My Astrophotography

In addition to taking professional observations, I dabble in some amateur astrophotography. I've included a gallery of some of my processed and pre-process, combined images, and I hope to periodically add more images as I have time to shoot and process them. To see the object, exposure, and telescope details for each image, click the down arrow at the bottom of the image. Most of the images that I create are RGB combinations using broad- (e.g., Johnson-Cousins B, V, & R) and/or narrow-band (e.g., Hα, OIII, & SII) filters on the telescopes from the SKYNET robotic telescope network; however, I am looking to expand into buying a small, portable telescope and some standard filters to start shooting more images. I've used a few different softwares as well as Python code to process the images, but I’m always open to any suggestions, which can be sent to me under the Contact section. I also have taught students in introductory astronomy classes how to make these images as well. Through courses at both UVa and HPU, they have access to SKYNET, so I held workshops to help them make some images on professional telescopes!

The header for this page is my first attempt at a time lapse of the Milky Way. I took 30 second exposures using a Canon Rebel T6i with ISO-3200 and ƒ4.2 for around two hours. The images were taken atop Cerro Tololo on the last night of an observing run I was on in Chile. The Sun rose towards the end of the exposure series, which likely led to the blue hue that covers the image at the end of the video.