Posts Made By: Tyler Allred

Hello all. Here is an older osprey photo that I just came across. I liked it so much that I thought I would post it. Nikon D100 with Nikkor 80-400mm VR.
Cheers,
Tyler

Hello all. I finally got a chance to go to a dark sky site and try out the new setup (G-11, Sky90, ST2000XM). I decided to start with an easy target..... M42. I had a little trouble with the auto guiding, so the stars are not perfect, but overall I am pretty pleased with the results. This is an RGB image, with 60 seconds of data for each color. I combined it in Maxim at proportions: Red-1.2, Green-0.9, Blue-1.1, then processed in Photoshop. What do you think? I took some shorter exposures and will try to add them later to fill in the overexposed areas.
Cheers,
Tyler

Hi all. I'm in Oregon speaking at a conference on river restoration. I brought my imaging gear, just in case I found some dark skies. I did! I only had a couple of hours, and I decided to try M42 again. I went a little deeper (not much). Here is the result. Critiques are always welcome.

At last... a night with clear skies and relatively steady viewing conditions. I went for Saturn at f/40 tonight with the Ultima 2000 8" SCT. Here is a stack of 3019 frames from an AVI taken with a Toucam 840. This is the recorded image scale.... with no enlarging. I think it is my best Saturn image to date. Steady seeing makes me happy!!!
Cheers
Tyler

I am a little late... but congrats to Mike Sirois for a great sequence of shots!!

Damian, that is one of the best images of Saturn that I have seen posted on this forum. Smooth and detailed at the same time, and with perfect color. I am amazed!! 8O

Hi all. I made a trip to Heber City last night, looking for some dark skies. I found some. At any rate, I imaged the Horsehead and Flame nebulas, and they turned out OK, although my framing sucks! Here is the image.

I didn't notice last night, but I think the nosepiece may have been mounted a little bit crooked, because the stars on the left are not as focused as those on the right.... DANG!! It is odd that I looked at every image that came off the camera, while sitting in the cold last night, but didn't notice the problem until I tried to process the images this morning. This hobby sure has a lot of things that can go wrong!! :S Oh well, it was fun anyway.

Can someone suggest a way to get the focus right? It is much tougher than I thought it would be to do it manually. Any help would be appreciated.

Comments and suggestions are always welcomed.

Cheers,
Tyler

Scope: Takahashi Sky90 with Tak Field Flattener
Mount: Losmandy G-11 with Gemini Level 3
Camera: SBIG ST2000XM
L:R:G:B image - 5:5:5:5 minutes
Acquired using MaximDL 4
Processed in MaximDL 4 and Photoshop

Hi all. I made another run at M42 last night, and I am very pleased with the result. The skies in Heber City are very dark .... and its only 30 minutes away from my home (where the skies are not dark :C ). I managed to luck into a good focus on these shots. Comments and/or suggestions are always welcome.
Cheers,
Tyler

Hi all. Here is another one from Thursday night. This was taken from Heber City, Utah, with the G-11/Sky90/ST2000XM combo. It is not on par with Tom Davis' great recent image, but it is a good start for me. I will never get those results until I get a focusing routine down. The image is L:R:G:B - L10x1) R5x1) G5x1) B5x1), captured with Maxim DL, and processed in Maxim DL and Photoshop CS. As always, comments and suggestions are welcome.
Steady Skies!
Tyler

Hi all. I have tried a couple of times to image with my Custom Scientific H-alpha filter (4.5nm) without much success. It seems that so little light gets through the filter that I can't get a guide star to use without going to a really long exposure on the guider. Is it possible to autoguide with this type of filter? Would getting a 10nm filter (Schuler maybe?) make a big difference? Do most people who are doing H-alpha use a dedicated guide scope and guider in addition to the primary imaging scope? Any input would be appreciated.
Thanks and Cheers,
Tyler