Pro and the ASI2600MC-Pro.
Thomas will sometimes use NINA and PHD2, but for most casual AP he prefers the ease of the ZWO ASIair system, which has all the acquisition software built-in. For stacking he uses AstroPixelProcessor and then uses StarTools for post processing. Final tweaks are done in Affinity Photo when needed.
Thomas is always eager to learn more about our hobby and is most appreciative to everyone who has helped him get to where he is today.
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