Triangulum Widefield

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Had a lot of trouble with this one as there were a few lights on on site and I couldn't find the eyepiece cover. Some stray light got into the camera, giving the centre of the image a yellowish cast. isolated it with some creative curve stretching and got rid of the worst of it.

Taken with my 135mm Super-Takumar lens at f3.5 on a modded Canon 100D, the above is a slight crop. 11 x 120 second subs (22 minutes total). No darks or flats. Taken at Caradon Observatory, Cornwall.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

[VigdisVZ]

I really like it. These widefields of familiar objects give you a whole new sense of context.

At some point you should take darks, flats and bias. Especially flats would really help you in processing. And nitpicking, a bit more color in the stars would have been nice.

What ISO?

Thanks for sharing.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Very nice indeed. I must get my old 135 lens out for this kind of shot one of these days.

[tingting44]

very nice! i have not seen many wide fields of this object, i like it a lot

[VigdisVZ]

At what FL can you fit both M31 and M33?

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Thanks all, pretty happy with this one.

At some point you should take darks, flats and bias. Especially flats would really help you in processing. And nitpicking, a bit more color in the stars would have been nice.

What ISO?

Was taken at ISO 1600.

Thanks for the comments, I agree about the lack of star colour. I did have the saturation up more and was getting nice blue stars, but the red and yellow ones were looking a bit odd so I toned it down.

I've given up on darks for the time being after reading this thread, I'll revisit them another time. In this case the apparent vignetting is caused by light leaking in the eyepiece - the first version had a big yellow circle in the middle. I'll look into flats another time, they don't seem to be too important with this lens.

At what FL can you fit both M31 and M33?

I did look into this using Stellarium. Can't quite remember now, but they might just fit in at 35mm or a bit less.

[robbie c]

With the work you put in you got a cracking image well done

[hobsey]

Looking at your previous images, the 135mm seems to be a nice medium, not too long and not too short.

[Knight of Clear Skies]

It's a nice focal length for me to be playing with a the moment as it brings plenty of targets into range while being short enough to be forgiving of alignment and tracking errors. The Orion Nebula, Flame and Horsehead all fit in nicely at 135mm with the Horsehead being large enough to be recognisable, so that will be a Winter target. 

It also scores highly for usability. For focussing I just turn it to the stop and it has a long hood which helps prevent dew. The field of view is large enough for easy aiming and at f3.5 it's fast enough to pick up faint objects quickly. I hit comet Jacques on the first try. Here's a 20 second Andromeda at ISO 3200 with a quick process.

Highly recommended. Looking at my eBay history I paid £18.40 plus postage for mine, I guess I should put something in the equipment review area.

[tingting44]

wow ordering one now! lol, thanks

[hobsey]

Got my eye on a couple on the bay of e at the moment.

Building up a collection of vintage lenses for when the Star Adventurer gets delivered.

[tingting44]

Got my eye on a couple on the bay of e at the moment.

Building up a collection of vintage lenses for when the Star Adventurer gets delivered.

stop buying all the lens'! your all ready getting a canon 200m f2.8 u lucky git! lol

[hobsey]

stop buying all the lens'! your all ready getting a canon 200m f2.8 u lucky git! lol

No, thats been put on hold as I think I was jumping the gun a bit there.

Going to wait until I get the hang of this AP malarky first and cheap vintage prime lenses are a great starting point.

[hobsey]

 I guess I should put something in the equipment review area.

Look forward to reading it if you do.

[JamesF]

Nice images.  I like seeing such objects in their wider context too.

I always have to remind myself when looking at wide field images of galaxies that all the stars are in fact closer than the galaxy itself and we're looking through/past the stars.  It's easy to view the galaxy as being set against a background of stars, but of course that's not actually true.  The stars you can see are in our own galaxy.  The target object is much, much further away...

James

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Yes, we're looking at  great jumble of time. Nothing is actually where it appears to be.

[Knight of Clear Skies]

At what FL can you fit both M31 and M33?

Came across this image showing both Andromeda & Triangulum while browsing the Sky At Night Flickr group. It was taken at 70mm focal length but with a full frame camera. On a crop sensor they'd be a very tight squeeze at 50mm, would probably make a better composition at 35mm with the two galaxies further from the corners.

[hobsey]

Found this one on Astrobin, 50mm on a cropped sensor.

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Interesting thanks, maybe the one I linked to is a crop of the full frame.

Do you have a link to the astrobin details please? Some crop sensor camera have slightly larger sensors than the Canons. I'm definitely going to give this a go sometime.

[hobsey]

Here you go,

http://www.astrobin.com/52484/

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Excellent thanks, it does fit at 50mm, and NGC 752 in there are well makes for a nice triplet. Didn't know there was such a big star cluster there. Think I may have found my next 50mm project.

[Pete Presland]

some very nice images in this thread good to see the DSO's we know in the bigger fields of view. love the widefield images, a lot less headache than all the guiding business!