My backyard is my normal observation place. It isn't perfect but very convenient.
There is lot of light pollution.
But it is ok.

4 files, last one added on Dec 22, 2007
Album viewed 33 times

Tele Vue System Mount

11 files, last one added on Feb 25, 2009
Album viewed 38 times

The Kenko B-Plasma is an equatorial mount made in Japan in the 90's. There isn't much information about this mount.
It's a quite heavy, well build mount.
I had to replace the original controller with the FS2. Now this mount has GOTO and can be used for astrophotography.
That was the purpose for buying this mount. It's the next step in my search for a good travel mount.

I knew the Kenko mounts by reputation. I previously owned a Kenko Skymemo. The B-plasma is as precise as the Skymemo.

15 files, last one added on Jul 20, 2010
Album viewed 42 times

Deep Sky

Photographing Deep Sky is the most difficult part of Astrophotography.

Now the digital revolution opens a lot of possibilities. Digital Astrophotography isn't as hard as the classical photography.
It's a complete different experience.

63 files, last one added on Mar 08, 2011
Album viewed 84 times

Using camera lenses for astrophotography has always interested me. It's more simple. More classic photography.
The images are also closer too the view you get in a telescope.

It's fun!

23 files, last one added on Oct 22, 2010
Album viewed 56 times

Results of two weeks holiday in Tuscany.

17 files, last one added on Aug 20, 2010
Album viewed 28 times

Lunar Details: Third step: The use of a webcam

Photographing the Moon with webcams has a classical way of working for astrophotographers. It's astonishing the results that can be obtained with such a small camera.
It's a challenge for me to get the most beautiful Lunar details. It's a lot fun. But not so easy as it seems. There is a lot of image post treatment.
Enjoy your voyage on the Moon!

25 files, last one added on Apr 10, 2006
Album viewed 80 times

The Planets

The Planets have always been one of my favorite objects to observe. The Intes M703 is very well suited for Planets observations.
Photographing the Planets has always been one of my dreams. With classical film photography it was nearly impossible for me.
Digital camera's and the webcam's are very usefull. In this overview you can see severall recording techniques I'm experimenting with: the DSLR and the Webcam.
My conclusion is that the Rebel is good for wide shots of the moon's of the planets and the Toucam for close-ups.

28 files, last one added on Feb 03, 2008
Album viewed 55 times

Before starting a astrophotography session first I take some photos to test the polar alignment and the sharpness. Usually Bright stars are the test targets.

This test photos are normally deleted but why not take pictures of interesting stars like double stars? Double stars are very interesting objects that can be surprisingly beautiful.

Starfields can be of an exceptional beauty. I love very rich starregion. You can continue looking at them and every time discover new things.

For people who look for the first time trough a telescope they are very disappointed. Stars remain small white spots on a black background. Not big discs with lots of details. It's only after explaining what they see that start to enjoy the view. The same with pictures of Double Stars and starfields.

For that reason every photo has some background description.

I hope you enjoy the Stars.

7 files, last one added on Dec 12, 2006
Album viewed 35 times

11 files, last one added on May 25, 2007
Album viewed 10 times

Lunar Eclipse of 3 March 2007

15 files, last one added on Feb 19, 2008
Album viewed 10 times

The Moon: Second step: The use of a Digital Single Lens Reflex Camera

Second step is the use of a Digital Single Lens Reflex Camera.
It's the beginning of a new adventure.

22 files, last one added on Apr 13, 2008
Album viewed 20 times

The Moon: first step: 76mm Polarex, afocal with a Sony Mavica

The Moon, our closest neighbour and the most photographed.
Quit easy to do. But not so easy.
Always challenging.

31 files, last one added on Oct 11, 2004
Album viewed 26 times

The Moon: first experiments.

This set of photographs are the first experiments with several teleobjectives and negative film (400 asa).

