Sometimes astronomy night just doesn't work out.
I went out to the desert on Sunday with the intention of photographing the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex—which is basically a nebula but for some reason isn't called one. It's very colorful, and also huge, far too big to capture with my telescope. So I planned to use my regular camera instead. I mounted it on the end of the telescope tube and then got the telescope tracking, with the idea that the camera would follow along for the ride.
This didn't work. Partly that's because my favorite weather app betrayed me. It said the sky would be great, but in fact it was hazy and cloudy and I couldn't get a good, consistent view of Rho Ophiuchi. The other reason is that mounting the camera on the telescope tube turned out to be unstable and I mostly got only streaks. Also lots of noise, because the camera isn't cooled and it was 90° at midnight.
So it was a big bust, and I probably won't try it again because I just don't have the tools for it. That's too bad, since it's a beautiful bunch of gas.
I did take pictures with my telescope too, but most of them were no good—and even the good ones were so-so. I could only capture a small part of the cloud complex with the telescope, so I chose IC 4603, right at the heart of the whole thing. I wouldn't even put this up if I were going to do it again, but since this is probably my only effort I might as well let you see it. It's not a good picture per se, but it has a certain artistic flair to it.
Looks like a car coming towards you through the fog.
To exchange the girl for whatever's in the briefcase.
That is similar to my first impression. I thought maybe Kevin just did a double-exposure--night sky, plus approaching car.
Ha! That's exactly what I see! Though I didn't think of the girl and the briefcase. Well done.
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ZWO sell adapters for Canon and Nikon glass on their cameras -- of course any appropriate-bayonet to M42x0.75 will do, so long as it's thin enough to allow infinity focus. (I actually managed to get a Canon-to-Pentax adapter in there too and it's close, but it works.) Even if you don't already have a DSLR lens that will work, really old manual-everything glass isn't very spendy at all. ZWO also have a gadget that clamps around the camera barrel and has a Vixen dovetail, so you can mount the whole thing.
Or a short, inexpensive dovetail bar with holes that will pass 1/4"-20 screws, and just mount your terrestrial camera like a telescope. That's actually how I got my Rho shot.
Guiding is of course a bit of a challenge with either of these -- I cobbled up a guidescope mount for the side of my CEM70's saddle -- but for Rho, eh, you're working at something like 50mm anyway, just nail the polar alignment and rock it.
Sorry the wx didn't work out.
Rho, Ophiuchus, Rho. STROKE!.....STROKE!.....STROKE!
Okay, I don't have a tracking and guiding mount, thus I only take photos of very bright objects, so I may be way off base here. But I've found that a focal reducer often helps to get a bigger field and also brightens it. And focal reducers are generally inexpensive. I don't have a clue if one would mess up your off-axis guiding, or add problematic aberrations. But for straight up visual observing, I've found that it really comes in handy.
BTW I've heard lots of very serious astrophotographers tell stories about their many strikeouts. What you're trying to do is super hard.
Pretty.
Should have stayed home and taken cat pictures and saved yourself a lot of trouble
Impressive Kevin! Thanks for the share.
Holy buckets you can sing THAT again, brother!
Have you tried a focal reducer?
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