Here's a photo I took on Thursday night with an early birthday present I bought myself, an equatorial mount. This is a motorised mount that rotates at precisely the same speed as the Earth, but in the opposite direction. When correctly set up (it needs to be aligned extremely precisely), it allows the camera to track the stars as they move across the sky.
This is a photo of the Andromeda Galaxy, also known as M31. This galaxy is about 2.5 million light years from Earth (which means, of course, that we're seeing it as it looked 2.5 million years ago), and is estimated to contain one trillion stars, at least twice the number in the Milky Way.
The galaxy is visible with the naked eye in good viewing conditions, and often shows up in my wide angle night sky photography, so it was a good target to test out the new tracking mount with. The nucleus, which looks like one big star here, is actually a dense cluster of stars, from which emerge the spiral arms of the galaxy. The different colours show stars in different stages of their lifetime.
The Andromeda galaxy is moving towards the Milky Way and they are expected to collide in a little under four billion years, eventually forming a single galaxy.
This shot is made up of 60 photos taken at 550mm, f/6.3, ISO 5000, for 30 seconds each, stacked using DeepSkyStacker (a total of about 30 minutes of exposure). I'm pretty pleased for a first attempt, especially as I don't really know what I'm doing!
Click to view on a black background for best effect!
I'm a British software developer and photographer living in Vancouver, BC. I mainly photograph landscapes, cityscapes, night scenes, and water.
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Spectacular, awe-inspiring photography and superbly explained narrative. A big fav. That should be quite a show in four billion years! Too bad we won't be around to see it :)
Wow oh wow oh wow! fav
Alexis, another beautiful capture- something spectacular which I needed to see today to lift my spirits. Your photos always inspire me.
Great image. Went to a lecture on astro photography about a year ago, Astonishing what these guys were achieving and the equipment they had. Sadly much to much light pollution where I live.
@abirkill Hi Alexis- a friend who has the same lens would like to know what equilateral mount you bought to use with this lens and camera? He has found the need for a better mount with this lens. Thank you!
@jannkc Hi Jann, this is using the newer version of the iOptron SkyTracker, but I was still over the load limit with the head, camera and lens, but most of that is because I have a very heavy head (on the tripod, before anyone comments...)
The load limit is for the mount is 7.7lbs and the Tamron is 4.3lbs, so with a lightish ball head it's not too tricky to keep everything under the load limit. You'll still need a very stable tripod, extremely precise polar alignment, and a totally windless night to shoot at 600mm for longish exposures though.
i hate it when something like this escapes by me! how the heck could i have missed this is beyond me. (i know, those three or four people who mass upload a century's worth of photos in my feed!) this is awesomer than awesome, alexis! i am so enthralled by this photograph. i love looking at the clear night sky ever since i was a little child, and to see this from someone who is not an astro-scientist (if there's such a word, i'm at a loss for it, right now seeing this) is simply amazing. in october i was able to take long exposures of the night sky and i was quite pleased with what i got. not aiming for something like this (or should i?) but something almost similar. i bow to you, young man. you are a genius!
Alexis, another beautiful capture- something spectacular which I needed to see today to lift my spirits. Your photos always inspire me.
Excellent work!
The load limit is for the mount is 7.7lbs and the Tamron is 4.3lbs, so with a lightish ball head it's not too tricky to keep everything under the load limit. You'll still need a very stable tripod, extremely precise polar alignment, and a totally windless night to shoot at 600mm for longish exposures though.