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Hello there!


DavidOgilvie

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Hi all,

Just joined the forum and looking for some advice! Ive been into astrophotography for about the last year or so now, and while I've been fine with getting the whole star-trails sort of thing, ive been struggling with deep sky imaging. So far I've been using a fixed tripod and taking multiple shots of relatively short exposures and then stacking them all in deep sky stacker, with 20 or so dark frames and bias frames. So far Ive attempted Jupiter, Orion's nebula, and Andromeda (lets not go there, I completely missed it..)

I got the first two in shot no problem, but the quality after running 200ish light frames along with dark and bias frames through DSS just isnt there - ive not been able to get anything much better than what I can get out of just one raw image.

Getting to a relatively dark skies area is no problem for me during holiday time, although im currently a student at Nottingham Uni, and nottingham is terrible when it comes to air pollution! So my time for when I can do deep sky imaging is limited..

I've been thinking about getting hold of a star tracker. Ideally one that I can simply put onto my tripod, use a gps on it and it will track for me. Im using a Canon 5d mkii and then either a 200mm or 300mm fixed, so it would need to be able to support 1.5-2.5kg

And then of course, ideally as cheap as possible to without sacrificing stability/quality!!

Any help would be most appreciated :)

David

Just a quick example of some of the stuff I've been doing: https://www.facebook.com/davidogilviephotography/photos/pb.684676948238265.-2207520000.1418771466./685480471491246/?type=3&theater

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Hi David, welcome to the SGL.

Not sure if this is the sort of thing you are looking for:

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/skywatcher-star-adventurer/skywatcher-star-adventurer-astronomy-bundle.html

Just a suggestion, You may get a better response to your post if you copy to the beginners section under "Getting Started Equipment Help and Advice" as more people are likely to read that section.

Hope you enjoy the forum.

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Hi David and welcome to SGL - DSO imaging (I can't comment on planetary) is all about the mount...... mount ..... mount. Did I say that the mount is important?!  You will benefit from a good sturdy base with which to start imaging from - Something that will allow accurate tracking of the sky and will ensure that you don't get any vibrations or the like. 

Often people start with something like an HEQ5 - This is a good starter mount and with fairly accurate motors, you can use a small camera and scope to allow guiding, which will get you nice long exposures. 

Stuart (StuartJPP) does some fantastic work with his Astrotrac - Definitely the guy to follow if this is the way you are planning to go.

If you've not already done so, then for DSO imaging the book 'Making Every Photon Count' really is a good starting point - Available from the FLO site in the book section.

Hope that helps. 

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Thanks all for such a warm welcome! So I'm thinking something along the lines of an equitorial mount - the one posted above http://www.firstlightoptics.com/skywatcher-star-adventurer/skywatcher-star-adventurer-astronomy-bundle.html looks good and is a decent price, although it says its for wide and medium focal length lenses - As i'm not planning on doing exposures of around 30 minutes plus, but instead doing hundreds at something closer to 1 minute, will this track accurately enough for 1 minute exposures? I will stack them all using DSS afterwards too so Id guess that would help with the potential movement of the objects across my frame (I'm thinking up to 400mm focal length here, nothing more than that)

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Hi David,

I work with your Father in Cambridge. Perhaps he mentioned me?

Welcome to the forum- it has a great bunch of dedicated astronomers who will really push the boat out to help you. Enjoy!

Hi

Yes Dad's talked about you and your telescope setup! He showed me your photo of NGC 891 - very impressive! I'm still working towards Andromeda at the moment so I've a little way to go before I can start thinking about anything further away than that! I've attempted Orion's nebula a couple of times using just my camera and tripod with 300mm lens, and not had great results.. Particularly in Nottingham, the sky is so bad up there that its hard to do anything other than wide angle stuff..

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There are a number of light pollution reject filters which may help to improve your image contrast although they are quire expensive in large apertures. I would also recommend a plugin for Photoshop called Gradient X terminator which will do an excellent job of removing the light gradients which your images might suffer from. Have a look at this close up picture of the Orion Nebula to wet your appetite!

post-36426-0-66422200-1419013596_thumb.j

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