Astrophotography

and the
Digital Revolution

Humberside BCS Branch

Wednesday 13th February 2013
Astrophotography is concerned with
imaging celestial objects for science or
pleasure

Originally the domain of professionals –

Cameras used film or glass plates coated with
photosensitive chemicals

The digital revolution and the affordable

availability of technology has opened this field
to amateurs
First, some basics
Why can we ‘see’ astronomical objects ?

They either radiate or reflect energy at

visible wavelengths

We can ‘capture’ some of this energy by focusing it

with lenses onto a suitable detector .
(e.g. eye, photographic emulsion, ccd)
 How light travels from object to detector

Object
radiates
light

Lenses focus light onto detector

Advantages of cameras over eyes

Accurate positional information

Ability to capture images of very faint objects

Ability to capture images beyond visible spectrum

Ability to capture images at discrete wavelengths

Early images
Henry Draper c. 1870
Created the HD Catalogue

Centre of the
Orion Nebula
Orion Nebula – A. A. Common 1883
First use of long exposure to show details invisible to
the eye
Planetary images

Lowell 1966 Horace Dall 1956

1970’s Horace Dall 1976

Key issues in Astrophotography

Accurate pointing of telescope – finding objects

Diurnal motion – tracking objects

Mechanical inaccuracies – Periodic Error

Camera / film sensitivity to light – exposure times

‘Seeing’ – the effects of atmospheric turbulence

Noise reduction – the removal of unwanted artefacts

The digital revolution solution

Hardware:
Computers – connect and control

Digital Stepper Motors – physically move the telescope

Digital Encoders – feed back the telescope position

CCD Cameras – turn incident photons into electrical impulses

Software:
Planetarium – planning images, control of telescope
• Stellarium, Cartes du Ciel, Autostar...
Guide – uses ‘guide’ camera to remove effects of mount errors
• Metaguide, PHD, Guide Dog...

Capture – controls all camera functions, outputs digital data

• Maxim DL, Backyard EOS, Nebulosity, CCDcap

ASCOM interface – connects software and hardware

• Industry standard drivers for windows

Processing Software – digital manipulation of camera data

How it all connects...

Guide camera
Guide-scope

Imaging telescope

Imaging camera Encoders

Stepper
motors
Mount

Guiding ASCOM
Capture
software control
software
software

Planetarium
Computer software
Typical amateur back-
garden set up.
Planning an image
Longer focal length - higher magnification - smaller field of view

FOV/degrees = 57.3 x chip size/mm

focal length/mm

Rod Wodaski’s CCD Calculator

http://www.newastro.com/book_new/camera_app.php
Exposure times

Moon, bright planets : 1/200 sec to 1/8 sec

Constellations : 25 – 45 secs

Bright DSOs : 1 min – 10 min...use 30sec to 3 min subs

Faint DSOs : 1 hour and longer...use 3 to 10 min subs

Long total exposures are obtained by ‘stacking’ a suitable

number of shorter exposures using processing software
Image processing…
Just about every astronomical image, from Hubble down, has
been digitally processed in some way

Advantages…

- stack multiple images to get long exposure

times and a higher signal/noise ratio
- Combine images from different telescopes/cameras/filters

- Remove uneven illumination/sky background

- Fine tune brightness/contrast/colour balance

Disadvantages:
- Can be very time consuming !!
Imaging the moon and planets

Capturing detail requires high magnification

High magnifications are affected by ‘seeing’
Solution...use webcam or video

This method quickly captures thousands of

images, which can be stacked and processed
with e.g. Registax
 Imaging Jupiter

Horace Dall 1956 IPP Lowell Telescope 1972

CCD webcam footage 2011
Comparing results
Deep Sky Objects – Nebulae and Galaxies
Faint objects require longer exposures for detail

Longer exposures require very accurate tracking and produce

more ‘noise’ from the camera

Solutions....
Use auto-guiding system to maintain tracking accuracy allowing
long exposures to be made

Use processing software to remove noise and ‘stack’ frames

M45 – Hale Telescope 1970’s
 DSLR image – 2011

Dust on
lens or
chip

Thermal
noise

RAW frame : EOS 300D : ISO 800 : 6 mins

Dark frame : EOS 300D : ISO 800 : 6 mins – contrast stretched
Flat frame : EOS 300D : ISO 100 : 2.5 secs
Stack of 8 x 6 mins – contrast stretched & colour balanced
Deep Sky Imaging...DSLR comparisons

Hale Telescope 1970’s

Hale Telescope 1970’s
M42 UK STU 1970’s
Astro-CCD Deep Sky Imaging
Astro-CCD cameras are designed to have a high sensitivity and
dynamic range

Mono cameras can be used unfiltered for ‘luminance’ frames or with

sets of either RGB or ‘narrowband’ filters to capture ‘colour’
information

Hubble images use a narrowband ‘pallette’ of :

SII – red Ha – green OIII – blue

Used primarily to emphasise detail in emission nebulae

Very time consuming – 3 or more sets of images plus flats and darks
Using narrowband and RGB data together
RGB frames taken with EOS 300D

Narrowband frames taken with Celestron Starshoot

mono CCD

Filters used : Ha and OIII

Images processed and aligned using IRIS

Aligned images combined and colour balanced in CS3

RGB with DSLR H-alpha data

Stacks using original RGB and

narrowband data

OIII data
Blue plus OIII Green plus OIII

RGB channels were separated,

then narrowband data was
selectively added to each
channel

Red plus Ha
Modified RGB channels
were recombined, then
the final image was
colour balanced and
cropped
Narrowband CCD Deep Sky Imaging...possibilities
A Hubble palette
image of the central
area of the Heart
Nebula...
Photo: Matt Beavers

An excellent example
of what can be
achieved with
inexpensive amateur
equipment from a back
garden in suburban
Hull
 Planetarium software

Cartes du Ciel
http://www.stargazing.net/astropc/download.html

Stellarium
http://www.stellarium.org/

Heavens above – for satellites, ISS, Iridium flares

http://www.heavens-above.com/
 Processing software
IRIS information tutorials and downloads
http://www.astrosurf.com/buil/us/iris/iris.htm

Deep Sky Stacker

http://deepskystacker.free.fr/english/index.html

Registax downloads
http://www.astronomie.be/registax/html/download.html

Registax tutorial
http://www.davesastro.co.uk/techniques/registax_tutorial/index.html

Virtualdub – reformat MPEG etc to AVI

http://www.virtualdub.org/download.html
The End