Dick Locke's Astrophotography Gateway Page
Copyright © 1998-2021 by Dick Locke.  All Rights Reserved.  Contact and Image Use Information

Welcome to my Astrophotography web page.   This is my astronomy photo index page to help locate pictures of interest.  People often want to know about the  astronomy equipment used in these pictures.  For many years my primary imaging telescope has been a Takahashi TOA 130 Telescope (a 5" APO refractor) which I still use.  In late 2005 I began shooting with a Canon EOS 20Da DSLR camera.  I switched from my Losmandy G11 mount to an Astro-Physics AP 900GTO mount in 2007.   I acquired a QHY8 cooled CCD camera in 2008.  I added an SBIG ST-8300m monochrome CCD camera and compatible filters in 2011, along with a Takahashi FSQ-85 "Baby Q" telescope.  In 2015 I acquired Nikon's first Astrophotography camera, the D810A.  See Basic Astrophotography for information about how I make my pictures.     More info about Processing Astrophotos is here. Chanel is using some of my astronomy images.  You can read more about my astronomy background in Steve Clayworth's Houston Chronicle article. I use "regular camera equipment" for astronomy too.

Recent Major Expeditions! January 2017 Wimberley, Spring 2016 West Texas, October 2015 Starry Nights, September 2015 West Texas, Elephant Trunk Nebula and the Eagle Nebula (pillars of creation area) are new!

2020 Jupiter & Saturn Close Approach

Nikon D850 Moon Pictures

Antares & Rho Ophiuchi

M8 Lagoon Nebula close-ups

Featured: Nikon D810A Moon Pictures

 

Moon Pictures	Planet Pictures and Planet Alignment Pictures	Galaxy Pictures
Comet Pictures	Messier Object Catalog Astrophotography Page	Nebula Page
Time-Lapse Videos	Dark Nebula Pictures	Fixed Tripod and Star Trails
Wide Angle Astrophotos Milky Way Pictures	Meteor Pictures (Shooting Stars)	Star Clusters: Open & Globular
2012 Venus Transit	Thin Crescent Moon Pictures	Narrowband Images (Monochrome Camera)
Most of my recent images were acquired in dark skies of West Texas	Embrace the Trails: Satellite Trail Pictures, Including Iridium Flares	Astronomy Equipment
Narrowband Imaging with Color Cameras	Main West Texas Astronomy Pictures	Magazine cover moons: Eclipses
Sundog & Sun Halos	Solar Eclipse Pictures	Click on Sun to see solar pictures
Most older shots are Canon EOS D20 DSLR Images	Starry Nights Images	HAS Site pix indexed here
Big Moon + Labeled Images!	My Current Astronomy Image Processing Workflow	Basic Astrophotography
Dick's (older) Astrophotography Page	Articles: Basic Image Processing in Photoshop Why Film Astrophotography? Canon D20a and Nikon D100 noise comparison	Astronomy Features: Some of my best stuff from a few years ago
	Here's my personal astronomy reference page	Lightning Pictures

 Opus tackles one of the great questions in astronomy: What's the center of it all?

Still More Astronomy Pictures:

Airplane Pictures	Lots of good stuff here from my Starry Nights trip in 2/2007	Milky Way Image Gallery
Mars 2003	New Galaxy Photos
NHAC - moon and mercury pictures	Planet Pictures	Nikon D100 Astronomy Images
Moon Halo	New (6/03) Moon Pix Page	Mars Hoax of 2005.
Davis Mountain Astronomy Pictures	In Memory of Larry Freshnock	Nova Sco 2007.

 

Paul Downing's Home Page	North Houston Astronomy Club
Jerry Lodriguss's Home Page	Houston Astronomical Society
Randy Brewer's Astronomy Page	Don Taylor's Home Page
Sadly, Dave Clark passed away in 2014	Matt Ben-Daniel's Home Page
Wide-angle Mosaic How-to	Another Wide-angle Mosaic How-to

Clear Sky Clock for a little ways west of where I live...
 National Weather Service link for The Woodlands


Monitor Adjustment: you should be able to see 17 different shades in above.  If you do not see differences at both ends of the wedge, for best results adjust your monitor and/or room lighting until you do.  The images on this website are best viewed at 1024x768 or higher resolutions, with 32 bit color.

Light Pollution:  Bad for Astronomers and Humans!

"Regular" DSLR camera equipment is also involved in astrophotography

Images Home
 

Copyright © by Dick Locke.  All Rights Reserved.
Contact and Image Use Information

Heavens Above for Houston

Drift Method of Polar Alignment
Using the STV to Obtain Accurate Polar Alignment

I would rather be in Fort Davis:  The weather there is here!