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CCD Imaging Primer |
| Imaging Made Easy and Fun! |
| INTRODUCTION |
This CCD primer will discuss easy and simple imaging from the ground up using only the following equipment:
Images are taken by combining a number of short exposures rather than using an auto or self-guiding system and doing a single long exposure. The Starlight Xpress cameras have such low noise levels that exposures as short as 30 seconds can be successfully used to build up beautiful deep sky images. With the increasing size of CCD chips, stacking could eventually be impractical because of the sheer amount of data involved, though with ever faster computer processors and DVD-R disks you never know!
Both MX5 monochrome and MX5C colour imaging examples will be given, showing how to go from a raw image to a fully processed masterpiece. The MaxIm DL/CCD software package is highly recommended due to its extreme ease of use, though many people swear by AstroArt too!
The two example images of M27 used here were taken from the city of Oshawa, (population approx. 150 000). Certainly the brighter deep sky objects (like many of the Messier objects) can be more than adequately imaged from urban areas, something that makes getting in a night of imaging even easier!