Astrophotography by Jeff Ball

Rho Ophiuchus and Antares Nebulae Complex

A black and white interpretation was selected to best present the contrast variation in this part of the Milky Way. 
Exposure information is below text.

Early this year a gentle voice was calling me...calling me to the night sky again.  I couldn't believe it, but it had been nearly 4 years since my last astrophotograph was taken in December of 2003.  The past four years have been spent in an intensive educational process involving of all things-photography.  To be specific I have been studying with noted landscape photographer Alain Briot since March of 2004 and continue my studies with him and other distinguished landscape photographers today.  But it was astrophotography that introduced me to the art form and it was tugging hard at my heart to to attempt to capture the beauty of the night sky again.  After reviewing the state of astrophotography in the year 2007, the tool of choice was the modified Canon 350D with various lenses from 200mm to 24mm. 

There were 4 main criteria for me to re-enter astrophotography: 

1.  I must be able to capture quality data to produce a quality print with one night's worth of imaging,

2. I do not want to use a computer in the field,

3. I do not want to use a guide-scope/auto-guider, and

4. Compositions must either be unique or interpreted in a different and meaningful way. 
    

The wonderful DSLR work of Chuck Vaughn provided the inspiration.  I began reviewing his data and started to compute that quality work may be possible with fast optics and a quality mount with Periodic Error correction enabled.  Now some of Mr. Vaughn's work has exposures over 15 hours, but I felt that at f2.8 or even f4 and ISO 800 I could get enough data with one night's worth of imaging to get a quality output. 

The Rho Ophiuchus Nebula Complex is a very challenging object to image, but it is one of the most delightfully colorful and dramatic areas of our Milky Way.  (For a look at some previous work, albeit not a very dedicated enhancement effort on my part, here is a look at a 300mm Pentax 6x7 capture from New Mexico Skies in May of 2003.  For a better image with the AP Traveler taken at the same time please look here.)  I have always envisioned the composition above and chose this as my test exposure for the new gear.  Data acquisition went well with only a very minor mis-focus that affected the edges of the field of view.  Focusing is very tricky at f3.5 and I needed one more iteration and a micro-turn to get focus nailed across the entire field of view. 

Original Raw Image from in-camera .jpg	Images Plus Adaptive Add Images where 35 images are added to increase signal to noise

The real challenge was working with astronomical data again.  It had been nearly 4 years and there is no data like astronomical data for processing.  So several hours were spent familiarizing myself with Images Plus calibration techniques (with aid from Chuck Vaughn's article on "Going Deep with DSLR" in the November 2006  issue of Sky and Telescope and Jerry Lodriguss' "Guide to Astrophotography with a DSLR".)  So after several hours and nearly giving up on the data, I began to recall the days of working with the ST10XME data and all of a sudden things began to click.  So this is my first output from the Canon 350D.  I am envisioning many compositions with this camera and various Canon lenses.  I do believe that each data set requires different interpretation from the imager and so there is no effort on my part to make this image look like one of my other images or like anyone else's.  I let the data speak for itself and see if it will go where my original vision had hoped.  I look forward to more nights with the stars and I hope you get the opportunity to share a wonderful dark sky with others you love as well.  Take care. 

For a print of this image, please go to www.earthandskyphoto.com where prints will soon be available. 

1. Lens	f	Mount	Camera	Exposure	Digital info	Location	Date
   Canon 135mm f2L	f3.5	Losmandy G11 (unguided with PE correction on)	Canon 350D Hap Griffin Modified	35x4 minutes for 2.3 total hours at ISO 800	Images calibrated with Images Plus and enhanced with Photoshop CS3, Photomatix, Lightzone, and  Noise Ninja	Rob Adkins Astronomy Village, East Lynn, WV	May 18, 2007