A Movie Optically Zooming Into The Orion Nebula
Jan 30, 2014
Udi Tirosh
Udi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.
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The Orion Nebula also know as 42 is a miraculous place. Stars are born in that nebula. Being about 1350 light years away, it only seems as a small dot in the middle of sword of Orion to the naked eye. Physics professor Isidro Villo was able to optically zoom into the nebula producing a stunning time-lapse.
The zoom-lapse, which Villo calls deep sky time lapse as taken using cheap gear in astronomical standards: A pair of cameras: a Canon 5D Mark II, and a modified 450D (European Digital Rebel XSi). A Sigma 50-500mm behemoth and a Canon x2 teleconverter. The camera was mounted on a Meade LX80 mount to track the skies.
The movie was taken in Sierra Nevada which has a very low light pollution. To drive the camera and lenses a special system was built. One motor controls the zoom while another one pulls focus for exposures of over 40 seconds.
[M42: Live View Optical Zoom | Isidro Villo via io9]
Udi Tirosh
Udi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.
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4 responses to “A Movie Optically Zooming Into The Orion Nebula”
Wow. Great!!
Never thought you could see that with “only” 1000mm ….great !
WOW!!! And now the d.i.y. on how to make this zoom device and, if people managed to make it themselves, a track-the-stars device… :-P Glad to see it IS possible. I almost gave up hope. I try the same thing for years… (with the moons of jupiter and the rings of saturn)
Very nice,,would love to know what powered the follow focuser and if it was RF remote,,