Astrophotography Gallery and Evolution

In my 11 months of astronomy adventures, I have collected quite a few astrophotos using my humble equipment. To sum them up, here are photos of my astrophotography for the past 11 months. Enjoy!

Here is my first try in astrophotography using a webcam and my 60 mm refractor. As seen on My First Astrophotography Experience

After learning the technique in using the webcam, I try to take photos of the moon again and produced sharper results that the previous one. As seen on Photos of the Moon

After a few trials, I decided to take pictures of the moon the third time around and produced even sharper results that the two previous attempts. As seen on A Tribute to the Moon

After graduating from Lunar Photography, I tried imaging the gas giant jupiter now using my 4.5 inch reflector and a Nikon Coolpix L16 point and shoot camera. As seen on Jupiter

With a new camera (courtesy of my friend), I tried lunar photography once again, producing ever sharper results. As seen on Lunar Photography 1

After mastering the methods and techniques, I can now produce good lunar photos such as this one using my humble equipment. As seen on
Lunar Photography 2

After trying planets and the moon, I now tried DSO astrphotography and got some very promising results using methods that I have learned and developed in my lunar and planetary imaging. As seen on
First Deep Sky Object Astrophotography

More photos will come as I acquire better tools and equipment so keep tuned to my astronomy adventures!

First Deep Sky Object Astrophotography

Doing astrophotography work is not an easy feat. There's the problem of setting up a decent telescope, getting a good camera and waiting for long hours to get magnificent shots of galaxies, star clusters, nebulae, planets and other heavenly bodies. However, doing astrophotography with a mediocre telescope and a digital point and shoot camera seems impossible especially if you are shooting Deep Sky Objects or DSOs (my definition of this is heavenly bodies found outside our solar system which is very, very far away).

However, I do not want to be limited with my equipment and I want to liberate whatever tools I have to achieve little things that will surely help me understand more sophisticated equipment. Tonight, I tried getting shots of the Orion Nebula using my trusty 4.5 inch equatorially mounted reflector, a 22mm Ramsden Eyepiece and a friend's Canon IXUS 130 digital point and shoot camera. Taking this photo only took me around 15 minutes including telescope setup. Here is the result of my effort of trying to capture the Orion Nebula (click the photo for a larger view): 

My astrophoto of the Orion Nebula

For reference, here is a more professional photo of the Orion Nebula taken using an 8 inch reflector and a Nikon D70 DSLR camera :

The Orion Nebula using mid-range to professional tools

such as big aperture telescopes and DSLR cameras.

(Photo credit : Ioannidis Panos; Pioannid at en.wikipedia)

Here are other photos that I took during the night (Please click photos to enlarge):

The constellation Orion 

A part of the Pleiades star cluster

My photo may be quite far from the reference photo but I'm on my way there. The use of simple tools will aid us all in exploring better systems and sophisticated equipment. As they say, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. And I have started my journey taking small steps such as doing simple astrophotography with available tools. You can do it too!