Chris Curtis Web Site

Lagoon Nebula, originally uploaded by ThinkingCamera.

M8 in Sagittarius. My first, quick image of this object, which is low in the sky from here.
This is a star forming region in the direction of the centre of our galaxy.
20 x 30sec exposures. Atik 320e camera on CPC 800 Hyperstar telescope. Process in Maxim, PixInsight and PS.

M27 – The dumbbell nebula, originally uploaded by ThinkingCamera.

This is a planetary nebula – nothing to do with planets, but a shell of dust and gas pushed out by a dying star.
I am very pleased with this image: taken around local midnight in the short period of true darkness at this time of year. 30 x 30s exposures. Atik 320e colour camera. Baader Neodymium filter. CPC800 telescope with f2 Hyperstar. Stacked in maxim. HDR layered and background extraction in PixInsight. No colour adjustment or noise reduction. No photoshop. It was a lovely clear night and with recent upgrades the local street lights dim after 11:30pm as well as being much less light polluting.
I really think this is the best astrophoto I have made to date. I was astonished when I saw the first frame and delighted when I first saw the processed result.

Hercules Cluster, originally uploaded by ThinkingCamera.

M13 again. This is a stack of 135 frames (from 10s to 30s in length) and much gentler processing in Maxim DL and PS.
I am pleased with this – there is much to criticise, but much to enjoy too. Stars are consistently visible down to mag 16.9 – very close to the theoretical predictions for my scope and camera. This is equivalent to a 17 inch (430mm) telescope used visually (though it would also have more resolving power too)

M3-lots of subs, originally uploaded by ThinkingCamera.

I have been experimenting with processing images I have already taken, combining large numbers taken on different nights. It is hard to get the processing just right, especially with sky backgrounds that are orange or mucky brown from light pollution, but the results are encouraging. This image clearly shows 17th magnitude stars and gives some sense of the scale and extent of the globular cluster.

Via Flickr:
The globular cluster M3 – approximately 100 subs from several nights – most subs 20 ro 30 seconds long. Processed in Maxim and PS.
Atik 320e camera and CPC800 Hyperstar Telescope

Great Hercules Cluster with spikes, originally uploaded by ThinkingCamera.

Although it is a nice, bright object, M13 is quite difficult to image. There are lots of small faint stars next to much brighter ones. As well as my usual processing with Maxim and Photoshop, I used the Starspikes Pro 2.0 plugin.
I do not like how Flickr has reprocessed this image, but it is convenient for publishing.

The Whale Galaxy, originally uploaded by ThinkingCamera.

NGC 4631 in Canes Venatici. This is a very active galaxy about 25-30 Million Light Years away. The activity (the formation of many new suns) is probably a result of interaction with the small elliptical galaxy (NGC4627) close by and visible in the image and with another nearby galaxy.
We are seeing this galaxy edge on. It is about the same size as our own.

I went to some 60 second exposures for this. With my telescope having an alt-az mount, this means that the stars are no longer perfectly round, but there is more “depth” in the image. About 30 minutes of exposure in total – CPC800 Hyperstar telescope. Atik 320e Camera.

This is a short video – a loop of two exposures – showing the Asteroid Juno moving against the stars. My first asteroid observation and image!
Each exposure was 15 seconds on the 320e camera on CPC800 with Hyperstar (f2). I “blinked” the two images in Maxim software and exported the video to Premiere Pro where I copied it to make a one-second loop repeated ten times. I added some simple titles too.