Observatory

So then, consider if you will...

Stella and I have taken a trip to an observatory out here. Yes, with the looking at stars and such. That is the kind of nerds that we are. What is even cooler, we are not just doing observing, we are doing imaging. Now, we are beginning in this whole CCD camera thing so we have the easy set up. Normally you would have to do 3 exposures to get color images on the bigger set ups, but this is the starter one where you get it done in one exposure so you can have a color image. Now we aren't just pointing it at the sky and going "snap" color photo. That would more be the method of some of my DSLR astrophotography. Haven't really done much on this trip, since last night was windy/cloudy/snowing. But I will undoubtedly do some more of that method eventually.

First you have to locate the object that you wish to image. This is done through some cool software and then you get to tell the telescope to point in that direction. The telescope rotates and you are ready to begin. You then tell the camera to take an image or series of images of varying lengths. We took a few 15 minute exposures that stand alone, but we have also been taking a range of exposures and stacking them. I have been taking between 5 and 30 minute exposures to stack together.

After you have taken the picture, you have to open CCDOPS and remove the hot and cold pixels. This is from temperature regulation of the chip, but it is an easy thing to fix, just a few clicks in the program. After you have all of the pixels cleaned up you stack the images and then you are ready to save them for photoshop.

Now in CCDOPS you open the picture, its in black and white and you can see that you have a picture of an object in the sky. But when you open it in photoshop basically you have a black screen looking back at you. You then have to play with curves and levels and saturation and all. Stella has been working this end of the process. But it is cool to watch her go from a blank screen to an amazing image of a deep space object. After its done in photoshop it is done and saved.

Don't worry, these will find their way onto my photoblog so that you can be all amazed. And feel free to show your friends and brag that you know the imager of the images being shown.