[APML]: New Photos

["Richmann, Michael" <richmann@cmt.anl.gov>]

The Astro-Photography Mailing List
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The weather, my social and work schedule did finally cooperate last
Sunday and I managed to pull in a few shots.  Given the discussion on
PEC/ST-4's/guidance, etc., the first few shots are worth noting as a
case of what can be done while manually guiding an LX200 where the PEC
has been recently trained.  Without further ado, and presented in
general order of descending quality...

The first is M13, the first globular I ever photographed.  The original
version was nothing to write home about so I went after it again Sunday.
Presented in both nearly full frame versions

http://www.concentric.net/~richmann/m13w.htm

and with the cluster enlarged depending on your preference

http://www.concentric.net/~richmann/m13c.htm

M5 was also visible at the time so that was next on the itinerary

http://www.concentric.net/~richmann/m5.htm

Next, was another of an irritatingly large number of attempts to get a
good widefield shot of the Cygnus region.  I waited a bit too long
during the evening and it moved into a region of sky polluted by an
adjacent farm house "barnyard" light.  I've since made arrangements to
move to a darker area of the airport but cleaned this shot up as best I
could...

http://www.concentric.net/~richmann/cygnus.htm

The next two aren't exactly what one would call quality work but I had
picked up a Sigma 200 mm f/2.8 telephoto lens at a local camera "yard"
sale for the princely sum of $60 and was curious as to how well it could
perform.  Stopped it down one notch to f/4 and aimed it at the Veil
Nebula.  No one will ever mistake it for Jerry Lodriguss's 500 mm Nikon
but it didn't do badly at all for what I paid for it.  The first link is
to the full-frame version and the second is an enlargement of the Veil
itself.  It quickly became apparent why a Deep Sky filter is a good idea
as exposure times which would be long enough to clearly show the Veil
would probably drown it out with the surrounding star field...

http://www.concentric.net/~richmann/veilw.htm and
http://www.concentric.net/~richmann/veil.htm

Mike