An "out of this world" photo: the Milky way in Cygnus

[ajeff]

A few nights ago I managed to snap up about 40 minutes worth of exposures. Twenty exposures at 2 minutes each with the intent of stacking them up to cancel out some of the noise so the data could be edited better and have a cleaner and smoother overal final image. Turns out I had to toss 9 frames from the total because of planes, clouds and other junk, so that leaves me with basicly 55% of what I actualy shot.

The multiple frames also help me get a longer over-all exposure and help me against light pollution, additional help comes from image processing, a special filter and a moddified camera to help capture the hydrogen alpha emission line (ionized hydrogen, which glows red on photographic exposures) However if I took this from a dark site, the image would be a lot better. I also had to battle heat which did not help too good with the noise issues

This was a total of 11 two minute exposures from my back yard stacked together and processed (mostly levels adjustments) and other stuff most regular photographers don't do because they simply don't need too. For a grand total of a 22 minute exposure. This was taken with a modified canon 20D (the hot mirror that keeps the photos from coming our red was removed and a different one, an IR/UV filter was installed in its placed) was piggybacked on top of my telescope with a 50mm canon lens stopped down to f/5.6 the ISO was 800.

Since the image is larger the 800 pix wide, I will simply post a link to it, its 1168 pixels wide.

http://home.comcast.net/~slitherjef/...ly08cygnus.jpg

The red patch below the bright star, Deneb, about center, is called NGC 7000 (AKA the north american nebula) its actualy a cloud of hydrogen gas being ionized by heat from the stars. To the right there is another bright star, about 1:30 that has the proper name of Sadr, it too is surrounded by a cloude of hydrogen gas being ionized by intense heat.

If your skies are fairly dark at night and you have a pair of binoculars, have a look, cygnus looks like a cross on its side and near midnight, it should be strait up in the sky. You will probably not be able to see the nebula but Cygnus runs right through the summer milkyway and host a ton of stars.

Enjoy

[python.princess]

Awesome shot! Well done!

[littleindiangirl]

Sweeet! Scorpius is running around now (If I'm seeing the right constellations ). I love astronomy, I just wish I could afford a nice large telescope and time to do it. Mines so small.

[tigerlily]

Nice picture!

[Ladydragon]

very nice picture. thanx for sharing.