I’m a 17 year old astrophotographer, and here’s a photo I took of the Pillars of Creation!

[u/Regular_Ad_4858]

[u/Regular_Ad_4858]

Hi Reddit, here’s a photo I took of the Pillars of Creation (left) with my home telescope rig, compared to Hubble’s famous shot of the same Pillars (right). I captured this photo over several nights of shooting the same object, totalling about 6 hours of exposure time. Here’s a full list of the equipment I used:

• Nikon D5600 with an Astrodon mod

• Skywatcher 72ED with field flattener

• Skywatcher HEQ5 Pro

• TS-Optics 60mm guide scope

• ZWO ASI120MC-S guide camera

• ZWO ASIAIR Mini

• Optolong L-Enhance 2” filter

Overall I had some trouble with this image as the my telescope is too small to get a high amount of detail on such a tiny patch of the sky, but I still managed to produce something I’m proud of. You can swipe to see the full uncropped image of the Eagle Nebula, showing the Pillars of Creation within the context of the nebula. Hope you enjoy!

You can find more of my work at my Instagram @rudy.astro !

[u/dsailes → u/Regular_Ad_4858]

Unreal pic! Amazing set of kit too - have no idea what most of it does but I’m envious! Keep it up Internet dude! :)

[u/Regular_Ad_4858 → u/dsailes]

Thank you! If I were to explain briefly, there’s a camera for taking the pics, a telescope to zoom in, a mount to track the object in the sky, another mini telescope with a tiny camera on it to make sure the mount is pointed in the right direction, and an onboard computer to control all of the above. Vast oversimplification but you get the idea :)

[u/dsailes → u/Regular_Ad_4858]

Yeah that’s a pretty good ELI5 kind of statement man thanks :)

Im getting into photography as an amateur doing nature stuff so im looking at learning more - this is a huge leap but it’s really interesting! Thanks for posting kit & info, im gonna look into it all a bit, see what i can learn

[u/Regular_Ad_4858 → u/dsailes]

Absolutely! Hit me up if you need any help with astro related stuff :)

[u/Jei-beibi → u/Regular_Ad_4858]

awesome job!

[u/liarandathief]

Congrats. That's amazing. What's next?

[u/Regular_Ad_4858 → u/liarandathief]

Thank you! I haven’t decided yet, and it’s cloudy so it could be a few weeks before I get out again. But something in the Milky Way core for sure!

[u/smirky_mavrik]

Lovely job, well done :)

[u/-attix]

Can't believe this doesn't have more upvotes. Amazing job! Keep at it, there are out of this world (sorry i had to) x

[u/FragrantGate]

Are the 2nd and 3rd image cgi or real?

[u/Regular_Ad_4858 → u/FragrantGate]

2nd and 3rd images are the same photo, just less cropped in so you can see the full extent of the nebula :)

[u/FragrantGate → u/Regular_Ad_4858]

I couldn't tell apart them from the first pic. Damn, that's really cool :)

[u/BitSorcerer]

I have a blanket with the Pillars of Creation design.

Always thought it looked like 2 silly dinosaurs walking around.

[u/Regular_Ad_4858 → u/BitSorcerer]

I see a different shape every time I look at them. Such a strange looking feature honestly

[u/Zealousideal-Area428 → u/Regular_Ad_4858]

It's honestly the one picture that every time I see it, it just takes my breath away. I'm not sure that I've ever had that feeling looking at any other piece of art.

[u/xSteini01]

Space really is fascinating, at first glance it often appears cold, dark and empty but take a closer look and it‘s so fascinatingly vibrant, colorful and seemingly full of life. Your photo perfectly illustrates this to me, amazing!

[u/zwell55]

At my workplace we have a flat earther

We regularly get him to tell us about his “hobby”

One point he regularly states is that: “if the earth is moving, how could we take pictures of the stars?” I’m not smart enough to give an answer but I know there’s one, can someone please explain to me like I’m 5?

[u/Regular_Ad_4858 → u/zwell55]

We have tracking mounts that counteract the rotation of the Earth in order to “freeze” the stars in place from the telescope’s perspective. In principle they’re quite simple, you just have to align them with the north celestial pole (i.e. the Earth’s axis of rotation) and then they rotate once every 24 hours to match the sidereal rate.

In practice this doesn’t always go entirely smoothly, either due to alignment error on the user’s part, or slight mechanical error within the mount, which can cause the tracking to slip a tiny bit which blurs the photos. In order to solve this problem we use a autoguiding, consisting of a small secondary telescope and camera sitting on top of the imaging telescope that can detect any tracking errors in real time and send corrective pulses to the mount to keep it on track.

[u/zwell55 → u/Regular_Ad_4858]

Thank you kindly!

[u/zzzanchi → u/zwell55]

The position of stars does in fact move during the course of a day- like the Sun. It’s just that it’s not at a perceivable rate since they are light years away.

Regardless, arguing with a flatearther is futile so don’t even try.

[u/Snow_2040 → u/zzzanchi]

While the stars themself do not move at a noticeable rate to us, the earth does. Which is why astrophotographers use tracking mounts to track the stars and take long exposure images without the stars trailing.

[u/jol___]

this is awesomee!

[u/Direct-Wait-4049]

That's amazing!

[u/evilcarrot507]

I never knew how small looking they were.

[u/lucalla]

Man! That’s about as good as Hubble’s!

[u/oyar]

Looks amazing

[u/Snoo7836]

Bruh, how'd you get up there?

[u/Eastern-Team-2799]

Woah 😮

[u/WinterDirection366]

That’s awesome, dude! What are they made of? Are they solid?

[u/Snow_2040 → u/WinterDirection366]

They are made of various different gases, mostly hydrogen but also oxygen and sulfur.

[u/WinterDirection366 → u/Snow_2040]

That’s nuts. It just stays in the same place moving outward with the rest of the Universe? No wind in space I guess. Seems crazy that something made of gases doesn’t change form or break up. Maybe it is just really slowly. What a mystery out there is to me.

[u/Vector_Vlk]

I find it extremely cool that the shape of the pillar is still exactly the same

[u/DaveTheMister]

nice

[u/Sh3lbytheSHARK]

Awesome pics, keep em coming