Astrophotography Updates

This page is preserved here as part of the RASC's Digital Archives. Some information may be out of date.

RT Astrophotography Team Updates

Past Monthly Updates 

February 2022

Featured Photo:

Rho Ophiuchi (DSLR Image)

Processed by Stephen Holmes

Data from: RASC Robotic Telescope

The telescope and cameras have been working hard in the last couple of months for us, taking beautiful images of the night sky. Our scope has an SBIG STX16803 CCD chip which takes 4098x4098 px images. We have 7 filters for the CCD - luminance, red, blue, green, Ha, SIII, and OII. We use the CCD camera to do our deep-sky imaging. We also have a Hutech-modified Canon 6D DSLR piggy-backed onto our scope - so it points wherever our telescope does. The DSLR takes our widefield images. 

This equipment has gone to good use. Our cameras have captured galaxies, star clusters, emission/reflection/dark nebulae, novae, supernovae, comets, asteroids and more!

For the number-oriented people we have an estimated (on the lower end):

  • 65 CCD image packages completed (25 narrowband, and 40 broadband) - approximately 840 hours of image data
  • > 85 DSLR image packages (various wide fields, comets, lunar eclipse, Saturn-Jupiter Conjunction sequence in December 2020)
  • 30 CCD & DSLR image packages in our 2019/2020 Robotic Telescope Dataset
  • 35 CDD & DSLR image packages in our 2021 Robotic Telescope Dataset
    • BOTH Datasets are available for purchase in the links above!

Our photo team still has more data coming as well! We have 7 more targets that are being added to the 2021 dataset including the Horsehead Nebula, Angel Nebula, Comet Leonard (from December 2021), Pacman Nebula, part of the Soul Nebula, more of the Flaming Star Nebula and the emission nebula in Cygnus (Sh2-115).

The photo team is currently in the process of imaging and preparing an image package for Thor’s Helmet (NGC 2359). This data will be included in our 2022 dataset.

The RASC Robotic Telescope Astrophotography Team has also been providing all the data for the four (and counting) SkyNews image-editing contests. Including calibrating each dataset for the three different levels of difficulties. Allendria, editor-in-chief of SkyNews, has noted the INCREDIBLE BOON these datasets have been to SkyNews and the Astro-image editing community. People from across Canada have been processing data taken by the RASC Robotic Telescope. 

Want to try Astro-imaging but do not know where to start? SkyNews provides these datasets for free as well as a free 8-part online series on how to edit the data. You can also submit your processed Astro-images to SkyNews’ Monthly Astro-image Editing Contest for a chance to win a SkyNews prize pack and access to the 2021 Robotic Telescope Dataset. 

The Astrophotography Team is now starting to plan out their 2022 target list to be included in the 2022 Astrophotography Dataset which will be released in Fall 2022. Find target lists for 2019/2020 here and 2021 here. If you have any suggestions please email telescope+targets@rasc.ca. 

Credit: Pinwheel Galaxy (M101) processed by Jonathan Hickle

Data from 2021 RASC Robotic Telescope Dataset (CCD)