Modified Canon XS and sample photo

I have always struggled with trying to image reddish nebula...never could get enough red to make it look natural. Of course there is a reason. Digital cameras are made for "normal" daylight exposure, what the human eye naturally sees. What is interesting is that digital camera manufacturers have to place an infrared (ir) filter directly in front of the imaging sensor (CMOS) to PREVENT it from capturing the near infrared, because the CMOS is naturally sensitive to the near infrared!
So to capture the near infrared of nebulas in space it would be necessary to REMOVE that filter.
Of course, if you remove that filter the color cast of normal photography will not be "natural" to the human eye. It is, however, possible to compensate for that, to good degree, with the "custom white balance" feature in the camera.

In searching the internet I found a site that gives a clear step-by-step on how to disassemble a Canon DSLR to be able to remove that ir filter, http://dslrmodifications.com/rebelmod450d1.html
Since I own three Canon DSLR's I choose to try this modification to the least valuable camera, my Canon XS. Trust me, I was fearful of making a big mistake and ruining the camera for good. But to my happy surprise it was not as difficult as I imagined! True, one needs a good tiny Philips screwdriver (don't compromise here!) but the instructions are so good that only someone with all thumbs need worry about making mistake.

Modification accomplished! Camera tested! Ready to head out to the observatory!

The night was clear, the temps rather warm (didn't put on a light jacket until almost 11 pm), I did a few exposures to see how it works. The images were much red-er than they were before and my technique still needs improvement but I was able in post-processing (using Lynkeos, Preview, and GIMP) to produce this image of the region of the Milky Way north of Cygnus (the Swan constellation) which included the "North American Nebula" and the bright star Deneb.

So if you have an extra Canon DSLR laying around and you really want to do astrophotography of the night sky then this modification is absolutely essential! You can do it yourself or send it in to the guy who runs the above website and he will do it for you for a fee.
When I get a newer Canon DSLR someday I will do this modification to my Canon t3i or t2i, for sure!

Observations of the Moon after raising the telescope pier 9 more inches

Ah, the wonders of hindsight! After nearly a year in my observatory it came time to make some more adjustments to the concrete pier that my orange Celestron C8 is mounted to. By raising the height of the pier 9 more inches I am able to view more objects than before and yet be able to roll off the roof without fear of hitting the telescope.
Of course that meant having to realign the wedge and angle of the telescope to polar north. To my surprise it was relatively easy to get really close!
Saturn is just too low now in the southwest for any decent observing but the scope tracked really well.
And though the Moon was going to shorten any observing I went ahead and took some images with my Canon t3i at prime focus in the movie mode, both full screen and digital zoom (maximum to look for any discrepancies in my polar alignment. Here are the results...

The following image is of the crater Copernicus:

Typically I use Lynkeos and let it choose the best stills from the movie but as of late it seems to want to choose some stills that are less than the best. So I hand picked the stills (about 6 of them out of 50) and produced this image, final editing in Mac OS-X Preview.

17 Visitors to the La Pine Observatory tonight

The Primetimer's of Grace Fellowship Church of La Pine, Oregon visited the observatory tonight.  Viewed were Sataurn, Mars, the crescent moon, double and triple star systems, the Ring Nebula,  M13 globular cluster,  the Andromedia galaxy, the Milky Way, etc. Thank you all for coming and viewing God's creation!

A Comet, The Ring Nebula, and A Poor Man's Spectrometer

After last night's capture of the motion of Comet Jacques C/2014 E2, I headed out to the observatory for another attempt to capture any tail on the comet. Well, no success yet but here's the result of about 30 - 10 sec images:

I then slewed to the Ring Nebula and got this result from a stack of about 15 - 10 sec images:

 Part of the focusing technique is the use of a Bahtinov mask (check it out on Google). But what I personally discovered is that it makes for a "poor man's" spectrometer of sorts. In other words it produces a poor spectrum of a bright start. This is the star Vega. You will notice that it has a mix of colors, but predominately blue-green.

 But this spectrum of the double star system Albireo in Cynus ("The Swan" or otherwise known as the "Northern Cross") makes it very apparent that the brighter star has more yellow than blue, while the lesser star has almost no red at all. Visually thru the eyepiece of a telescope (just slightly out of focus) the brighter star appears much more yellow than its blueish companion.

Well, it's time to close up the observatory and hit the sack!

Comet Jacques C/2014 E2

Comet Jacques C/2014 E2

This is an animation of Comet Jacques C/2014 E2 as it flies through Cassiopeia on August 23, 2014. This is its motion over just 17 minutes of time!
(Ignore the brightness increases and decreases as I was not intending to make an animation in the first place.)
It was only after I had closed up the observatory that I noticed the amount of motion in the images.

You may notice a bright small object near the end of the animation moving from the middle right. I do not believe it is a hot pixel nor is it a satellite (as it would have moved out of the field of view too quickly.) The only other possibility might be a bright asteroid?

Captured with my old orange Celestron C8, focal reducer, Canon t31, 6400 iso, prime focus, 10 to 20 sec exposure times, at about 11:45 pm August 23, 2014

Four visiters to the Observatory tonight!

Some friends of ours and two of their grandchildren observed the Moon, Saturn, Mars, the double star in the Northern Cross,  the triple star system in the Big Dipper, M13 globular cluster, the Ring Nebula, saw the ISS fly very close to Polaris, and a supply ship following after it, several satellites,  and more! A great time was had by all!

First Light with my 6 inch Meade LXD75

Skies finally cleared up tonight! So I broke out the latest addition to my observatory,  the 6 inch LXD75 scope. I was very impressed!  Both visual and DSLR images were crisp and had good contrast. Now I just wished that I had it sooner when Mars and Saturn were at opposition!
Sorry about me being in so msny of these photos but I wanted to give some scale to show just how big the scope is.