Astrophotography - CCD Imaging

Located in southern Portugal, I am lucky to have frequent clear night skies and relatively little light pollution. I started CCD Imaging in March 2003 when I acquired a second-hand Starlight Express MX5-C camera.

• I have also been experimenting with a Toucam-Pro webcam and more recently a SPC900NC webcam. I am quite surprised how well these little 'low tech' cameras perform. Various examples are included in the gallery, and on the right here is an example of Mars using the Toucam.

I subsequently obtained a Meade DSI. There are a lot of comments about this camera on the 'web' my comments are here and my first reasonable images are included in the gallery.

It has taken me some time to gain experience to the stage where I am reasonably happy with my images. There is a lot to learn both in terms of setting up the equipment, taking the exposures and processing the results.

CCD-Imaging Tutorial

I have tried to summarise my experiences with CCD photography as a tutorial. The notes cover a basic description of how a CCD camera works, how to set up the camera and telescope, and how to process the images to get a satisfying result. I hope some of this may be of use to others.

CCD-Imaging Gallery 

The gallery contains some examples of the images I have obtained.  I have included some of the earlier (poor) examples as well as some of the more recent ones - I hope this demonstrates some improvement!

CCD-Imaging Equipment

Finally, here is a summary of the equipment currently in use.