The Pleiades.

Fuji Provia 400F

Orion 80mm ED

Mount ASGT

Guided manually

45-minute exposure

Camera Cannon EOS Rebel TI

Post processing: Photoshop Elements 2 with Noel Carboni ATN filters.

I don't understand. If this photo was taken with an Orion 80mm ED scope (a refractor) as the post states, why do the stars have diffraction spikes like those one gets sometimes from the spider vanes in a reflector?

I have read that some astronomers like the appearance of these spikes (the so-called 'star of Bethlehem effect') and actually modify their refractors to introduce them into images from which they otherwise would be absent. Is that the case with this image, or is the scope used to take the photo misidentified, or am I just wrong in thinking that refractors normally do not produce such spikes?

Beautiful image, though. I am not criticising it, just confused. 

xtopher wrote:

I don't understand. If this photo was taken with an Orion 80mm ED scope (a refractor) as the post states, why do the stars have diffraction spikes like those one gets sometimes from the spider vanes in a reflector? I have read that some astronomers like the appearance of these spikes (the so-called 'star of Bethlehem effect') and actually modify their refractors to introduce them into images from which they otherwise would be absent. Is that the case with this image, or is the scope used to take the photo misidentified, or am I just wrong in thinking that refractors normally do not produce such spikes? Beautiful image, though. I am not criticising it, just confused.

It is a great image and I am a big fan of Pleiades

I was having fun with Photoshop; the spikes are from one of the ATN filters. This is a cropped image and I added the spikes for the fun of it. The 80ED has a much wilder field of view and no spikes. Apologizes for the confusion.

GaryB wrote:

I was having fun with Photoshop; the spikes are from one of the ATN filters. This is a cropped image and I added the spikes for the fun of it. The 80ED has a much wilder field of view and no spikes. Apologizes for the confusion.

Ah, that explains it! Thanks. (Gotta love those wild fields of view! )

This is the unprocessed image which is reduced from a 41.7 mb tiff file.

So here is the widefield for you xtopher. I need to get better at centering my target.

Here are a couple images I took with my Pentax 35mm SLR with a 70-210mm zoom lens piggy back mounted on my CG R-GT. 

The original images were noisy, pale and uneven with a hot spot throughout the middle. Noel Carboni did the post processing for me evening out the background color, dearkening them up, cleaning up the noise, clearing up the hot spots and added a few spikes for a nice visual effect.  He is one of a few people that can take a bad image and make it look good.

click mouse on image to see full size.

Here is one of the originals before Noel did his handy work.

Have A Nice _________

Nice images of Orion Tim. I would be lost when it comes to processing if it was not for Noel's ATN's. I was going through the tread astroimaging processing and came across Tasco60mm post on the ATN's. Thx Tasco60mm.