On my latest
astronomy trip to the Sahara in Southern Morocco, I met with many
enthusiast people in astronomy. I had a blast doing many activities
related to astronomy as Meteorite hunting, astrophotographying the
night sky and learning much of astronomy in general at this fabulous
hotel/observatory called Sahara Sky. 10 days of meteorite hunting,
astronomy learning and stargazing in the Sahara was incredible and
just unforgettable. Please join me in a series of posts on my journey
through the Sahara in Southern Morocco and one of the most dark skies
places I have ever seen.
 |
| The Rosette Nebula Credit: S. Lamoureux/KTY Toutatis. |
One of the main
reasons I went to the Sahara in Southern Morocco was to visit the
Sahara Sky Observatory. This establishment, owned by a German
passionate astronomer Fritz Koring, is the best place for stargazing
and astrophotographying the night sky. With it's roof terrace, 4
piers Go to mounts (high quality mounts I should add) and exceptional
telescopes. Astrophotography is a marvel.
The quality of night
sky you find there is the best I have ever seen. You can see so much
low magnitude stars, that the constellations are hard to identify
(for those who get my drift).
 |
| The Horse head Nebula with the flame Nebula Credit: S. Lamoureux/ KTY Toutatis. |
I brought with me
only my camera (Canon 550D) and some random gear like T-ring and tube
extenders. The rest was all provided by Sahara Sky Observatory. I
choose a telescope and a mount of my choice (many to choose from) and
here we went with shooting the stars.
My main goal was for
this session to shoot Nebulas. I went for the Horse Head Nebula, The
North America Nebula, the California Nebula and the Rosetta Nebula.
The reason I wanted to shoot these four Nebulas was to change my
already existing 4 wall frames that I have at my apartment. 100 cm
x 70 cm frames with my new photos look sharp in my living room. That
was the challenge!
I brought with me
also 3 clip on (EOS clip on filters) filters that I wanted to use for
the final pictures. I purchased them just before my departure. The
OIII Ionised Oxygen filter narrow band, the SII sulfur narrow band and
the A-Alpha narrow band. These filters permitted me to do false
colored map images of the Nebulas and get a picture just the way I
wanted them to be.
 |
| The North America Nebula Credit: S. Lamoureux/ KTY Toutatis. |
The first days we
were alone at the hotel/observatory Sahara Sky, I could use whatever
telescope and mount I wanted, so i did. I shot Nebulas and dark
frames and light frames and the whole chabang! 3 days later came an
amateur astronomer from Czech Republic and we had a struggle for time
on the different telescopes. With a lot of respect and diplomacy we
decided to work together and share the telescopes. At the end we
shared all the photos we took together and proposed to see later how
they would be on my side after the post processing and compare them
with his side after post processing. We laughed and thought how they
would be different and how all pictures are only an individual
artistic point of view of an object, in this case the Nebulas we were
shooting.
We took the pictures
in a session that lasted 10 days, on this period I had collected over
40 minutes of data from each Nebula, this gave me plenty of data to
extract a good image and transform it into a great picture in my
living room.
 |
| The California Nebula Credit: S. Lamoureux/ KTY Toutatis. |
This
astrophotography session was planned like my meteorite hunt was (See
meteorite article HERE) a month before my departure to the Sahara in
Southern Morocco. I had my living room wall (the other wall, not the
one with my frames) covered with notes of filters, techniques of
shooting, target that I wanted to shoot and information
that would help me to do so. I have to admit, this preparation helped
me.
This session was
possible with the combination of 3 elements. Number one: The
excellent place and atmospheric condition of the Sahara Sky
hotel/observatory. Number two: The high standard equipment of Sahara
Sky observatory and the guiding of it's own astronomer resident
Patrick. Number three: The cooperation between me and the Czech guy
that gave us those nice pictures.
Please continue
reading the next post of my Astronomy trip in the Sahara, Southern
Morocco HERE. Follow the complete travel post series and enjoy the
astronomy behind it. This is all part of
the public outreach of Astronomy Club Toutatis, Kustavi, Finland.
Links:
No comments:
Post a Comment