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Wow those are really pretty. If it’s not too much to ask, could you briefly outline what’s involved in making such beautiful images? What kinda gear? Are you ad

• dheera 5y ago
  Gear: - Normal DSLR camera with the IR filter taken out and a different (~700nm cutoff) IR filter put in -- you don't need this for broadband objects like galaxies but for emission nebulae that have a lot of 656nm light, it helps a lot. For some emission nebulae I use an dual-narrowband (H-alpha and O-III lines) filter. - Some pretty normal camera lenses. Actually mostly 30-40 year old manual focus lenses that are built much better than today's plastic crap and easier to focus properly. I highly recommend the Nikkor ED Ai-S 180/2.8 and Nikkor ED Ai-S IF 300/4.5 if you want a couple of winners. - A sturdy tripod that won't vibrate in the wind. Heavier the better. None of that carbon fiber BS. Steel is good. Video camera tripods work well. - Tracking mount, such as an iOptron Skyguider Pro in my case. All of the images I take are as close to natural color as I can make them, since landscapes in false color aren't exactly good looking. Most Hubble images on the other hand are false-color, and for a good reason: The Hydrogen and Sulfur lines both fall in the red, so in order to be able to visually distinguish the chemical processes they assign S to red, H to green, O to blue. This is commonly called the "Hubble palette". In my case O spans green-blue and S/H are both in the red, and although you can't really distinguish S from H in my pictures, but that's how they would look if our eyes were more sensitive.
  • cyberpunk 5y ago
    thank you so much :)