David Snay is an amateur astronomer from America. Last month he sent us an image of the Moon disk which is composed of two mosaics. The photos were taken with DMK 41AU02.AS camera. According to him,

I have never made an image of the moon of this quality with such ease. This camera is definitely going to be a winner for planetary work.

Click to Zoom In

Some details from his email:

That image was made with the DMK 41AU02.AS.

Telescope:     Stellarvue SV90T flourite refractor.
Mount:    Orion Sirius EQ-G
Exposure:    5 minutes worth of 3 fps avi each of Red, Green and Blue data
Processing:
- Aligned/combined each data set in Registax 5 using default values for everything up to Wavelets, where I applied a mild value of 5 for each wavelet.
- RGB combined in Photoshop CS3
- Minor contrast and color adjustments in CS3

This image required a two panel mosaic as the image scale provided by this camera/telescope combination result in complete coverage of the moon.
… …
The image capture software is very sophisticated and not completely intuitive. I haven’t read any of the help files yet and was still able to succeed quickly, but I suspect a little time in the help system will make it even more enjoyable to use this system.

Many Thanks to Mr. Snay!

Hong Kong, the financial center of south-east Asia, has a total population over 7 million with density of 6460/km². This international metropolis does not look like a nice location for astrophotography. But still there are amateur astronomers managing to take awesome pictures from the city. Daniel Chang is among one of them. He captured this beautiful Jupiter photo with his DBK 21AF04.AS astro camera.

Thank you Daniel! Well done!

Efrain Morales is a frequent contributor to this blog. Representing his excellent astrophotography skills, Efrain‘s works range from Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune, Saturn to the Moon and ISS. He takes all those photos with a DMK 21AF04.AS astronomy camera.

Last month, Efrain managed to captured some stunning views of Jupiter and two lunar craters. Here are the pictures and the quotes from his email:

Here is my latest session of the grand planet Jupiter with its well known storm (GRS) and one of its moon Io coming into view in its transit.

Some Moon crater images seldom taken and located at the eastern limb, They are Crater La Perouse selected LPOD (Lunar Photo Of the Day) on the first of July ( http://lpod.wikispaces.com/July+1,+2010 ) and Crater Neper also located in the same region and taken with my trusty DMK 21AF04.AS CCD camera, Clear Skies.

Thank you Efrain! Master pieces as always!

Dmitry Makolkin is a Russian amateur astronomer located in Moscow. Ever since he was a child, Dmitry has been crazy about astronomy. He was called the “Encyclopedia for children” when he was 10 and started building his first Newton at the age of 16. After graduated from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technique, Dmitry worked in low temperature solid state physics experimental lab of the Institute of Atomic Energy.

Dmitry photographs the night sky with a DMK 31AU03.AS camera.

Here I blog 3 Moon pictures from him. But you can see more by visiting his gallery at http://www.makolkin.ru/Gallery/gallery.html.

Original size 3412×4504 pixels

Moon panorama, 1 May 2009. Moon phase: 0.494
Imaging time: 18:51 – 19:29 UT
Scope: TAL-250K
Camera: DMK 31AU03.AS
Filter: Astronomik IR Pro 742nm
Processing: Registax 5, 350/2000
Deconvolution Lucy-Richardson, curves, gamma
Panorama of 23 elements

Original size 3800×4800

Moon panorama, 25 March 2010. Moon phase: 0.755
Imaging time: 18:29 – 19:18 UT
Scope: TAL-250K
Camera: DMK 31AU03.AS
Filter: Astronomik IR Pro 742nm
Processing: Registax 5, Avistack, 350/2500
Deconvolution Lucy-Richardson, curves, gamma
Panorama of 30 elements

Original size 2375×4402

Moon panorama, 18 April 2010. Moon phase: 0.189
Imaging time: 21:20 – 21:44 MSK (GMT +4)
Scope: TAL-250K
Camera: DMK 31AU03.AS
Filter: Astronomik IR Pro 742nm
Processing: Registax 5, Avistack, 400/2500
Deconvolution Lucy-Richardson, curves, gamma
Panorama of 11 elements

Thank you Dmitry! Incredible pictures!

