John Kirchhoff is an amateur astronomer, who is based in Hudson, MI, USA. At the beginning of the week, he submitted a couple of Lunar images, which he captured with his FireWire astronomy camera DMK 41AF02.AS, manufactured by The Imaging Source.

The first image is of Vallis Alpes and the second a wide field shot, which he captured on June 25, 2008 and June 28, 2008 (click on the images to see the original version):

In addition to the images, John wrote:

Attached images were taken with the DMK [astronomy] camera. The seeing conditions were very average at best and I continue to be amazed at how well the DMK’s can “beat” the seeing! The widefield shot is at f/10, the Vallis Alpes image closeup at f/25 using a Celestron 235mm SCT.

We send out a great thanks to John for his high resolution images and for his enthusiasm with The Imaging Source astronomy cameras.

Alberto Mayer is an amateur astro-photographer based in the outskirts of Milan, Italy. We have written about his work before here in the blog. In the past, he has submitted deep sky and Lunar images.

This time, Alberto has sent in a spectacular mosaic of the Moon, which he captured in May 2008, using a DMK 31AU03.AS astronomy camera. The image is below. To view the original version, which is in full resolution and contains information on the hardware used to capture the image, please click on the following image:

A great thanks goes out to Alberto for sharing this photo with the rest of the astronomy cameras community.

Torsten Hansen is an amateur astronomer, based in Germany, who has just submitted some images he captured with a brand new DMK 21AF04.AS astronomy camera.

In his e-mail to The Imaging source, Torsten wrote (translated from German):

These are the first images that I have submitted to the Astronomy Cameras Blog. One image of Jupiter at 20° altitude in RRGB and one in IRRGB (685nm), captured with a 8″ Newton. You can easily see the two additional red spots to the side of the Great Red Spot.

Jupiter in IRRGB

Jupiter in RRGB

To view the originals, please click the above images.

A great thanks goes out to Torsten for his contribution to the astronomy cameras community.

Jean-Luc Dauvergne is a scientific journalist, who has a special interest in astronomy. He works for the French magazine Ciel & Espace. On May 07, 2008 he published a book, entitled Photographier le ciel (Capture The Night Sky).

The author examines a number of approaches to astro-photography, explaining each one in detail. His text is aimed at beginners in the field.

Most interestingly, from our point of view, is that Jean-Luc has included an entire chapter on The Imaging source astronomy cameras. The chapter Acquisition avec une DMK (Capturing Images With A DMK) offers a number of photos and illustrations of The Imaging Source cameras, in addition to screenshots of the camera control software IC Capture.AS. Furthermore, the author has included several sample images, captured with the DMK series of astronomy cameras.

This book is ideally suited to those who i) can read French (!) and ii) are looking for a way to quickly and intelligently get started with astro-photography.

A great thanks goes out to Jean-Luc for taking the time to write and publish this highly instructive guide.

To order the book, please click here: Photographier le ciel

This month, we have yet again, teamed up with the British magazine BBC Sky At Night to bring you another competition in which you can win one of three astronomy cameras, manufactured by The Imaging Source.

All you have to do is answer one very simple question to be in which a chance of winning.

Go to your local newsstand and look out for the cover to the right or simply click on the following link:

http://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/competitions.asp

On their web site, the BBC Sky At Night magazine writes:

WIN! The ultimate planetary, lunar and solar cameras!

Have you ever dreamed of taking crisp, stunning shots of the rugged lunar surface, Saturn’s rings or Jupiter’s clouds through your telescope?

Well, you could be doing just that within a few weeks. That’s because this month we’ve teamed up with The Imaging Source to offer you the chance to win one of its next generation USB 2.0 astronomy cameras, which are tailor-made for planetary imaging.

We wish all participants very good luck!