Sadr Region at 135mm

[Knight of Clear Skies]

First light for my modded Canon 1100D (thanks Cheap Astrophotography). Conditions were far from ideal with lots of moisture in the air, even stars towards the zenith were noticeably twinkling and on the way home I drove through some patches of mist. Glad I made the effort though.

A quick process of the Sadr Region taken with a 135mm SMC Takumar f2.5 lens at f4.5, cropped slightly as I didn't frame it very well. It's 20 x 90 second subs at ISO 800 (30 minutes total) with 30 dark bias, no darks or flats. (Took another 10 subs but had to thrown them away.) Sadr is just left of centre with the Butterfly Nebula above and the Crescent Nebula at lower left (although at 135mm you don't get that lovely wispy detail).

Would welcome any comments, was a bit of a battle to bring out the colours without them looking too unnatural. I'll work on it some more over the next few days.

For context, here's a quick shot I took at 50mm a few weeks ago showing a wider view of Cygnus.

[robbie c]

Well worth the effort great images

[gary1968]

Nice, that lens seems to work well.

Sent from my Vodafone Smart 4 turbo

[symesie04]

Nice. What mount was you using?

[RichM63]

Inspiring.

Was image 2 taken with the 50 in your signature, I'm thinking of getting hold of one but wondered if there were any compatibility issues with the new gen Canon.

[wxsatuser]

Thats the Nifty Fifty, if I'm not mistaken, just got one myself but yet to try it out on stars.

[laser_jock99]

Nice - one of my favourite nebulas & easy to find!

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Thanks all, very encouraging given that my subs were bright orange from light pollution (I don't have a filter yet). Hopefully I can grab some more data before Cygnus sinks too much, if I could get 2 hours on it that would be great.

Nice. What mount was you using?

My EQ3-2. It's not ideal as an imaging mount, I have to throw away a few subs due to periodic error, but it does the job.

Inspiring.

Was image 2 taken with the 50 in your signature, I'm thinking of getting hold of one but wondered if there were any compatibility issues with the new gen Canon.

Thanks. Yes, taken with my 50mm lens, it's only 12 minutes (6x120 seconds) at f3.5, from a very dark sky in Cornwall. Next time I'll try f4.0 or f4.5 for better corners. It's this one, the latest EF lens, think I paid about £65 for it. It works on all Canon EOS bodies. The only lens compatibility issues I'm aware of on the Canons is that the old FD lenses (pre-1987) don't reach infinity on an EOS body and EF-S (small image circle) lenses are only designed to work with crop sensors and don't work on full frame (35mm) cameras.

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Nice - one of my favourite nebulas & easy to find!

Yes, it's hard to miss really, like the NA. 

[RichM63]

Thanks. Yes, taken with my 50mm lens, it's only 12 minutes (6x120 seconds) at f3.5, from a very dark sky in Cornwall. Next time I'll try f4.0 or f4.5 for better corners. It's this one, the latest EF lens, think I paid about £65 for it. It works on all Canon EOS bodies. The only lens compatibility issues I'm aware of on the Canons is that the old FD lenses (pre-1987) don't reach infinity on an EOS body and EF-S (small image circle) lenses are only designed to work with crop sensors and don't work on full frame (35mm) cameras.

Great, then one will be winging its way over to me very shortly. My concern was it not being recognized by the camera with the dreaded 'clean sensor' message. (I will check with Ffordes before ordering).

Thanks for the tip about aperture I'm still figuring this one out.

[Knight of Clear Skies]

My concern was it not being recognized by the camera with the dreaded 'clean sensor' message.

You're welcome. Haven't come across that one, I'd have thought that would only happen if there is a fault somewhere.

[AndrewG]

Great wide field work... looking at the images I bet you have pretty dark skies down in Cornwall  !

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Great wide field work... looking at the images I bet you have pretty dark skies down in Cornwall  !

The Caradon Observatory site down in Cornwall is very dark, mid 21s with a Sky Quality Meter I believe. However, the top image was taken up here in light polluted Hertfordshire, without using an LP filter. I'm still learning how much impact LP will have on my imaging but the result above is encouraging. Framing shots are far easier down in Cornwall as many faint nebulae show up in 20 second shots and processing is easier. I suspect that the fainter the target the more impact LP will have. Hopefully I can compensate by using a filter and running longer subs, but I'll need to get my mount running more smoothly first.

[Pete Presland]

both images are very nice, it is always interesting to see your widefield images.