This Moon image was composed of 9 smaller pictures which were all taken by French amateur astronomer Pierre Alain Arnaud. Pierre is based in Alpes de Haute Provence. He uses DMK 31AF03.AS to photograph the universe.

Click to Zoom in

His email along with this image is translated as below:

I send you this picture of the moon made with a Orion 80 telescope and a The Imaging Source DMK 31AF03.AS camera.
This photo was made from a small village in the Alpes de Haute Provence on 22 May 2010 at 21h10 GMT. It is a mosaic of 9 images from 9 videos, each composed of 600 selected images. The composite was performed with AVISTACK, with assembly of the mosaic with Photoshop. Unfortunately, the mosaic is not complete, because the clouds came in and interrupted final shots.

Many thanks to Pierre!

Thanks to the recent return of Jupiter, we received the following pictures from Marc Patry. Marc uses a DMK 21AU04.AS astronomy camera.

C11 + DMK21 at 2x focus (IR742)RGB image (Astronomik filters).

C11 + DMK21 at ~4x focus (eyepiece projection) and a 23A color filter

C11 + DMK21 at prime focus (IR742)RGB image (Astronomik filters). 60fps, 20s recording per color plane 60s recording for IR742 plane

Marc detailed his photography in the email:

For me this camera sounds perfect for serious planetary imagers. Very high frame rate (up to 60 fps for images with the C11 prime focus), a good sensitivity and an easy software to use (IC Capture). One should now concentrate on the telescope and the seeing and “forget” the camera … except for clicking “Capture” of course. It’s weight do not introduce the need of a rebalancing, and the single link (data + power) is a good point on the field.

Well thank you Marc! Truly nice pictures!

Many astrophotographers choose DMK 41AU02.AS astronomy camera to capture the whole disk of the Sun. German amateur astronomer Ingmar Glass is one of them. Ingmar is based in Bavaria, southern Germany. He has been using TIS astronomy cameras for more than two years.

The picture was taken at 17:40:23 local time, 24th of June.

Here is the quote of his email:

since two month I own a DMK 41 USB Version cam and the little Lunt telescope(Lunt LS35). This team is perfect to capture the complete solar disk in halpha. I want to present you the result of todays Sun.

P.S. With this setup the number of Sun observations were risen extremely. After work i can use cloud gaps to capture the sun from my bathroom.

Danke Sehr Ingmar! Gut gemacht!

There are some warm feedbacks after we featured Bernd Eser‘s Sunspot images in the latest Astronomy Camera Newsletter. Besides the comments, an interesting 3D image was made from Eser‘s works. Federico Manzini, the author of the 3D image, told us in the email:

following the beautiful images of Bernd Eser, I treated 2 of these to create a 3D image of the sunspot (and the magnetic filaments around the sunspot) of 23&24 May. The new virtual 3D image shows a great detail, but it is required to use red+cyan or red+ blue glasses to appreciate the up and down surface of the Sun.

Thank you Federico!

Right after I posted his Prominence images last week, we received one more image sequence of Solar Prominence from Jim Ferreira. The pictures vividly depict a magnificent process of a Solar Prominence’s eruption. Jim photographed this on June 19 with his DMK 21AU04.AS camera.

Click to Zoom in

Captured this eruptive prominence throwing off matrial Saturday afternoon, June 19.  The sequence of images were shot over an hour and a half period using a DMK21AU04.AS and a Lunt LS50F Hydrogen Alpha filter on a 700mm FL refractor.  AVIs were processed in RegiStax5 and image collage assembled in Photo Shop.

Thank you Jim for the good work!

Francisco A. Rodriguez Ramirez is an amateur astronomer based in Spanish Canary Islands, roughly 100km – 250km offshore of Morocco. In this May, Francisco utilized a local facility called Cabreja Mountain Observatory, located in Vega de San Mateo, and captured some close up views of Solar Prominence with his DMK 21AU04.AS camera.

Click to zoom in

Lunt Solar H Alpha Telescope 60mm BF600 to 0,55 Amstrong over Vixen GPE Mount motorized.

Thank you Francisco! Do not hesitate to send us more astronomy pictures!