Photo Gallery

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 






Mike's impressive Skywatcher
250px 10" reflector.
Mount:
Conrad/Rajiva Modded
skywatcher EQ6 (Not skyscan)

Mike Deegan - Reaching For The Stars

Mike Deegan is an extraordinary astro-photographer and a member of the Swindon Stargazers Club on the Stargazers Lounge.

The administrator was therefore over the 'Moon' (get it, oh never mind) when Mike very kindy agreed for us to use some of his images in order to demonstrate to members how they could show off their own images on this website.

Mike Deegan has always had a casual interest in astronomy, casual until he bought a cheap 3.5 " reflector from the supermarket.

At that time he just looked at the Moon, planets and pointed it at the sky in general. But what he saw through that cheap scope, craters on the moon and the rings of Saturn, gave him the thirst for more.

So he decided to buy a Skywatcher 130M (4.5") reflector with a powered R.A equatorial mount and had a great time looking at the moon and planets. Then he had the idea of putting his point and shoot digital camera up to the eyepiece and taking a shot of the moon.

From there it has been a slow but steady progression from webcam imaging (Toucam pro 2), a webcam based SAC8-2, bigger scope(Skywatcher 10" reflector) and to where I am now imaging with a Starlight express HX916 CCD.


Mike, and below his award
winning image featured in the
May 2009 edition of 'The Sky
At Night',
click on the image
see the larger picture:


Jupiter

Saturn

M101

M42
The Orion Nebula

M16

NGC7023

NGC4565

M51
Planetary Studies
Click on the illustrations to see the larger picture
You can see more of Mike's work at: Mike's Astroimaging
BACKGROUND IMAGE: THE MOON

This image was taken on the 17 DEC 2005 and is a 170 frame moon mosaic. Best 24 frames from each of the 170 300 frame AVI's stacked in registax 3 and put together with Imearge. Taken using an extended 2x Barlow and the toucam through my Sky watcher 250px.