News:

Some of our SAC-8 series images have been published in a book titled "Introduction to Webcam Astrophotography" by technical author Robert Reeves and sold by noted publisher Willman-Bell. Robert did a great job on the book but I won't elaborate here. Please check out the Willmann-Bell website and pay a visit to Robert's excellent site as well. 

Introduction:

Welcome to the deep space astrophotography pages of Tim Tasto and Becky Tasto. The images on these pages are largely of galaxies and nebulae (Messier and NGC objects) that are hundreds and even millions of light years distant. We obtained these images using a variety of telescopes and digital imaging devices (i.e. we do not use film). The images are grouped as such in the links provided. Our primary imaging site is our backyard or driveway at our home in central Minnesota. The light pollution is quite severe and growing worse but the use of digital imaging devices (CCD and DSLR) with computers allows us to obtain reasonable astroimages of deep space objects despite the heavy glow from the city and streetlights (see image of M42 above). This image of M42 (The Orion Nebula) was captured from our back-yard using a Meade 8-inch LXD55 SN with an unmodified Canon Digital Rebel XTi DSLR. The actual image is quite large at nearly 3800 pixels wide (way too big for this web page). The number of color images we have taken is still limited to only a few, but If you like color images, follow our link to the Canon Digital Rebel XTi page.

As noted on the web page of another astrophotographer, the pursuit of astroimaging (or astrophotography) is surprisingly difficult as it is both physically demanding and has a steep learning curve. But, despite the difficulty (or perhaps because of the difficulty) in obtaining these images, the rewards are great. If it were not difficult, it would not be worth doing.

Please scroll through the links provided to see a variety of astronomical images taken from our home using CCD (SBIG SAC) and CMOS (Canon Digital Rebel XTi) devices. The images largely include galaxies, nebula and star clusters. I have also included links for technical information and to web pages of other astroimagers.

Telescopes:

• Meade 10" LX200GPS (F/10) on Meade fork mount.
• Meade 8" Schmidt-Newtonian (F4.5) on Meade LXD55 mount.
• Orion 80 ED APO Refractor (F7.5). Now piggy-backed on 10" LX200GPS.
• Meade 50mm Guidescope.

Imaging Devices:

• Canon XTi Digital Rebel (Unmodified - still contains IR filter). For color shots. High aesthetics but limited scientific value.
• SAC-8 cooled CCD imaging device. Highly sensitive B&W device.
• SAC-7b cooled CCD imaging device. Medium sensitivity color device.
• SBIG ST-7e cooled CCD imaging device. Highly sensitive professional B&W device. Good shots and can be used for photometry. 

Guiding:

We typically do not autoguide, but have occasionally done so with the SBIG ST-7e device, which has a built-in autoguiding chip. Most  of our images are manually guided.

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Clear Sky Clock from St. Johns University:

Click on bar-image below for tonights projected seeing conditions:

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