The camera I use is a Canon Powershot G5 Digital Camera with a 7.2 - 28.8mm lens. This camera was not designed to take astrophotography pictures. The shutter only stays open for a maximum of 15 seconds and the highest ISO rating is 400. Luckily for me, there are programs like RegiStax that assist in stacking multiple frames together. All pictures were taken "through-the-eyepiece" or Afocal using Orion's SteadyPix camera attachment to my Meade LXD55-AR5 (127mm = 5") f/9.3 Refractor with Autostar. Again, this telescope is not the optimal telescope for taking pictures of deep space objects.

The pictures below are not magazine quality. As for the "Urban" astropix, they were taken from my backyard in highly light-polluted Las Vegas, Nevada. Why bother you may ask? I've wanted to show what is possible from a location like mine which surely can't get much worse! Looking at the night sky, on the best night is like trying to see out from inside a light bulb. Sometimes the sky looks brown even at night. It's a mostly Mag 3.5 sky. Sometimes I can make out Wasat in Gemini. My equipment is very modest; nothing fancy compared to the "top of the line equipment. The results, to me, are pretty amazing considering the facts given.

It is my hope that other amateur astronomers (especially those who are just starting out or are considering buying a telescope) will see these pictures and be encouraged to try their hand at looking at more than the Moon, Planets and Double-Stars from Urban Locations. I'm not necessarily trying to encourage people to try their hand at astrophotography, but to help them realize they don't always need dark skies to enjoy the hobby. I've also tried to show what things look like in reality with minimal equipment; NOT like what you may see in many books, telescope ads or magazines -it's not CCD photography. In some of the pictures, especially the ones taken with the Meade 5" Refractor I have used RegiStax 2 to enhance the image. Thanks for reading. Urban Warriors unite! And now...onto the MANY, MANY pictures!

PLEASE READ THIS: I used to have a cable modem. Back then, loading bizillions of pictures on one page was no big deal. Now, I've reverted back to a dial-up modem and have realized how painfully slow this and some of my other pages are. If all of the pictures don't load, you can always right-mouse click on the "X-mirror" image and chose "show picture" from the menu that pops up. I'll put my best effort first just in case you get bored waiting for the others! Thanks again for looking...Brad

 

--- ANDROMEDA (And) / "The Chained Princess" ---

--- AQUARIUS (Aqr) / "The Water Bearer" ---

--- AQUILA (Aql) / "The Eagle" ---

--- AURIGA (Aur) / "The Charioteer" ---

--- CAMELOPARDALIS (Cam) / "The Giraffe" ---

This open cluster is not one of the objects on the "Urban List": I think it should be added...! [wink] Oh, does anybody else wonder why they didn't name this constellation "Giraffopardalis"?

--- CANCER (Cnc) / "The Crab" ---

--- CANES VENATICI (CVn) / "The Hunting Dogs" ---

--- CANIS MAJOR (CMa) / "The Greater Dog" ---
 

--- CASSIOPEIA (Cas) / "The Queen" ---

--- CEPHEUS (Cep) / "The King" ---

--- CYGNUS (Cyg) / "The Swan" ---

--- DRACO (Dra) / "The Dragon" ---

--- GEMINI (Gem) / "The Twins" ---

--- HERCULES (Her) / (It's just Hercules) ---

---LYRA (Lyr) / "The Lyre" ---

The picture on the left is of M57 and was taken in semi-dark skies @ 113x. I probably should have filmed it without the SkyGlow filter because as you can see, the picture to the right that was taken from my backyard in Las Vegas with all the light pollution and it came out better.

--- ORION (Ori) / "The Hunter" ---
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Below is another picture of the Great Orion Nebula. It was taken with the Meade LXD55-AR5 from my backyard: Compare it to the picture of M42 located at the top of this page - what a difference dark skies makes! I tried the "V-block" (Minus Violet) filter without any substantial results. In this picture you can also see M43.

--- PEGASUS (Peg) / "The Winged Horse" ---

--- PERSEUS (Per) / "The Hero" ---

--- SAGITTARIUS (Sgr) / "The Archer" ---

The picture to the left is of M22, a globular cluster near the "Teapot" in Sagittarius. The picture to the right is a small portion of the Milky Way. If you'd like the full version just click on it and it will open in a new window. The size is 1130 x 832 and is 269kb: just the right size for a desktop background.

--- TAURUS (Tau) / "The Bull" ---

--- URSA MAJOR (UMa) / "The Greater Bear" ---

--- VULPECULA (Vul) / "The Fox" ---