Double star Albireo was mine 22.7.09 taken with
my mob phone cam held at 25mm eyepiece of 127mm Mak
cropped and adjusted best i could at time.
James

My very first attempt at any sort of astrophotography. I have to say, processing these images is a very black art! Anyway, this is the Bubble Nebula taken using the lightbuckets.com 24-inch telescope. 4 x 2 min luminance subs with 2 x 2 min of red, green and blue.

I can tell it's not great - the stars feel very bloated - but I'm coming to terms with Iris. Any tips on using that program will be gratefully received.

Edit: Too much colour, I think...

Okay, I think I've managed to improve the above picture quite a lot! Not bad for a couple more hours' learning.

24/11/2008
Can you tell what it is yet?

Comet Holmes. VC200L. EOS300D

Okay, so maybe Comet Holmes isn't a DSO? Here's one of M13 instead with a rather old Zeiss 300mm lens.

This may be cheating a little, as I see some people have gone with double stars and I've put a few of them on the 'Doubles' forum, but I consider this to be my first genuine dso, taken 5am today, 2nd November 2009, with my unmodified neximager [yes, I know you can't image dso's with an unmodified neximager], with the reducer lens, on the 6SE. 2167 frames stacked at 1/5s, 5fps.
This is part of NGC869 - just about my favourite open cluster. The bright star in the middle of the frame is SAO 23178. There is a very faint star about 2/5 of the way between that and SAO 23182 in the upper left which does not appear in my version of CdC, which goes down to mag12. Looking at the UCAC3 database, there seem to be three possible stars in that general area, the brightest of which is just below mag14. Maybe I'm just kidding myself with that ... surely I can't really be getting mag 14 stars with my little webcam. If anyone can definitely idenify what that star is, it would be great to know. Thanks.
BTW had to cut the image down, as I was getting star trails on the outer edges - presumably because I don't have an eq mount?

Apologies ...

Talking a load of rubbish in my previous. Just loaded the UCAC3 plugin into CdC and found that the faintest star in my picture is one in the faint triangle about half way down on the left - 10m6 - much more reasonable figure. The one between 23178 & 23182 is a mere 10m4. Still, reasonably happy with what 0.2s frames can achieve - now just waiting for my new SC1.5 modded camera to arrive .... and some more clear skies, of course!
DP

hello im new to the board. i got into imaging about 4-5 years ago but had to sell my rig as i was just getting started. but the bug is biting me again now.
heres my first ever shot that i can remember from back then. M51 shot with a LXD75 N-6 and DSI pro. 30 sec LRGB exposures 80 20 20 20. processed in AIP4WIN.

Bardo,
Thats a really nice image for your first shot . Shouldn't take too long to get back into the swing of things once the bug bites hard again.....and it will!
Cheers

thanks! yeah ive already been out with my new equipment a few times but it seems murphy is smiling. IF its clear here the moon is high and full. and thats a big if!

Thats not a bad first effort bardo, I gave up with my DSI and just use it for guiding now.

I took this photo of M42 on April 8, 2000 at Crystal Lake, California, a mountaintop north of Azusa about 1500 meters above sea level. It was a prime focus shot through my 10 inch Meade LX50 SCT without the use of an autoguider. The telescope was on a wedge and I had to polar align it.

It was a fifteen minute unguided exposure on film. I scanned in the print years later and processed it in PhotoShop.

I later got to use professional equipment at Mount Wilson Observatory and that made things much easier...

Well, despite some very bad coma and a very windy night, I've still produced my first DSO, so here it is.

Skywatcher 130P, Nikon D70, 25mm Eyepiece, lots of messing about with processing.

Any tips on how to achieve any better with my setup would be very welcome!

Here's my first effort from early this morning, 27/11/09, Orion Nebula.

Meade DSI II Colour imaging, Skywatcher Explorer 200P, HEQ5 guided using DIY 9x50 finder/PHD/modded SPC900NC.

I just tried to concentrate on getting everything lined up, guiding OK, then focusing, then taking 18 off 42s subs using the Meade Image Capture software. The result is the combined image stored as a jpg. Didn't take any darks because I was just chuffed to be getting anything at all.

