Making Beautiful Deep-Sky Images

by Parker, Greg

• ISBN13: 9780387713526
• ISBN10: 0387713522
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-10-28
• Publisher: Copernicus Books

Summary

This book is based around the author's beautiful and sometimes awe-inspiring color images and mosaics of deep-sky objects. The images were used as the basis of a public exhibition held at the University of Southampton (Summer 2006), attended by the press, local radio and TV interviewers as well as the public. The book describes how similar images can be created by amateur astronomers, using commercially available telescopes and CCD cameras. Subsequent processing and image enhancement in the"electronic darkroom" is covered in detail as well. Not everybody can afford the biggest and best telescopes and CCD cameras, so a range of telescopes and equipment is considered, from the author's 11-inch with Hyperstar camera, down to more affordable instruments. Appendices provide links to free software - not available from a single source - and are themselves an invaluable resource.

Author Biography

Professor Greg Parker is Head of the Nanoscale Systems Integration Group at Southampton University in Southern England. His deep sky astronomical images have been published in Astronomy Now and Sky at Night magazines. He is the author of Introductory Semiconductor Device Physics (IOP, ISBN 0750310219), and has written many scientific papers and articles, mostly in the area of photonics and optoelectronics, as well as a chapter (Guided-wave Optical Communications: Materials) in Elsevier's Encyclopaedia of Materials: Science & Technology.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. xi
Acknowledgements	p. xiii
How did I start?	p. 1
The Beginning - and a Serious Health Warning!	p. 15
Assembling your Imaging System	p. 19
Refractor or Reflector, or Perhaps Both?	p. 19
Reflecting Telescope as the Main Imaging Scope	p. 22
Refractor as the Main Imaging Telescope	p. 25
Reflector/Refractor Imaging Combination	p. 27
Polar Alignment	p. 28
Collimation of an SCT	p. 29
The CCD Camera	p. 29
Celestron Nexstar 11 GPS SCT	p. 30
Takahashi Sky 90 Refractor	p. 32
Sub-exposure Times	p. 32
Narrowband Imaging and Light Pollution Filters	p. 36
Computational Considerations - Data Acquisition and Image Processing	p. 39
A Permanent Setup	p. 45
First Light - Choosing your Objects	p. 49
Some Possible Examples	p. 50
Spring	p. 50
Summer	p. 52
Autumn	p. 53
Winter	p. 54
Other Things to Image	p. 56
First Light - your First Objects	p. 57
Stop Press!!	p. 60
Hyperstar Imaging	p. 61
Sub-exposure Times with the Hyperstar	p. 65
The Images	p. 67
Wide-Field Imaging with a Short Focal Length Refractor	p. 69
Basic Image Processing	p. 73
Creating the Image Processing File	p. 74
Processing the Combined File Dataset	p. 76
A "Quick" Process of a Single Frame of the Pleiades	p. 77
PhotoShop Processing of the Pleiades Data and Use of Noel Carboni's Actions	p. 78
Forming a Mosaic	p. 80
The Deep-Sky Images	p. 95
Differentiating your Work	p. 139
Asteroid 162 Laurentia	p. 145
Your Largest Resource	p. 147
Book Recommendations	p. 153
The Angular Size of Objects in the Sky	p. 157
The Designation of Deep-Sky Objects	p. 159
General Deep-Sky Objects	p. 160
Diffuse Nebula	p. 160
Dark Nebulae	p. 161
Open Clusters	p. 161
Galaxies	p. 161
Galaxy Clusters	p. 162
Physics World Article	p. 163
Most Amazing 2 1/2 Hours of my Life - So Far!	p. 163
Greg Parker	p. 167
University Website Biography	p. 168
Postscript - and a Tiny Admission	p. 171
Index	p. 173
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