The photo of M31 was taken with a Nikon D610 camera and a $30 Newtonian telescope that came with a tracking mount he bought. He explained:
"I took 40 short exposure shots of this galaxy. I then took 10 dark shots. I averaged the dark shots to create a background subtraction image. After subtracting the background I used software to digitally align each image. Each pixel was medianized. I then used Adobe Lightroom to post-process the resulting image. I have provided a low-res copy of this image in the attachment."
The low resolution copy was the one I posted. For the lunar eclipse, he said:
"I actually started working on my astrophotography technique in anticipation of the lunar eclipse on September 27. I wanted to do a time lapse of the moon moving through the earth's shadow, using a tracking mount focused on the earth's shadow rather than the moon. Shown as a video it should like a hole in space. I intended to use my telephoto lens rather than the telescope for this project."
He lives in WV, and It looks like the weather won't allow him to go through with the lunar eclipse project.
