Yet another Milky Way picture..

Milky Way view in the Aquila constellation.

Canon EOS 1100D on a tripod with Vixen Polarie for tracking. 18 mm focal length, f/5.0, ISO 1600, 4 min exposure. Elaborated with Gimp.

North America Nebula

This is a wide field picture of the Cignus area captured on 26th of July in Noto (Sicily). The North America Nebula is clearly visible near to Deneb.

North America Nebula - 26/07/2013

Canon EOS 1100D on a tripod with Vixen Polarie astro-tracker.  55mm lens, f/5.6, ISO 800, 5x2min shots stacked with DSS. Elaboration with Gimp.

Moon at the seaside

Canon EOS 1100D, f/5.6, ISO 800, macro 300mm, expo 1/100 sec

Vignetting reduction

Finally I have understood how to manage the problem of vignetting. In GIMP select Filters --> Distorsion --> Lens distorsion then move the cursors "main" and "edge" away from zero and find the right level of "brighten" in the preview mask.
This is the result obtained with my old M81 picture...

Wide field

Twenty minutes total exposure of the M51 area (the galaxy is visible in the middle). Wide field taken with the 55 mm standard objective.

Whirlpool galay - M51

40 frames of 30 secs each with Canon EOS 1100D and standard 55mm lens (ISO 800 f/5.6). Tracking with Vixen Polarie.

Andromeda

Yesterday night I spent 6 hours (from 10pm to 4am) experimenting with my new astrotracker Vixen Polarie in Marina di Pietrasanta (Italy). I have attached my Canon EOS 1100D to it, using a simple travel tripod as a base. The result is a perfect tracking! I did 30 secs exposures with a 200mm macro-lens and no problem at all. I should have done longer exposures, probably even a couple of minutes...
Anyway this is the first product:

Andromeda Galaxy - M31

60 frames of 30 secs each with Canon EOS 1100D and macro 200mm (ISO 800 f/5.6). It's my first experiment with the astrotracker Vixen Polarie.

Vixen Polarie

That's my new gadget!