• CLICK IMAGES for full size... Name: Chip Gentry Date: 06/02/05 Object: Comet 9P-Tempel 1 Details: Telescope: NexStar 11 GPS at f/6.3 using Celestron focal reducer Camera: ST-403ME Exposure: 50 - 30second subexposures Site location: Canyon of the Eagles Park, TX Processing: The average of 10 flats, 5 flat dark frames and 10 dark frames for the light frames applied to each 30 second light exposure using CCDSoft. Frames aligned and combined using MaxIm DL. Contrast adjusted using MaxIm DL DDP. Name: Adam Stuart Date: 05/05 Object: Lunar Terminator, near Moon crater Clavius Details: Telescope: 10" LX200 Classic @ f/6.3 Camera: Starlight Xpress HX916 camera Exposure: 01 second integration Site location: Miami, FL Any Other Pertinent Information: Original Image 1300 x 1030 pixels Processing: Single frame; mild unsharp mask applied in Astroart 3.0. Name: Ted Wilbur Date: 03/17/05 Object: Moon Details: Telescope: LX200 10" Classic @ f/6.3 using Agos adapter Camera: SBIG ST8i Exposure: 0.01 seconds using a 4.5nm Custom Scientific Hydrogen Alpha filter Site location: Oxford, Massachusetts Any Other Pertinent Information: scale = 1.18 arcseconds per pixel Processing: CCDSoft for image acquisition. Image is a composite of 3 exposures processed identically. Levels and curves adjustments using Photoshop. Image alignment and compositing performed using Picture Window. Final adjustments including cropping and unsharp mask using Photoshop. Name: Patrick L. Colestock Date: 12/20/04 Object: Comet Machholz Details: Telescope: Celestron 14” SCT using a FASTAR lens Camera: SBIG 2000XM Exposure: Two frames taken in succession; LRGB - 30 seconds through each filter Site location: Santa Fe, NM Processing: Dark frame subtraction and flat-field adjustment using Maxim DL; frames combined in Photoshop 7.0. Stretch, color balance and luminance adjusted in each frame to achieve best fit. Additional Thoughts: The difficulty in photographing comets in color occurs in achieving sufficient exposure in each color before the image has changed significantly. This is especially true for composite pictures. The FASTAR assembly was critical in reducing exposure times as much as possible. Name: Dennis Persyk Date: 12/17/04 Object: Comet C/2004 Machholz Details: Telescope: Takahashi E-160 Camera: SXV-H9 Exposure: 7 x 4 minutes each section, unguided Site location: Hampshire, IL Any Other Pertinent Information: Seeing Pickering 2, Transparency 2 (water vapor), VLM 1.5; Comet was only 32 degrees above horizon at transit Processing: Stacking in MaximDL – the two sections not including the head required that I manually move the images to where they seemed to best appear aligned – this was really difficult for the third section where the tail was very faint in each subframe. Median combine in MaximDL to minimize star trailing. Annotation in MaximDL – I wanted to emphasize how long the tail was. Histogram stretch and mosaic assembly in ImagesPlus. Name: Eddie Trimarchi Date: 06/17/05 Object: Moon Details: Telescope: Intes MN61 - 6" f/6 Maksutov-Newtonian Camera: SBIG ST10XE Exposure: 0.1 second, unfiltered Site location: The Tin Shed Observatory, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. Processing: Captured with Maxim DL/CCD V3 and calibrated with Mira AP V6. PixInsight Standard Wavelet processing was used to remove small-scale noise and 5 rounds of Van-Cittert deconvolution applied.