Skip to main content

Astrophotography

MY FIRST IMAGE SINCE THE LIGHNING STRIKE IN APRIL ...
abrickhouse

See my latest update of M31 with a color camera on my AT 102mm refractor.


I lost two cameras in the storms in April and this new image is from a new color camera I purchased to upgrade from my QHY168 C camera. The 168 is on its way from China from a three month journey. I didn't miss it very much since the weather has been so bad for imaging since the April event.I will probably sell it but I actually don't want to because its a nice camera. Be aware if you use Chinese cameras it takes a long time for repair. But as far as I know, its impossible to buy a made in America today except for those made for medical imaging that cost $100k, etc.


If you play with this image of M31, you can get it to show the actual grouping of bright stars at the center around the black hole. I shows up a a blue center with a small group. However, To show it in this image ruins the actual image overall. On thing about the newer cameras is that when you process it, you wind up with an image that is 148mb of data in the tiff format. But you can get it down smaller in JPEG but that moves you down from 16 bit data to 8 bit.


This image is interesting to view as most of the stars you see are from the Milky way but you can get a blow up to identify those that are visible and you can see several clusters.

Johnny

Very nice image, Aubrey.

 

Johnny B.

 

abrickhouse
Thanks Johnny 


Willie
Looks very nice, Aubrey!

Willie




Jeffrey McClure
Beautiful image, Aubrey! Lots of detail. 

Jeffrey W. McClure
(254) 258-9203



abrickhouse
Thanks. I heard for the first time that you had recent surgery. Hope all went well and you are now recoved.

Aubrey
Jason E Whitener

Awesome Aubrey. Looks like we both got the same idea last night! Never knew your observatory got hit with lightening. Glad you're back up and going. When you opened your roof last night it startled me. LOL



Astrobin.com/users/whitenerj

abrickhouse
Yes back before the tornadoes in Temple, we got a series of thunderstorms at the Meyer observatory. Come to find out.  it knocked out my out my UPS and that resulted in a surge on some of the power lines as it blew out my CP 4 computer for the AP 1200. It also took out a QHY 16200 and QHY 168C. It also took out the garage door opener that rolls off my roof. It has been all fixed now but still waiting for my QHY cameras to get back from repair in China. 

So I reinforced my grounding but I think that the equipment is all vulnerable to ESD when lightning hits anywhere close. When the Meyer Observatory, it got a lot of professional grounding so we have only lost a computer or two so far.

Look forward to meeting with you and Timothy Bear who also is into AP.

Aubrey
Return to Forum