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Hope everyone is enjoying the full Moon this Easter long weekend.
Dave Manning posted his perfectly timed shot of an airliner passing in front of the Moon to the Sky-Watcher Australia Facebook group.
Dave used a Sky-Watcher Esprit 120ED and a ZWO ASI290MC camera.
Thanks Dave for this stunning image!
#fullmoon #perfecttiming #iamskywatcher #skywatcheraustralia #lunarphotography #zwo #universetoday #luckyshot #moonlight #esprit120
Check out this pic from Andrew taken using a Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer mount.
Mare sure you visit his page for other fantastic images.One of the more useful accessories to hit the market for Astrophotography has the been the tracker systems from companies like Sky Watcher and iOptron. I have used several of these over the last few years and I can easily say that the best system I have found so far is the Sky Watcher Star Adventurer. It comes as a complete kit with the wedge and polar scope with positions marked for Sigma Octans. the first few times I was a little difficult to set align but now it takes me 5 minutes to achieve alignment. I have had up to 3 minutes correct guiding with a 500mm lens. If you wish to use it for tracked nightscapes the set up is even easier as you don't need a totally accurate alignment due to the wide angle of the lens.
This image of Rho Ophiuchus is about the best I have taken. My remote died so I had to get my images with a 30 second exposure. I would have preferred to shoot for several minutes and reduced the aperture by a stop and the ISO by a stop but didn't have the ability for this time.
Shot with the D500 and a 135mm f1.8 lens at ISO1600 and 30 second exposures. It is a blend of 30 frames to reduce noise in photoshop
If anyone would like help with their tracker you can contact me.
Centaurus A (NGC 5128) captured by Jim Mitzas and posted to the Sky-Watcher Australia Facebook group.
Jim used a Sky-Watcher Esprit 100ED and ZWO cameras for this image.
Centaurus A is a popular object to image as it's one of the brightest galaxies in the sky. A strong source of X-ray emissions, "Cent A" is thought to be the result of a collision between an elliptical and spiral galaxies.
Thanks for sharing this image Jim!
Full details:
Just finished with NGC5128 - Centaurus A, been wanting to image this target for some time now. Calibrated and processed in Pixinsight, used drizzle integration which helps when cropping a smaller target such as this one. First image is the cropped and rotated image and last one is uncropped.
Image data:
Lum 120s x 99
R 180s x 30 and G,B 120s x 30 each
Ha 600s x 12
Equipment:
Skywatcher Esprit 100 OTA
ZWO 30mm Mini Guide Scope
ZWO 183mm Pro and 290mm Mini
ZWO Elec Mini Filter Wheel
Astronomik Deep Sky RGB and Ha 6nm 1.25" Filters
Celestron CGEM 2 Mount
#skywatchertelescope #skywatcheraustralia #esprit100 #centaurusa #ncg5128 #galaxy #southernsky #zwo #zwo183mmpro #pixinsight
Software development and astro blogger, Richard Wright, @accidentalastro , posted this photo with a Sky-Watcher Maksutov-Cassegrain. Do you observe or image with other members of your family? As he said
"A dad (me) helping his daughter take a picture of the Moon. Finer moments in life are hard to come by"
Thanks for sharing this pic Richard!
#skywatchertelescope #skywatcheraustralia #familyastronomy #maksutov #astronomy #cosmocoffee
Setting up tonight for a public viewing night organised by The Central West Astronomical Society. Great to see several hundred brave the clouds on a Saturday night and turn up to look through the society's telescopes and talk about astronomy and space.
Thanks for the invite and look forward to the next CWAS event!
#astronomy #cwas #astronomysociety #grenfell #azgte