As I'm looking for a solution for the rather slow Polarex (F16) teleobjectives seems to be an inexpensive solution.
I bought some second hand teleobjectives: Pentacon 4.5/300, 5.6/500, MTO 5.6/500 and 8/1000 (russentonne).
I use them mostly piggy backed with homemade adapters. Except for the MTO 8/1000 who goes directly on the GEM.

The results aren't good. The reason's are: the teleobjectives aren't suited for the Moon, Negative film isn't the right choice.
Perhaps the teleobjectives perform better for deep sky with ccd photography. That will be my next experiment.

To be continued...

6 files, last one added on Dec 17, 2004
Album viewed 9 times

On the night of 12 and 13 August 2005 I photographed for the first time the Perseids.
The Canon 300d with a 25mm Ziess lens took every 10sec one photo. In total 750 photos where taken.
On 5 perseids where photographed.

5 files, last one added on Aug 08, 2006
Album viewed 4 times

Deep Sky or the photography of the invisible

We talk about real astrophotography in photo history when photos are more than just experiements. The start of astrophotography is situated in 1850 (Michael Maunder, the Photohistorian, 09/2005)

Photographers and astronomers of the 19th century were confronted with two restrictions when photographing stars: the low sensitivity of the Daguerreotype and the errors of the telescopes. Since the Earth turns around its axis it's almost as if the stars evolve round an imaginary point (the polar star). Take a look at the nice picture by J.R. Eyerman, 1950. These are 2 problems that modern amateur photographers still have to cope with.

The development of more sensitive emulsions was boosted under the influence of, amongst others, astronomers. The problems concerning the sensitivity of emulsions were solved with the discovery of the wet Collodium and more importantly the improvement of the dry Silver Bromide glass negatives (1874).
In the meantime telescopes and mounts were optimized for astrophotography. All self-respecting observatories installed special telescopes to experiment with the new inventions.

In 1880 the idea was launched to make a photographic star atlas. The Observatoire de Paris took the initiative. The Brothers Henry (Paul, 1818-1905; Prosper, 1848-1903) were important pioneers of this project. In the exhibition you can find an early phto by the Henry Brothers (1886). From a modern point of view this photo isn't that impressive, but in 1886 these photos were very revolutionary. 45 minutes of exposure time was no exception.

The clearest nebulas could now be photographed. It was the Scottish astronomer Isaac Roberts (1829-1904) who was the first to photograph the arms of the Andromeda nebula in 1888. The Andromeda nebula is the closest galaxy to ours.
From that point onwards the discovery of new objects was wide open. Later on it were the American observatories (Lick, Mount wilson and much later Mount Palomar) which took over from European observatories.
The European observatories, which were mostly located near big cities (f.i. Ukkel near Brussels), suffered more from light pollution and became less interesting.

Under impulse of the American photographer Edward Emerson Barnard (1858-1932), who made the first photographic atlas of the galaxy, more and more investments were made in the photography of weaker sky objects. Especially the photos of Mount Wilson were revolutionary. In the exhibition you can see several photos made by the Mount Wilson Observatory.
By 1954 Mount Palomar Observatory made a complete photographical star atlas. This Palomar Sky Survey is still used today.

5 files, last one added on Apr 10, 2006
Album viewed 61 times

Selenography or the history of the Moon

Stars can only be seen at night.

Photographing astronomical objects is very closely connected with the genesis of photography itself.

In 1838, one year before the announcement of the discovery of photography, by the astronomer - politician Arago before the French parliament, the first picture of the moon was taken by Daguerre. Since the beginning of photography the medium was destined to play an important role in astronomy. Or was it vice versa?

What is the influence of astronomy in the development of photography? Photography was nearly simultaneously discovered by Fox Talbot (1800-1877) in England and Louis Mandé Daguerre in France. Both had relationships in the astronomical scene. Daguerre via Arago and Talbot via Herschel. John Herschel (1792-1871) played an important role in the development of the negative / positive procedure. Hence the hommage of Paul Cava to this important astronomer. Paul Cava is a modern American Photographer who makes photo collages based on historical images. His work can only be viewed on rare occasions in Europe.

