I hope you enjoy these photos of celestial objects that I have taken. I know that they aren't the greatest around, but I'm working on my skills. All of these, so far, have been taken with a standard Canon 40D and a basic tripod. The two main lenses I use are the Canon 18mm-55mm kit lens and a Sigma 75mm-300mm zoom lens paired with a Tokina 2X doubler. I have more lenses that I want to try out soon, as well as using one 3D printed adapter for my Meade model 293 telescope and another for my SkyWatcher 250P. Again, I'm still learning some of the more basic aspects of astrophotography, so don't expect the greatest photos right now. The images displayed are smaller than the original, if \ you want to view the full size image, just click the image you want to see.
This was my first attempt at astrophotography, and I must say that it's not too bad. This was around the time Neowise was visible, so I was hoping I would be able to capture that. Unfortunately, I did not, but I still had fun trying anyways. Even though there's nothing really exciting going on here, it's still neat to me particularly. This was just a single shot and no cropping was done, though I did edit it in Lightroom. This was taken on the night of July 19, 2020 at 10:50 P.M. with the Canon 18mm-55mm kit lens and the following specifications:
Looks like I went for the handle of the Big Dipper again, but this time it's offset to the right and there's a tree off to the right as well. I'm not entirely sure why I focused on it so much, perhaps because of how recognisable it is. Again, not much exciting, but it's not necessarily bad. This was taken on the night of July 19, 2020 at 10:53 P.M. with the Canon 18mm-55mm kit lens and the following specifications:
At least this is the last of the pictures I took of just the handle. But hey, at least this one has a tree in the middle of the frame. A bit more excting at least. This was taken on the night of July 19, 2020 at 10:54 with the Canon 18mm-55mm kit lens and the following specifications:
Alright, truth be told, I have no idea what this is. I took this photo nearly two years ago and I can't remember where this shot was pointed, nor can I identify it on any star charts from that night. I might look into it some more sometime, but for now, all I know is that there are stars in this photo. This was taken on the night of July 19, 2020 at 10:54 with the Canon 18mm-55mm kit lens and the following specifications:
Well, the goal was to capture the entire Ursa Major, but it looks like I didn't quite do that. I guess I should probably work on framing a bit. This was the first time I have used stacking, so a bit of that grainyness is now gone. I actually didn't make the exposure too long on this one, unlike the next few, so that's good. This was taken on the night of May 8, 2022 at 11:49 P.M. with the Canon 18mm-55mm kit lens and the following specifications:
Going for the moon this time around. I also wanted to try out my new lens, so I thought the moon would be a good target. This was taken with on the night of May 9, 2022 at 10:51 P.M. with the Sigma 75mm-300mm lens with doubler and the following specifications:
So here we have the moon again, but I thought it would be fun to get a bit of a tree in the frame just for fun. Admittedly, It didn't turn out the best. I may try again sometime again soon with a lower exposure time and higher ISO. I'm not completely disappointed with it though, so I'll put it up on the site. This was taken on the night of May 9, 2022 at 11:20 P.M. with the Canon 18mm-55mm kit lens and the following specifications:
Admittedly, it's not the best shot I've taken. It's not really horrible, but it's not really good either. I definitely had the exposure set too long, so I will be sure to cut it back next time. I'll try this same shot again in the near future, and hopefully it won't be so streaky next time. This was taken on the night of May 9, 2022 at 11:45 P.M. with the Canon 18mm-55mm kit lens and the following specifications:
Marginally better than Scorpius, I decided to go for the Coma Star Cluster this go around. Not really the best conditions for taking a shot of it, as the moon was nearby and was 61% lit. Again, I had the exposure time set too long, but I took both shots during the same session, so I hadn't realised it yet. I thought it would be an interesting target, and it really was the few interesting things I could shoot from where I was that night. This was taken on the night of May 10, 2022 at 12:08 A.M. with the Canon 18mm-55mm kit lens and the following specifications:
I had gone out with the intention of capturing the International Space Station as it flew overhead. Unfortunately, I was unable to capture it as it wasn't really visible as it went down. I was wanting to get a photo where a streak was left by the light of the ISS, so I took longer exposures. Since I didn't actually capture it, I figured I might as well do something with the photos I had taken. Suprisingly, they didn't look too bad, so I made a composite of the shots I took. This was also the first time I actually used a shutter remote, previously I had been using the 2 second timer. The remote is definitely an improvement. This was taken on the evening of May 12, 2022 at 9:47 P.M. with the Canon 18mm-55mm kit lens with the following specifications:
After many attempts of photographing the ISS, I only had minimal success. That being that some structure is capable of being seen in the photograph, though not very much. Considering that I was shooting handheld at a focal length of 600mm with no stabilisation of any kind and the ISS moves at 17,500 MPH, I would call it a success (at least a minor one). I'm not done trying to get a better photo of it yet, I may try capturing it through the 250P when it's convenient. For this set up though, these settings seemed to work the best. For this particular pass, its magnitude was -2.8 at an altitude of 53 degrees headed south east. This was taken on the evening of July 13, 2022 at 8:55 P.M. with the Sigma 75mm-300mm lens with doubler and the following specifications:
