Recently, I have been writing an essay contemplating why we love astronomy.
While I was writing the essay, it seemed to me so counterintuitive that we spend whole nights without sleep, all for meditation or spectacular images. Astronomy night shifts are carcinogenic, yet we continue indefatigably in working such shifts. But why? Why do we risk our health for this hobby?
Answer: There is not a single hobby that is as unusual, as different as is astronomy. No hobby other than astronomy causes people to spend every cent in their bank account for ultra-high-tech cameras with highly-technical software and almost unheard-of attributes (I'd imagine that few of us knew well depth, quantum efficiency, or read noise before we got into astrophotography). It is that astronomy is different, not that it is incredible or beautiful, such that it propels us into this remarkable passion.
The Milwaukee Astronomical Society Observatory recently purchased a new ZWO ASI6200MM for the scope we call "G-scope." The image above was taken on the night after Thanksgiving using a C14 EdgeHD, 3nm Ha Chroma filter, .7x reducer, and, of course, the ZWO ASI6200MM. This picture is the first "final incomplete image" ever taken with this camera (the image is not a final one, but it is the first stacked and edited image to come out of the camera); and, compared to our old SBIG STT-8300M, I am absolutely impressed- 15.5 MP even with 2x2 binning, 15-minute exposures, and perhaps the most incredible monochrome image I have ever seen come from that scope.
@Tamas Kriska and I have been working on the two imaging telescopes at the observatory since we bought the new cameras, and I am sure that we were both most impressed by the images the 6200 took. We have some corner issues, but I found those issues to be minimal and restricted to the very edges of the image, so cropping was not a big issue. We are working on this object and also Melotte 15 in the heart of the Heart Nebula.
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