astro imaging

Astrophotography with a Twist

Two of todays leading astrophotographers exploit a classical optical system and cutting-edge image processing to
produce stunning results.

By Tony and Daphne Hallas

he Newtonian telescope
dates back to the 17th century.
Isaac Newton developed the
design in the 1670s while
searching for ways to avoid the problems
of chromatic aberration that plagued
early refractors. This optical defect produced a colored halo around bright stars
and resulted from the inability of a simple
lens to focus all wavelengths of light into
a single point. Newton realized, however,
that a concave mirror could bring all colors of light to a common focus.
While todays meticulously designed
and crafted refractors are a far cry from

As explained in the text, several modifications were made to the authors Lumicon offaxis guider including the ability to pipe nitrogen gas into a chamber ahead of the film in
order to keep the hypered emulsion dry and
flat during long exposures. The fixture at
right prevents the nitrogen line and cable for
the SBIG ST- 4 autoguider from tugging on
the camera.

the systems Newton was trying to improve upon, its also true that todays reflectors are unlike anything Newton envisioned. Modern, low-expansion glass
mirrors with dielectric coatings can reflect more than 96 percent of the light
falling on them. Astrophotographers
searching for an economical design capable of producing excellent images should
consider a Newtonian reflector.
Many of todays Newtonians use a
variant of the altazimuth mounting popularized during the past quarter century
by California telescope maker John Dobson. Because the so-called Dobsonian
design has limited potential for long-exposure astrophotography, the Newtonians that interest us have classic Germanequatorial mountings. Such instruments
were at the forefront of telescopes sold in

the 1950s and 60s by companies like

Cave Optical and Optical Craftsmen.
They had fiberglass tubes and typically
ranged from 6- to 1212-inch aperture
with focal ratios between f/5 and f/8.
The telescope we are currently using
most for astrophotography is a 1212-inch
f/7 Newtonian. Any focal ratio shorter
than this produces more coma than we
feel is acceptable at the outer edges of a
35-millimeter-film format. This instrument has a 2,220-mm focal length,
which offers an image scale of about 93
arcseconds per millimeter and a 56-by37-arcminute field on a 35-mm frame.
(As an aside, with a binocular viewer and
high-quality eyepieces, the telescope delivers the finest detail we have seen on
the Moon and planets.)
For all of its advantages, this magnificent instrument has one major drawback
its big! Despite its heavy-duty Schaefer German-equatorial mounting, anything stronger than a light breeze makes
an astrophotography session history. Part

Authors Daphne and Tony Hallas pose with their 12 12 - inch f/7 Newtonian reflector used for
many of the pictures with this article. Although Daphne still shoots with her 4-inch AstroPhysics Traveler refractor, Tony writes,weve started working again with the big reflector and
its generous image scale, after spending about six years using shorter-focal-length refractors.
All illustrations with this article are by the authors.
Opposite page: The Hallases use digital processing to extract information locked away in their old
photographs. Multiple negatives of both long and short exposures made with an Astro-Physics 7inch f/7 refractor were combined for this view of the Great Orion Nebula. It shows details in the
bright Trapezium region as well as the nebulas outer halo. North is up in this 114-wide view.
130

November 1998 Sky & Telescope

1998 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

1998 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

Sky & Telescope November 1998

131

Above: While the Lagoon Nebula, M8, in Sagittarius is a big attraction for observers and photographers alike, the faint patches of nebulosity east (left) of the Lagoon are far more challenging. This scene was captured with multiple exposures made
with a 7-inch f/7 refractor. North is up and the field 212 wide.
Right: The advantages of digital processing are easily seen in
these views of the Cocoon Nebula, IC 5146, in Cygnus. The
negative (left) from a single 45-minute exposure with a 14inch Celestron Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope produces a relatively flat print (middle). Combining two such negatives with
Picture Window and further processing the result with Photoshop produced the dramatic view at right. North is up, the
field 22' wide.
132

