Image taken by Denys Sakva, Dec, 2004. The equipment: Celestron 80ED, Celestron CG5 mount, Digital Rebel, 4x30 sec exposures, ISO 1600.
The Rochester skies are full of light from nearby parking lots and businesses. If one uses a special filter designed to pass only light of certain wavelengths, one can improve the contrast of celestial sources against the sky. Compare the views below of the Orion Nebula with (on left) and without (on right) such a filter.
Image taken by Denys Sakva with (and without) Baader S-UHC filter.
Image of M57, the Ring Nebula, taken with the 16-inch telescope on Sep 18, 1998. A 60-second exposure with no filter in place. There would be fewer hot pixels if we bothered to subtract a dark frame ...
Compare the above to these pictures of M57, taken with the 10-inch Meade telescope, f/6.3 focal reducer, and SBIG ST-8 CCD camera, on Friday, Oct 20, 2000. Each is a 30-second exposure. Note the much larger field of view! In each image, North is up and East to the left. Click on each picture to see it alone.
B-band:
R-band:
I-band:
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