In this video, I'm going to take a close-up picture of the pillars of creation.
Yeah, the picture that the Hubble space telescope made famous, that one.
But my telescope isn't in space it's just sitting right here in the backyard.
I may not have NASA's budget or education level for that matter, but I can hold my own.
So grab a cold one because your old pal Trevor's about to get real geeky about space again.
Seriously, is this my job?
the Pillars of Creation was an image created using the Hubble space telescope back in 1995.
It's one of the most iconic astronomical images of all time and you've definitely seen it before.
It features elephant trunks of eroded interstellar gas
that were shaped by intense radiation of massive nearby stars.
These finger-like columns of gas and dust are actually
inside of a very popular deep-sky target, the Eagle Nebula in the constellation Serpens.
This is a bright emission nebula and star-forming region that's about 7000 light-years away.
From my backyard here in Canada,
the Eagle Nebula and the Pillars of Creation will appear right about here in the south.
The telescope I'm using has a focal length of about a thousand millimeters.
So it'll really allow me to zoom in on those Pillars of Creation and get an up-close photo.
Believe it or not, even a small telescope will reveal the core of the Eagle.
It won't be as big, but you'll still be able
to see the Pillars of Creation in there. It's pretty amazing.
The first time I shot the Eagle Nebula was with a compact 80 millimeter refractor,
and I could see the pillars in there. It was so exciting.
If you're new to astrophotography you might not realize how light-polluted most of the world is.
It makes observing and photographing
even the brightest deep-sky objects like the Eagle Nebula challenge.
But thankfully, there is a solution. A good one.
Light pollution filters can help you capture better full-color images from the city,
but narrowband filters are where it really gets interesting.
Since the Eagle Nebula is emitting light primarily in hydrogen,
I can isolate those important details using a hydrogen-alpha filter or an h-a filter.
With a narrowband filter like that in place, my camera sensor can ignore almost all other sources
of light except for that very specific bandpass of hydrogen-alpha at the 656-nanometer range.
I'm using a new reducer lens that will actually decrease
the native magnification of the telescope.
But it will give it a magical boost in light-gathering power.
Now, I've already got a good base image of the eagle nebula that of course
includes the pillars of creation in my archives.
I've literally photographed the eagle nebula over 30 times in my lifetime.
Probably more, actually.
But tonight, I'm going to take the most important data yet.
Long, deep exposures of the core in hydrogen-alpha, those beautiful pillars.
I'll process my latest data captured tonight
and apply it to my original photo for the perfect pillar portrait
The camera continues to take sub-exposures on the Eagle Nebula and those beautiful pillars.
I went with 300-second exposures.
I said I would go longer but because I have that reducer in place,
I am actually gathering more light in a minute exposure.
So, I felt like that was the sweet spot.
The camera is a monochrome CCD, not a CMOS camera.
This is the starlight express SX-42, and this was a kit sent by Starlight Express two years ago now.
It's just been an amazing camera,
and I've just had so many other things on the go, I haven't used it a lot recently.
But the reason I'm using this setup tonight is because I have
another set up in the observatory, which is so close to being ready to go.
I just need to iron a few more things out but in there is that ASI2600MM Pro camera.
That's my observatory camera if you will
Well that's just...
reease the three screws...
remove the cover...
ethanol on our cotton bud?
okay isopropyl...12 bottles?
DSLR sensor cleaning kit.
Add a cart.
How am I gonna pay for all those stuff?
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Ash, am I productive?
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Thanks again to Skillshare for sponsoring this video.
Okay, let's look at the data I captured the other night on the Eagle Nebula in hydrogen-alpha.
This was taken with a six-nanometer Astronomik narrowband filter to be exact.
This is just under two hours' worth of five-minute exposures before the clouds returned.
Just look at this glorious data.
The structure of the nebula can be seen in that bright moonlit light-polluted sky.
It's really incredible.
You can see the Pillars of Creation here, and this is the
most impactful important data that I'm going to apply to my original color image.
Basically, I'll use this tasty h-alpha data to kind of clean up
my color channels as a luminance layer.
I'll do my best to mimic the Hubble palette look using this random mix of data I have.
If you notice the image scale, the pillars are really really small.
We're really zoomed-in here and this was taken with a thousand-millimeter telescope.
So that should give you an idea of what to expect if you're shooting with a shorter focal length.
The pillars are small!
The resolution really starts to dip as we get in
closer because of course we just keep zooming in and these pixels are getting larger.
At this point, I'd like to remind you that my telescope is six inches in aperture
and the Hubble space telescope is nearly eight feet.
Okay, it's time for the reveal.
Let me know if you think my image comes close or it's just an embarrassment...