Some more great first digital shoots

Above we have the Pleiades in the constellation Taurus. Again, like the previous shots, this was taken with a full moon. Some of the deep blue nebulosity shows through, some subtle color levels are buried here. My friend Carl used Photoshop and pulled out the following boost. A little noisy, but amazing to see the nebulae around these hot blue stars. Out of my little camera no less.

What astrophotography album would be complete without the Great Nebula in Orion, M42. Taken the same night with the Pleiades above, this image of M42 was a result of only thirty 15 second stacked frames.

I'm not using an autoguider, no real need with these short exposures. It also just seems wrong to automate everything, what's the enjoyment in that? Every shoot is manually focused, each exposure is timed manually, and each frame is processed individually, aligned, and adjusted with the help of Nebulosity by Stark-Labs. It took two hours to work the M42 image data to satisfaction, there is definitely a feeling of hands-on craftsmanship and accomplishment.

This is for my peace of mind and a desire to capture the things I see. Something I can pass on to my children.