I've had a firtle with GIMP but really need to read the manual. I've also got the 18 individual fts files to play with.

Should I take the filter off the DSI or leave it in place?

Here's mine. Im still fairly new to this. Taken this September.
The focusing leaves a bit to be desired but it looks OK after a few beers!!

I'm still astonished at how much more the camera picks up compared to the eye.

This was a set of 6 3 min subs and similar dark frames.

HEQ5 pro mount

Canon 300d unmodified with a very cheap M42 Telephoto 500mm bought for £15 from a local camera shop.

The camera is mounted to the mount by means of a bit of MDF with an old dovetail fixed underneath. Very DIY.

decoyp: that's very good image - very sharp & detailed. Keep it up!

Here is my first ever effort, can you guess what it is?

October 2008, just shows how long it takes to get into this very challenging hobby!

The blue tint is down to the fact that I didn't have a clue what I was doing

My first shots were at the moon, with Sony Alpha I got for my birthday. This led to my getting a Celestron Nexstar 102 to try and get better shots. This was about three months ago. My first DSO image was of M42 - because I could see what I was doing.

orion nebula crop on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

This was just over a month ago.

I am still refining technique, and once I get time, and polar alignment sorted out, and upgraded the drives on the mount, I will move on to other objects.

It may not look much, but it was my first successful attempt (I failed to get anything the first time). I was surprised I could get anything like this with the 102 SLT. Just being able to do this with such modest equipment led me to buy a second hand Orion Optics SPX f6 200, followed by an HEQ5, which I am about to upgrade with Synscan, and I have decided to keep the Sony for daytime work and got a refurbished Canon EOS 1000D from eBay (so I don't mess up the Sony sensor), I also found myself buying an ex-demo Celestron Onyx 80 EDF. I think it must be an addiction. I use the Onyx with either mount, depending on how much time I have, but never really liked the 102 - the Nextar mount wobbled too much with it, and it was too dark. I love the Onyx, it is a really lovely telescope, and I will eventually sell on the SPX (which is large) and the 102 tube (which I don't use) and get a longer focal-length 120 semi-APO/ED. I suppose I should try an SCT one day - but it appears I like refractors. Especially black ones.

A few of the images I have taken since are in my gallery - which I hope to use as a catalog. I have become interested in astronomy through this, although it is the technology I find fascinating. I do take time actually look at stuff as well - but I am still finding my way around. I want to start on the flame nebula next, and get a better image of M42 with the running man nebula, and get Pleiades properly sorted, as well as ANdromeda, so I can move on and start looking for other stuff.

We will be moving to New Zealand in a year or so, so I also need to cover as much here that can't be seen there as possible while I have the opportunity. Equipment there is very expensive, so I also want to pin down the rig we'll be taking before we go, as upgrading will be unlikely for some time once we move.

M

Another M42 is the first on the website
early feb 2003

Untitled Document

I did take some slide stuff before then and I also managed to get something out of a Meade pictor 216 but I cannot find the floppy discs they are on

Steve

Here are 2 of my first ones, taken on the same night (26/11/2009). Both are taken afocally with my compact digital camera (Canon IXUS 860is), 15 sec exposures at ISO800 through a 40mm EP. The images are unprocessed (haven't yet figured out how to improve them).

The targets are M42 and M45 (obviously... )

this is my first photo and its another view of M13 well an out of focus M13 it was a single photo at iso 400 for 3 mins at prime focus it was taken in may 2008

Hey, well here is my 1st DSO imaged on 11/02/10, I just love M42, and am happy to catch some of it on film:



Hopefully I can get another clear night soon, so I can have another attempt at it using longer exposure and hopefully my bahitov mask to get good focus.

Whoops, didn't see this before, I just posted these in a new thread. Anyway my first (and only so far) DSO's.

Both 5 x 30 seconds with same no. of darks and bias.

my 1st DSOs lol
Short tube 80 with atik-16ic and CG5-GT