Best Astrophotos of 2002

Here's a collection of my favorite astrophotos from 2002.  They're my favorites because of the aesthetic value of the photo as well as the raw effort put into getting the photo.  I anticipate that my collection of "best of" for 2003 will have many more photos taken at prime focus of the 12" LX200 as I'm just now beginning to figure out how to get that thing into focus and use it in conjunction with the ST-4.

The great orion nebula, shot from my driveway in Bedford 12-3-02.  This is a digital stack of 4 images, 30+20+15+10 minutes total.  Taken with the f/7 refractor, guided with the st-4.

This shot was also taken the night of 12-3-02.  It's of the Alnitak region in Orion (that's alnitak, the brightest star in the frame).  To the left of Alnitak is the flame nebula and to the right is the horsehead nebula, both emission nebulas in Orion.  This is a digital stack of 5+15+20 minutes.

While this photograph of the dumbell nebula in vulpecula is far from perfect, it was my first well focused shot through the 12" LX200 since I bought the scope 10 months earlier.  This is a single 60 minute exposure taken from Locke Pond in lovely Chesterville, Maine.

This is my best photograph of m31, the great Andromeda Galaxy to date.  This is a single 40 minute exposure taken with the f/7 refractorf rom the Mancamp in Chesterville, Maine in September of '02.

This photograph, while nice, represents the shot that should've been... I took the entire setup up to Camp Cheese in Carry Pond Township, Maine, the darkest place on earth.  I had a perfect night of seeing that moonless thursday night and I took three seperate Sagitarrius milky way shots of 15-45 minutes.  This was literally the shot that inspired me to get into the hobby.  Well, I left the lens cap on.  Two nights later, I got a decent night and managed to get this 15 minute exposure with my 27mm wide angle lens, I vow to get back there and try this one again!

I can't begin to say how excited I was about this photograph!  This was probably my fourth or fifth attempt at shooting the North American and Pelican nebulas in Cygnus but every attempt ended in failure for various reasons (bad guiding, wind, clouds, etc...).  I seemed quite destined to fail until this shot.  This is a 60 minute exposure taken piggyback with a 200mm lens from Locke Pond in Chesterville, Maine in August of '02.

One of my goals for this year was to make sure I got at least one chance at the souther Milky Way, thanks to my friend Greggy and his wonderful dark sky location in Carrying Place township, Maine, I was able to.  This is one of many shots from that long weekend.  This is a 20 minute exposure with the f/7 refractor.

While this doesn't exactly count as a deep sky astrophoto... on the night of September 7th up at the camp, I was about to start taking deep sky shots and the north west just started glowing and getting brighter and brighter, by 9:30, the sky was awash in greenish red curtains, my first real northern lights display!  This is a 40 second exposure taken with LE400, it really did a great job picking up the reds!