Within the Astronomy there were diffirent questions which photography could give a clear answer on: How many stars are there, exact location of the stars, the mutual brightness ratio of the stars, do the Moon and the Sun have an atmosphere.

All over the world, Photographers , opticians and astronomers were trying to answer these questions.

Obviously, the moon was the first object to be photographed. Several moon atlases had already been published before, but there were contradictions between the different publications. Every time there was the problem of the right level of detail. Photography could give a clear answer to this problem.

Whether or not there was life on the moon could also been answered by photography. Even after the first clear photos of the Moon there was still doubt. See "Les terres du ciel", 1884 of Camile Flammarion. Two original Moonphotos (Woodburry types) were published in there. One of those by James Nasmyth was first published in his own book "The Moon considered as a planet". This moonphoto wasn't an original image but a photo of a crater model made out of plaster. For Camille Flammarion it still wasn't clear whether or not there was life on the Moon.

The rare magic image lantern slides of 1870 give a good illustration on the common world view of those days.

It's only because the vulgarisation of the Moon photos in the form of stereo views that the world view would evolve and that it would become clear that the Earth probably was the only inhabited planet. Within the thinking of that time this was an important evolution that was accelerated by astrophotography.

The idea for a detailed photographical map of the Moon was launched in 1887 in Paris. Moritz Loewy (1833-1907) and Pierre-Henri Puiseux (1855-1928) supported by Charles le Morvan (1865-1933) started this ambitious project in 1880. Between 1894 and 1909, about 500 observation nights and over a 1000 takes later the map of the Moon was published in Heliogravure. It took 15 years because only under exceptionally good circumstances ("seeing") the moon could be photographed. The takes were made with the special Coudé refractor of the Obeservatoire de Paris. A refractor with a diameter of 74cm and a focal distance of 15 meters! For this time and age a huge telescope of 6.000 kg.

In the exhibition we have the "Carte Photographique de la Lune" of 1914. This is an addition to the "Atlas Photographique de la Lune" of 1905. The Atlas was completed based upon unpublished images. The photographic Moon atlas of Puiseux, Loewy and le Morvan has become very rare. This is a unique opportunity to view these photographs outside of a museum.

The photographic Moon atlas remained a reference until 1970 when NASA needed a more detailed and more up-to-date Moon atlas to determine possible landing sites for the Apollo flights. Under supervision of the astronomer Kuiper the best moon photos worldwide were assembled. Amongst others, the ones from the Lick observatory were used.

With the uprising of space travel these atlasesl ost their importance. The Moon photos of the different manned and unmanned space flights are used now. See numerous examples in the exhibition.

The apotheosis and the ultimate proof of the absence of life on the Moon was delivered in 1969 with the first man on the Moon. Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong wrote history and provided some icons of Photography. The most well known is probably the portrait of Buzz Aldrin made by Neil Armstrong.

5 files, last one added on Apr 10, 2006
Album viewed 31 times

Solar System and Comets

As space photography evolved, the Sun and the Comets very rapidly became very popular objects on the lists of astronomers.

The Sun was still the great unknown Photography needed to answer a lot of questions.

The different expeditions throughout the world to photograph solar eclipses resulted in the exact determination of the diameter of the sun and the correct analysis of the Corona.

Thanks to photography it was now possible to determine the structure of the sun spots. The French astronomer Jules Janssen succeeded in making very detailed recordings of the solar surface. These results were later published in "Le Ciel", 1865 by Amadée Guillemin.

Comets raised a lot of questions in the 19th century. What was the exact structure and origin of these mysterious objects?

Haley's comet in 1910 presented itself as an excellent opportunity to answer a lot of these questions. Photography was ready for the challenge. It resulted in marvellous photo's that became a port of the icons in photography.

By 1900 George Eastman had improved the photographical emulsions: the sensitivity was higher and the color sensitivity was easier to adjust.

This resulted in astrophotography becoming more accessible to amateur astrophotographers.

In the exhibition you will find several examples of amateur pictures.

3 files, last one added on Apr 10, 2006
Album viewed 41 times