A 4-panel mosaic of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way and visible only from the southern hemisphere. The field takes in most of the LMC and its numerous nebulas and clusters. Notable is the Tarantula Nebula, NGC 2070, the cyan-tinted nebula at far left, surrounded by many other NGC nebulas and clusters. At right is the second largest and brightest nebula complex in the LMC, NGC 1763, dubbed the LMC Lagoon. This is a 4-panel mosaic taken March 31, 2016 from the Tibuc Cottage, Coonabarabran, NSW, Australia. Each panel is a stack of 4 x 3 minute exposures with the Borg 77mm f/4 astrographic refractor and filter-modified Canon 5D MkII at ISO 1600. Stitched in Photoshop.
M31 with 5-inch AP apo at f/4.5 with telecompressor/field flattener and Canon 20Da camera. Stack of four 15-minute exposures + two 2-minute exposures for the core. Taken from home Oct. 15, 2006. Image sharpened with 10 and 50 pixel High pass filters.
A test image of M31 taken for a book illustration using an entry-level deep sky setup to show what’s possible. This was with the SharpStar 76mm EDPH apo refractor on the Sky-Watcher EQM-35 mount, and guided with the ASIAir Pro and guidescope and the iPad app. The setup costs about $3000, about the minimum for a good deep sky rig for shooting with a telescope. This is a stack of 16 x 4 minute exposures with the Canon 60Da and with LENR on for all frames, so 64 minutes of actual images but an equal number of dark frames subtracted in the camera over 2 hours total of shooting. Taken Sept 16, 2020 under clear but smoky skies. All stacking, alignment and processing with Photoshop with Raw files developed in Adobe Camera Raw.
