Astrophoto

An image of the solar chromosphere taken by Dave Britz using an 8" Schmidt Cassegrain telescope fitted with a Day Star hydrogen alpha filter.  This special filter reveals surface granulation, sun spots (the white area) and solar prominences.  This image was created by processing video frames from a low cost black and white security camera with Registax software. 

An image of the planet jupiter recorded by S*T*A*R member Dave Britz using an 8" Schmidt Cassegrain telescope and a black and white video camera.  Dave recorded the video and the individual frames were processed into this image using powerful (and free!) software called Registax.

This fine photograph of the moon is one of Mike's first attempts at astrophotography. It was taken with a Nikon FM and 70mm Nikon lens. The camera was on a tripod, with the lens focused at infinity and looking into the eyepiece on Mike's homebuilt 6" f/7 Newtonian. The scope is a Dobsonian, and it was on an equatorial platform. The eyepiece was a 32mm TeleVue Plossl (approximate magnification 33X). Film was Kodak Gold 400, 1/15th second exposure.