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THEAPPRENTICE

CHRIS’S TOP THREE ASTRO IMAGES

Chris heads to infinity and beyond with these choice picks from his portfolio

ELEPHANT TRUNK NEBULA

THE Elephant Trunk Nebula is a

part of a large Nebula region in the

Constellation of Cepheus. I used two

bandwidth filters to capture light solely

from hydrogen and oxygen and had an

exposure time of around four hours.

HALF MOON

THE 50% illuminated moon, an object

we all think we are familiar with and

have spent our entire lives watching in

the night sky. But the familiar object

hides craters, valleys and mountain

ranges revealed here by my telescope.

ROSETTE NEBULA

THIS is a six hour exposure of the

Rosette Nebula. It’s a large Emissions

Nebula in the winter Constellation of

Monoceros, which surrounds a central

cluster of hot stars. These push the gas

away leaving heavy dust behind.

TOP GEAR #

William Optic ZenithStar ZS61 telescope

CHRIS USES

this telescope

with a T-mount

adapter, so he

can fit one of

his Canon

bodies onto

the eyepiece

end of the

scope to take photos. It has a 35mm equivalent

focal of 360mm and a fixed aperture of f/5.9 and

is only manual focus only. Compared to many

telephotos it’s lighter, weighing 1.45kg, which is

ideal as there is a maximum weight limit to the

equatorial tripod heads. This is what Chris uses to

take shots of distant stars, galaxies and nebulae.

HOT

SHOT

Lens Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM

Exposure 90 secs, f/6.3, ISO1600 (15 pictures stacked)

CHRIS’S COMMENT

Orion the hunter is one of the

best-known constellations, most

famous for the three bright stars in a row that

make up Orion’s belt. For astrophotographer’s

it’s a beautiful area of night sky, including the

Horsehead Nebula, Flame Nebula and fainter Barnard’s Loop.

But the Orion Nebula was the best choice here, as it’s large and

bright, so it’s easy to shoot with a camera and a long zoom at

600mm. We used the brand-new Canon EOS Ra for this shot as

it’s more sensitive to the nebulas gases, and on my equatorial

mount we were able to take exposures 90 secs long.