Gregg's Astronomy Page
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Welcome to

Gregg's Astronomy Page

Albert L. Ruppel Observatory

Updated:  Sunday, July 20, 2008

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Image of the Week (7/20/2008) 

Click for a higher resolution viewThe region around gamma Cygni. This week's image is a wide field view of the Milky Way in the constellation Cygnus (the Swan).  The bright star near the top left is gamma Cygni also named Sadr.  The plane of the galaxy passes from top left to lower right in the image and shows NGC 6888 (the Crescent Nebula) near the bottom.  Emission areas appear reddish pink.  For more information about this rich star field see the APOD from 1/4/2007.
This image is about 4 x 2.5 degrees with north at the top and has been reduced by 50% to facilitate loading.  It was made  July 5, 2008.  I used an SBIG STL11000M with my Takahashi FSQ 106N and Astronomik filters to capture an LRGB image of 90:15:15:15 minutes. The image was  processed in MaximDL.  Final composition was performed in Photoshop.  Click the thumbnails for additional views of NGC 6888.

 
 
This page illustrates what can be photographed using commonly available amateur telescopes and a CCD camera.  I currently use an SBIG STL11000M camera and have previously used a SBIG and Starlight Xpress cameras, as well as a Cookbook 245 camera that I built myself. Most of the images were actually taken from my backyard near a busy street with several street lights. Not only is the CCD camera a great imaging tool, but it allows "real time" observation of objects not normally visible in areas with moderate-severe light pollution.

Visitor   ida_logo.gif (9871 bytes) International Dark Sky Association 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

                                    All text and images © Gregg L. Ruppel 1998-2008.