PAO's
Deep Sky Astroimaging
Gallery Two
Experiments with an ST-4 and an LX-200
The SBIG ST-4 is regarded by many as the premiere autoguider. It is used by many amateur and professional astrophotographers to guide their equipment (while other cameras take the picture), but its imaging capabilities are secondary. Still, since I have one on hand I thought I'd experiment with it and see what could be accomplished.
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M57 The Ring Nebula
4,100 light years distant.
The sum of 28 thirty second images (8" LX200).
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M82, The Cigar Galaxy.
An LRGB composite of 56 thirty second images including 6 (each) shot with
red, blue and green filters.
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Irregular galaxy M82, The Cigar Galaxy.
The black and white (L) component of the above color image.
12 million light years distant. This image is the sum of 32 thirty second
images stacked.
2 prominant individual stars appear in the foreground.
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M1, The Crab Nebula. The remnants of a supernova at a distance of
6,300
light years. This image is the sum of 27 sixty second exposures.
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C/2001 A2 Comet Linear
The Comet flies across the sky relative to the "stationary" star at the top
in this low resolution animation of 8 sixty second exposures taken over roughly
half an hour.
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C/2001 A2 Comet Linear
Composite of 8 sixty second images stacked. The streak at the top is
the
exposure trail from the star seen in the top image.
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M13
22,000 light years distant and 150 light years in diameter.
The sum of 9 thirty second images at f/10 (8" LX200).
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M3
30,000 light years distant and estimated to contain over 500,000 stars.
The sum of 10 twenty second images at f/10 (8" LX200).