My first shot at the Orion Nebula

This spring I’ve been buying the parts to start dabbling in some astrophotography. I don’t have the best telescope for astrophotography, but I think I can get some decent shots. There is so much to learn about astrophotography, and that’s the fun part. I love learning. It’s probably my fault that we’ve had such a bad spring though. They always say buying a telescope guarantees a couple weeks of cloudy nights. So, sorry for the forecast of 7-14″ of snow tonight.

We did have one clear night last week that wasn’t too terribly cold, I think it was in the 20s. I was able to get this shot of the Orion Nebula.

It’s not the best, but it’s mine. If anybody is curious it was taken with a Canon 450D on a Celestron NexStar 8SE. It was just a 15 second exposure at an ISO of 1600 with minimal editing in Adobe Lightroom.

I’ve been experimenting with different editing apps trying to get the most out of my images, but what I really need is a clear night to get some more images. My time at getting more shots of the Orion Nebula is fading though. I may just have to wait until if comes around in the fall again. I think Jupiter is my next target.