My astrophoto Gallery

---

The photographs you can see here are my first attempts with only a camera and film. I plan to acquire the drive model 531 in order to start doing piggyback photography. Until then, I wish you enjoy the following shots:

Hale-Bopp

Probably this is the first time you see a photograph of comet Hale-Bopp :-).Well, here I used my Olympus OM-1 (what a wonderful camera) loaded with Fujicolor 800. The lens was a Zuiko 28mm/2.8, while the exposure was 60" at f/2.8. As you can see, there was some light pollution, but I think is better to get this than to get nothing. Note also constellations Perseus at left and Cassiopea at mid-right .

Canis Majoris, Orion and Taurus

The same night I shoot Hale-Bopp, I also took a shot of Orion. Using again the Zuiko 28mm/2.8, I was able to catch Canis Majoris, Orion and Taurus all in a row. It is easy to identify Sirius, Betelgeuse, Rigel, Aldebaran and of course M42!. The exposure was 90" at f/2.8 on Fujicolor 800.

78 (Iota) Leonis is a double but...

This is the first astrophoto I ever made. I used a Nikon F801-S whith an AF Nikkor 28mm/2.8. The exposure was 30" at f/2.8 and the film was Fujichrome Velvia 50 ASA. After scanning onto CD-Photo Kodak system, I made a tremendous digital magnification with Paintshop-Pro software. Also, the contrast was increased dramatically.

I thought that this image shows Iota Leonis as what really is: a double star system, but it's impossible to split a 1.2 arcoseconds double star with a 28 mm wideangle lens. The red background comes from the magnified weak twilight at 22:12 in Bern, Switzerland. Date was 23, July, 1993.

The Moon, 12th day

And here is my first moon shot trough the #395. Taken form the living-room of my house, I used Fujicolor 400 with an exposure of 1/250 sec. Camera was a Nikon F801-S in spot metering mode. After scanning onto Kodak CD-Photo format, I increased the contrast, but the color of the photograph changed a bit with this process.

Of course, the real image viewed thorough the telescope is a lot better than you can see here.