A Ring around the Moon

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An incoming layer of high cirrus clouds announces a change in the high-pressure weather pattern. The ice crystals in the clouds create a highly visible 22° ring of light, also known as a halo around the first-quarter moon.

Lens: Tokina AT-X 12-24 f/f
Camera: Nikon D200
Exposure: f/4 15s ISO 200
Date: 12th February 2011

 

The Milky Way

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Lens: Tokina AT-X 12-24 f/f
Camera: Nikon D200
Exposure: f/4 15s ISO 1600 – 5 images, stacked in IRIS
Date: 7th August 2010

Recently I spent a night in the Alps at 2000m height. I slept outside in a bivouac bag and enjoyed a very dark sky.
I took the picture above with the camera on a small tripod, and made 5 exposures which I later combined into a single picture using IRIS.

Yet another M42 image…

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After a very long summer-break in Astrophotography, I found myself with time on hand on a clear evening. After I did a series of 4 300s images for the Plejades (see below) I set the scope up to capture a few light frames on M42, the Great Orion nebula. But while I was sitting in the living room trying to get warm again, watching the Soccer Champions League, the D200’s battery ran empty, and I ended up with only one long exposure. I used the single 300s exposure with a much shorter exposure to get some detail in the very bright center of the nebula to get this picture.

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NGC 4565

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Move your mouse over the image to see annotations for some galaxies.

A larger version of this image which has been annotated with AVM headers can be opened in Microsoft WWT:ngc4565_150mm.jpg

Telescope:
 150mm f/5 Newtonian, Baader MPCC Coma Corrector
Camera
 Nikon D200
Exposure:
 4x300s, ISO 800
Date:
 18th, April 2009
Processing:
 Preprocessing (Dark, Flat & Bias correction), Alignment & stacking in IRIS, histogram adjustment curves, color correction in Photoshop.