November 1998 Sky & Telescope

1998 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

Advertisement

1998 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

Sky & Telescope November 1998

133

astro imaging
of the reason our reflector is so big is
that we use a oversize, 16-inch-diameter
tube, which allows plenty of room
around the mirror for ventilation and
also reduces tube currents that could
otherwise degrade images. The tube is
nearly 8 feet long with the dew shield installed. This shield prevents dew from
forming on the secondary mirror and
also blocks unwanted light from reaching
the cameras focal plane. It is especially
important for Newtonians that have the
focuser close to the open end of the tube
and something that many astrophotographers overlook.
We have also made some modifications to our equipment. For example, we
use an off-axis guider manufactured by
Lumicon. Originally this device had a lot
of tiny thumbscrews that had to be tightened to lock its adjustable components
in place. A few nights of twisting these
screws in the cold could make your finger raw, so we replaced most of them
with standard Allen-head screws. Now a
light twist with a hex wrench is all it
takes to secure everything.
Focus is always a critical issue for
high-resolution photography. We use a
custom knife-edge device. It has the
Above: The Whirlpool Galaxy in Canes Venatici is one of the heavens most popular targets
for astrophotographers. Picture Window is
particularly good for aligning and combining
digital scans of astronomical images that
have different framing on the original negatives. These three views of the galaxy were
shot on two nights with the Celestron 14inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope. The three
were combined to produce the large image.
The faint halo of material surrounding the
companion galaxy is rarely recorded in amateur photographs. North is up and the field
12' wide.
Right: The glowing cloud of hydrogen surrounding the unusual variable star AE Aurigae (right of center) is popularly known as
the Flaming Star Nebula. This view is from
three negatives obtained with the 1212 -inch
reflector. West is up and the field 40' wide.
134

November 1998 Sky & Telescope

1998 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

same bayonet mount as our camera

body, and the knife edge is exactly the
same distance from the front of the
mount as the film is from the front of
our camera body. This focusing system
has all metal-to-metal contacts, which
ensure accuracy. We find it vastly superior to focusing devices that fasten to the
off-axis guider with setscrews; varying
the tension on the screws can change the
devices position by a few thousandths of
an inch, which is all it takes at f/7 to
mess up an exposure.
Most of our deep-sky photography is
done with gas-hypersensitized film. Moisture absorbed by the film during an exposure reduces the emulsions sensitivity
to low light and can cause the film to
buckle and shift with disastrous results.
To prevent this from happening, we
placed a window made from an ultraviolet filter at the front end of the off-axis
guider. This created a small chamber in
front of the film, which is filled with nitrogen gas during the exposure. Rather
than trying to make the chamber airtight, we simply pipe a low-volume flow
of gas into the chamber throughout the
exposure.
Under ideal conditions we make three
exposures of our celestial targets. Each
lasts from 45 to 60 minutes on hypered
Kodak Pro 400 PPF color-negative film.
For about a decade we have been using a
negative-stacking technique that we described in this magazines August 1989
issue, page 216. Stacking negatives increases the contrast and color saturation
of the photographs while at the same
time reducing the apparent grain. Nevertheless, it was a tedious process in the
darkroom. Today, however, it is far easier
to do the combining process digitally.
Working with computers also gives us
advantages that were not available in the
darkroom, such as an easy way to combine more than two negatives.
The software program we use to combine negatives is Picture Window, developed by Digital Light & Color in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was brought to
our attention by Vince Farnsworth, a
member of the Rat Pack that frequently observes and photographs together at
Mount Pinos northwest of Los Angeles.
Picture Windows forte is its ability to
easily combine astronomical images. Up
to four points (usually stars) can be
marked in each picture, and the program
will automatically rotate and scale the
images to match. It is now easy to com-

Skyline

617-497-4168
The worlds most popular astronomy
telephone hotline.
Updated every
Friday afternoon. From the
editors of Sky & Telescope.

Advertisement

1998 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

Sky & Telescope November 1998

135

astro imaging

The advantages of combining multiple negatives is readily apparent in this enlargement

of the Cone Nebula seen in the wide-field
view opposite. The image at left is from the
digital scan of a single negative, while that at
right is the result of three exposures being
combined with Picture Window using the authors method.

