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The
images presented in these pages were made between 1997 and 2000. My
first attempt at astrophotogra phy
was in 1977 when the Comet Hale Bopp made it's spectacular
visit to our
neighborhood. I piggy-backed an
Olympus 35mm camera and lens on my Celestron C5 for the 16-30 second
exposures. The images are shown in the galleries. I then
graduated to a
Mountain Instruments
MI-250 German Equatorial mount and an Astro Physics 5" refractor
telescope. The mount was controlled by a SBIG auto guider through a
guide scope mounted on the main telescope. Images were made with a
home made medium format camera with a Hasselblad 120mm film back.
Exposures of 90 minutes were common for this set-up. Three images were
usually made and the resulting negatives were scanned with a Polaroid
large format scanner then the digital files were combined and
registered via a special software program. Final image manipulation
was achieved with Photoshop. Astro Photography with professional
results takes a lot of specialized equipment, experience, skill and
patience.
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