Here’s a picture of the 36 inch telescope at Chabot Observatory, with an 8 second exposure and some GIMP work to bring out some of the details. The shot is illuminated mostly by the (nearly full) moonlight. The camera is actually pretty noise free in green light, and the red isn’t terrible, but blue is really, really grainy. You can’t really tell in this size, but you could try looking at the original, very dark image. Oh, and the white streak? A plane.

[tags]Photography,Astronomy[/tags]

Addendum: Below is a picture taken the same night, rendered in black and white, of the dome which houses the 8″ Clarke refractor nicknamed “Leah”.