Tom Toughill
Astrophotographs displayed in this section are taken and composed by members of the Gibraltar Astronomical Society and are displayed with the consent of the artists concerned.
Orion's Belt and Sword
by Tom Toughill
The stunning Orion's Belt stars and Orion's Sword are captured in this wide-field capture of deep space, presenting the Flame, Horsehead and Great Orion nebulae all in one frame. The image was captured on a Canon EOS 7D DSLR mounted on a Skywatcher NEQ6 Pro mount for night sky tracking.
This image is comprised of 10 exposures each 2 minutes in length at ISO 200 with a 200 mm lens. For image calibration, 5 dark and 10 bias images were captured and used. PixInsight was used for post-processing after calibration with darks and bias in DeepSkyStacker.
The Pleiades Clusterby Tom Toughill
This wonderful image of the Pleiades open star cluster was captured on a Canon EOS 7D DSLR mounted on a Skywatcher NEQ6 Pro mount for night sky tracking.
The image is comprised of 10 exposures each of 2 minutes in length at ISO 200 with a 200 mm lens. For image calibration, 5 dark and 10 bias images were captured and used. PixInsight was used for post-processing after calibration with darks and bias in DeepSkyStacker.
The Andromeda Galaxyby Tom Toughill
This stunningly detailed image of our nearest neighbouring galaxy, Andromeda, was captured on a Canon EOS 7D DSLR mounted on a Skywatcher NEQ6 Pro mount for night sky tracking.
The image is comprised of 5 exposures each of 2 minutes in length at ISO 400 with a 200 mm lens at f/2.8. For image calibration, 10 dark and 10 bias images were captured and used. Adobe Photoshop was used for post-processing, including artificial flat fielding.
The Milky Way Galaxy Ultra-Wide-Field
by Tom Toughill
These images are ultra-wide-field images of our own home galaxy - the Milky Way. The image to the left shows the Milky Way's central region, visible to the South. The image to the right shows the Milky Way overhead and features our nearest neighbouring galaxy, Andromeda, to the right.
Both images are comprised of 5 exposures each of 5 minutes in length at ISO 200 with a 20 mm lens at f/5. For image calibration, 10 dark and 10 bias images were captured and used. Adobe Photoshop was used for post-processing, including artificial flat fielding.
The Milky Way Galaxy Compositeby Tom ToughillThis image is a composite between the Milky Way galaxy central region above and a photograph of the area at Presa de Barbate, Spain. It demonstrates technique in taking an astrophotograph and compositing it with a terrestrial photograph taken at night.
The image of the Milky Way galaxy central region is as above, comprising of 5 exposures each of 5 minutes in length at ISO 200 with a 20 mm lens at f/5. For image calibration, 10 dark and 10 bias images were captured and used. Adobe Photoshop was used for post-processing, including artificial flat fielding and compositing.
The Orion Constellation
by Tom Toughill
This image is an overall look at the entire constellation of Orion. It was captured on a Canon EOS 7D DSLR mounted on a Skywatcher NEQ6 Pro mount for night sky tracking.
The image consists of 5 exposures each 3 minutes long, stacked and calibrated with 5 darks and 5 bias. The exposures were captured at ISO 200 with a Sigma 70-200 mm lens at a focal length of 50 mm and f/5. Calibration was done in DeepSkyStacker and post-processing was done in PixInsight.
On the right is the original image after post-processing. On the left is a labelled image demonstrating the structure of the Orion Constellation with all corresponding visible stars and nebulae labelled.
