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Astrophotography on new telescopes

Mar 4, 2013

Here are three images  put together by BJ Fulton from the data from 2 March, 2013 on our newly installed 1-meter telescopes at Sutherland, South Africa. BJ decided that in order to keep the integrity of a "first-light" image, he would not touch-up the images in any way.

These images were created using only command-line tools that work directly on the raw pixel data (Python, Stiff and ImageMagick).  BJ has done an excellent job of producing beautiful first-light images which do not have flat-fields, darks or biases subtracted. He has combined multiple wavelengths and coloured the layers appropriately (e.g. Bessell V filter will capture green light). Click on the the names of each object for more information.

These are a testament to his skills as an astrophotographer and the quality of the newly installed telescopes that they are of such high quality. I am looking forward to seeing more from these telescopes.

M104

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M83

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Trumpler 14

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