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*** Breaking News on my upcoming talk this week in Albox, Spain!! *** Date and time: Friday April 19th 2013 at 19:30 Location: The Tennis Club Albox, Almeria Details I will be exhibiting 15 pictures, in sizes from Fine Art Framed images 0.75m x 0.5m, to photographs of 30x20cm. I'll also be giving a talk at approx. 8pm explaining how I take the pictures. All are welcome - hope to see you there! Tom |
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Happy New Year everyone! Tom |
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Hi everyone! It's been a very busy few weeks so I just wanted to give an update on a few things which have been happening - please see the info below. Thanks to everyone who has been in touch and/or purchased any of my pictures during 2012 - let's hope for lots of clear skies in 2013! So wishing everyone a Happy Christmas and New Year! Tom |
Two new pictures added to the Gallery
For anyone who has bought any of my pictures, you know that I include an info sheet about the image, equipment used, etc. I've had a lot of feedback saying that the info is really useful, so here's a summary of the latest two pictures (which can be seen in more detail in the Gallery)...
NEW! Bubble to Cave Nebula (Available in size: 30"x20") | |
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Here is the Bubble to Cave Nebulae 4 pane mosaic taken with the Tak FSQ106N and Atik11000. This is a total of 68 hours of exposures in Lumiance, Hydrogen Alpha, Red, Green and Blue light. The image was taken over 2 years in September and October in 2011 and 2012. This covers a large area of the sky between the constellations Cassiopeia and Cephus, with objects of Emission, Reflection, and Dark Nebulae. Also seen in the image is the Globular Cluster Messier number 52, along wth many other smaller clusters. |
| Some objects from the Sharpless catalogue are seen throughout the image in all panes. I added in some data for the bubble area, taken with a TEC140 from Les Granges in Oct 2010. This data was taken at a higher resolution and had added detail and smoothness to the region. This takes the total exposure time to approximately 78 hours. This image was taken with Artemis Capture, Stacked and Aligned in AstroArt5, Processed in PixInsight, Mosaic Aligned in Registar, and finally combined and finished in Photoshop. | |
NEW! NGC7129 (Available in size: 15"x15") | |
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While I was waiting for Perseus to rise, I began taking a few shots of this object just to see what size it would appear at 530mm. This is too short a focal length to really show the image at its best. However, I liked the widefield Ha region and the Open cluster which I thought complimented each other. |
| I ended up capturing 23.5 hours of data for this object. This was 7 hours of Ha, 7.5 hours of Luminance with 9 hours RGB. This is a beautiful Blue / Cyan Reflection nebula lit up by the nearby cluster NGC 7142. There is surrounding background galactic dust, and a stream of Ha gas passing through the frame. These objects are in the constellation of Cephus at a distance of approximately 3000 light years. | |
This is a project I started last Summer, and I hope to add more data to it this Summer. I had the chance to finish more frames in August, but I switched back to the Bubble to Cave nebulae to complete that in time for the exhibition. I had all the data before the exhibition opening, but I didn't have the time to process it.
My plan here is to make a 5x5 pane mosaic, with the 5th frame on this bottom row strip to be stitched to the left side. This should give me enough field of view to allow me to go all the way up to the Eagle nebula.
Each of the 4 frames contains 60mins of Luminance, and 90mins RGB. Normally I take many more hours of data perpanel in a mosaic but this area of the sky is bright, and more signal can be captured than other areas of the sky. So I can spend less time on each pane. I can then take one pane a night, so 25 nights will be needed to complete the full image. I have not taken any Ha for this region, but I think the upper panes will benefit from their addition.
This part of the sky only reaches about 25 degrees at its peak, so conditions are difficult, and some data needed to be retaken due to low lying clouds and mositure in the air, causing very bad gradients. As I complete the higher panes, they will be higher in the sky, giving better conditions for photography, and they will also be at a favourable position for a little longer each night. At the Eagle nebula, I should be able to take about 4 hours of data a night, as it'll reach about 35 degrees.
M45 published in the "Astronomy Photographer of the Year" book!
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My Pleiades (M45) picture can be seen in the Royal Observatory Greenwich's "Astronomy Photographer of the Year" book on page 169! You can learn more about the book on their website - there's also a great 50% off offer on the Amazon.co.uk site for the Hardcover version (so it is priced at only £12.50!) - the link is here. |
Orion Project
Well its Winter and each night Orion rises majestically in the East about 11pm. This may be my last Winter shooting from a dark site, so I have decided to try an ambitious project. So far its well under way, but also under wraps. I'll be releasing more infomation on this in the coming months so stay tuned!
Location: Roundwood, Co. Wicklow.
More information can be found @ http://www.astronomy.ie/sbq/
I had a stand at the Astronomy Ireland "Star-B-Q" on September 15th 2012 in Roundwood, Co. Wicklow and enjoyed chatting with everyone about my pictures. A bonus on the night was meeting Pete Lawrence, presenter from The Sky at Night, who also gave a very enjoyable talk on the night on the Northern Lights.
Also thanks to the Sunday Business Post for dropping by and featuring a picture of the exhibition in their national Sunday paper! For anyone interested, here's the picture which was published...
Location: The Centre for Creative Practices on 15 Pembroke Street Lower, Dublin 2
Can I see all the photographs on this website which were exhibited?
Yes! All my photographs can be previewed on my Gallery page!
On August 28 2012, my Rho Ophiuchi Nebulae photograph (shown below) was selected as NASA's "Astronomy Picture of the Day" (APOD), as can be seen here