Jared Smith's Astrophotography Gallery

Newest Images


Comet PANSTARRS

ISS Solar Transit

Annular Solar Eclipse

M51 - The Whirlpool Galaxy

M13

Jupiter... and friend

Milky Way Widefield

M8 - The Lagoon Nebula

M101 - The Pinwheel Galaxy

Double Iridium Flare

Lunar Eclipse

Albireo

Gallery


Earth/Moon

Terrestrial, satellites, meteors, aurora, & the moon

Solar System & The Milky Way

Planets, comets, star trails, stars, solar, and widefield views of our galaxy

Clusters

Open & globular clusters

Nebulae

Emmission, reflection & planetary nebulae

Galaxies

Objects outside the Milky Way

Messier

Messier's list of objects

Equipment

I observe and photograph the night sky primarily from my home in Northern Utah, USA. The skies are quite dark and with a short drive I can be away from nearly all light pollution. I photography the stars just for fun. I've always been fascinated with astronomy and have just recently purchased my first telescope and began imaging. Astrophotography provides me a way to record the beautiful objects I observe in the sky so they can be observed at any time, night or day. If you have any questions, please contact me.

Telescopes


Celestron C8N-GT
- 8" f/5 (1000mm/200mm) Newtonian reflector
- ASGT (CG-5) equatorial mount
- JMI NGF-DX3 focuser (with 2" extension tube to reach visual focus)


Orion Short Tube 80
- Primarily used as a guide scope for the 8" Newt
- 80mm f/5 achromat refractor
- Mounted on the Newt with Orion 105mm Guide Scope Rings and Orion Guide Scope Ring Mounting Bar

Imaging


Canon T2i/D550
- 18.0 megapixel digital SLR camera
- Attached to telescope focuser with Opteka T-Mount adapter


Celestron NexImage
- Dedicated CCD color imager
- Primarily used for autoguiding and moon photos
- Attaches to ST80 and is pointed at a bright star. The image is transmitted to Guidedog, which sends guiding messages to the AS-GT mount to keep the star centered. This allows much higher accuracy and longer exposures than would be allowed if the mount ran by itself.

Software:

- IRIS & Photoshop for image processing
- K3CCD Tools for video aquisition with NexImage
- NeatImage for cleaning up noisy images
- Guidedog for autoguiding
- Registax 3 for processing lunar/planetary images
- Carte du Ciel sky mapping software
- Virtual Moon Atlas moon mapping software
- Celestia solar system simulator
- Orbiter for going to the stars myself

Accessories

Eyepieces: Celestron Ultima (30mm, 12.5mm, 7.5mm, and 2X Barlow), Orion 5mm Illuminate Ultrascopic (for manual guiding and drift alignment), Orion 5mm Ultrascopic (not illuminated for planetary observing on rare, perfectly clear nights), a 20mm Plossl, a Sirius 26mm Plossl, and a few others.

Optical accessories: Orion Variable Polarizing Filter (best thing ever for moon observing), 45° correct image diagonal, 90° Meade prism diagonal.

Odds & Ends: Orion LaserMate Deluxe Telescope Laser Collimator, Celestron A/C adapter (part #18773), Celestron night vision led flashlight, Celestron serial to RS-232 cable (for autoguiding).

Wishlist

Multi-Purpose Coma Corrector, Ha modified Canon DSLR.