New images of the Flame Nebula, the Orion Nebula, and the Pleiades have been added to Tim Harpur’s astro-photo gallery.

Fall season – colder nights but dark earlier. I got to Binbrook just after 8:00pm on Thursday and the gate was already opened – Glenn and Gail had arrived ahead of me. With their DOBs they were set up and observing about 1/2hr before I was finished aligning. DOBs certainly have that advantage going for them – but I’m a Photographer, and in the end the extra setup time of the EQ GT mount is well worth it. I concentrated mainly on the Lagoon Nebula (M8) – all the images were shot with a Digital Rebel XTi mounted on a Celestron 8″ SCT GT at ISO 1600 – 36 minutes total exposure (2 x 8min, 2 x 4min, 6 x 2min) – stacked and processed. Before leaving I snapped off a few shots of the Trifid Nebula but didn’t spend much time as it was getting too low to the horizon – total exposure time was only 10 minutes.

Some images from Binbrook last night. It was a clear night – warm – slight breeze – and almost no mosqitoes. Unfortunately, most of the DSOs I had intended on imaging were within a few degrees of the very bright moon. I imaged the Trifid Nebula – and after seeing the severe moon glow washing out the scene I abandoned the idea of trying to image the other nearby DSOs. I was still able to filter out (via software) enough of the wash to get a usable image, which has now been posted to my gallery. I also tried imaging Andromeda for the first time – my initial attempt was with my main scope (8″ SCT) – which wasn’t turning out so well – so I moved my camera to my guide scope and used my main for guiding. With a focal length of only 400mm, my guide scope had the perfect FOV – capturing M31 (Andromeda) and its small companion gallaxies M32 and M110.

There’s almost as many stars in this cluster as there were mosquitoes attacking us Monday night while I was imaging.

Ok… I know this isn’t an astro-photo, but it is a shot of the night sky, and if you look close you will see a few stars near the top of the wide field shot. I was heading back from my brother’s place in Waterdown (after spending about 5 hours driving from Tobermory) – the sky overhead was clear but hazy (not good for imaging and I was too tired to set up the big scope) – hanging over Hamilton was a cloud bank that seemed to just be parked – and what a light show it was putting on – so I pulled over and snapped off a few images.

If it’s clear tommorow night ( July 5 ), then keep an eye out on the moon. At around 10:02 pm EDT, the iss is predicted to pass across the moon. Depending on where in Hamilton you are, the iss will either pas across the moon, or miss it. Just thought I let you know.

Submitted by Kevin Fetter

Taken Saturday June 24, 2006 – Binbrook Conservation Area