bine exposures made on different nights

that do not have the same camera orientation or subject framing.
After a night under the stars the first
step is to get good digital scans of our
negatives. Its a challenge to get all the information out of the images and into the
computer. After experimenting with several low-cost scanners we found one that
came out head and shoulders above the
rest for our purposes the Polaroid
Sprintscan 35 Plus. This scanner is fast,
and it comes with excellent software that
allows adjusting the contrast, color saturation, and color balance before making
the final scan. This is very important,
since a great deal of the enhancement
process can be accomplished by adjusting the preview image and thus getting
the maximum amount of useful information into the digital file. The scanner
can digitize a 35-mm negative with an
optical resolution of 2,700 dots per inch.
Once we have good scans we run the
files through Picture Window and blend
the two or three files into one. The resulting image has a much improved signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio and shows detail
that might otherwise be lost in any one
of the individual files. We cant overemphasize how important this step is in
producing quality results. Its no longer a
secret that digital processing can extract
a tremendous amount of information
from an astronomical exposure. But using a computer to enhance detail also exaggerates unwanted noise in a negative
at the same time. For example, pushing
the enhancement process too far on a
single exposure results in a picture that
has a grain that looks like coarse-grit
sandpaper!
Combining multiple exposures dramatically reduces the grain by increasing
the S/N ratio. This happens because real
136

November 1998 Sky & Telescope

detail (the signal) appears in each negative and is amplified by the combining
process, while noise (in the form of
emulsion grain) is random and is av-

eraged out. The combined images, with

their better S/N ratio, can be digitally enhanced without the grain becoming objectionable. Furthermore, when combining
images we can increase the information
contained in the so-called shadow or
faint areas of the exposure by applying a
subtractive filter during the process. This
and other manipulations fall under more
advanced use of the software. We are
constantly experimenting with new tech-

A Picture Window View

uthors Tony and Daphne Hallas stress the value of combining two or more
negatives to increase the signal-to-noise ratio of their photographs. This
method of beating down noise in photographs has been around for
decades, but only recently has it been commonly used in the amateur community.
I strongly suspect that the technique will become even more popular now that the
work can be done easily with Picture Window.
Created by Digital Light & Color (P.O. Box 382908, Cambridge, MA 02238; phone
617-489 -8858; http://www.dl-c.com/), Picture Window has been called the poor
mans Photoshop. But call it what you like, at $39.95 it has to be one of the best
bargains available for todays astrophotographers dabbling in the digital darkroom.
Its a 32-bit program that runs only under
Windows 95 or
By Dennis di Cicco Windows NT 4.0
and is supplied on a CD-ROM. It can be ordered on the telephone by calling 800 -2431515 and asking for extension 800.
As the Hallases explain in the accompanying text, the software has an extremely
easy-to-use feature that blends two digital files. Indeed, less than 10 minutes after
installing the software on my computer I had figured out how to use the composite command to blend images (the program includes extensive online help and
the CD-ROM contains a printable manual). Nevertheless, there are several variables
that must be set before images are combined. These settings are made in the dialog box that pops up when you invoke the composite command.
According to Daphne Hallas, the method she and Tony use requires setting the
overlay amount of the first image at 100 percent, while the value for the second
image is set at 50 percent. Additional exposures can be added by taking the result
from one merge and treating it as the first image in the step above and setting the
overlay amount of the third exposure at 33 percent, a fourth exposure at 25 percent, and so on. While the process is not an equal-weight blending of all exposures, the Hallas results certainly speak for the effectiveness of the process.
Although Picture Window does not have all the features of a program like Photoshop, it does include many of interest to astrophotographers. If I had to offer a
one -sentence summary of the program after using it for several hours, it would
simply be,Try it, youll like it!

1998 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

A spectacular mix of red emission and blue

reflection nebulosity pervades the arrowshaped star cluster NGC 2264 in Monoceros,
commonly known as Leland Copelands
Christmas Tree Cluster. It has bright S Monocerotis (top) at its base and the Cone Nebula at the trees peak. The authors digitally
combined three negatives to create this view.
North is up and the field 12 wide.

Advertisement

niques available in the age of the digital

darkroom.
For the final step in our enhancement
process we use Adobe Photoshop 4.0. This
software allows us to remove imperfections such as dust specks and scratches
and even trails left by airplanes and satellites. We can also remove vignetting to
produce a uniform sky background across
the image. Final adjustments of the color
balance and saturation as well as the
image contrast are also accomplished with
Photoshop.
A combination of the classic Newtonian reflector, with its simple design, and
the digital-processing tools available today heralds a new era for celestial photographers. To paraphrase the American
humorist Mark Twain, the rumors of
film-based astrophotographys death have
been greatly exaggerated!
Members of the Mount Pinos Rat Pack since
the mid-1980s, Tony and Daphne Hallas
are Sky & Telescope contributing photographers. In 1992 they created Astro Photo, a specialized photo lab that caters to the needs of
astrophotographers. Details are available on
the Web at www.astrophoto.com/.
1998 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

Sky & Telescope November 1998

137