Making the big leap

[kranebanger]

Hi my friends, Im brand new to the group, so please bare wirth me, lol... I have a meade lx200 gps 8 inch that until today I was using with my nikon d7000. Problem is, I could never capture the stars without pixelation.. Today our foundation was blessed with a QHY8L for half price, we have the famous tucon skies, two questions.. What was I doing wrong with the d7000, and should the qhy8l make a signifigant difference? My family truly loves the sky, the universe is all of ours for exploring.. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you..

[laudropb]

Hello and a warm welcome to the SGL. I do not do imaging, so I can not help with your questions, but I am sure someone will answer soon.

[Dave In Vermont]

Greetings and welcome to SGL. I'm sure you'll find people who are knowledgable about your specific query in one of the Imaging forums here. And we love questions. So enjoy your visits and don't be shy!

Clear skies -

Dave

[kranebanger]

thanks guys, Im slowly but surely figuring the site out, so many helpful and knowledgable people here..

[brantuk]

Hi and welcome to SGL

This may not be the only reason for your pixelation - but I'm guessing with your skies there may be a tendency to over magnify the image. Or perhaps you just weren't properly in focus. Without further information it's hard to just stab in the dark.

Using a focus mask is a good idea - google "bhatinov mask" (there are other types as well but this is the most popular). And use a free download like CCDCalc to estimate chip size and image size here:

http://new-astronomy-ccdcalc.software.informer.com/1.5/

This allows you to put in the camera spec and telescope model to see how they work together. Hth

[kranebanger]

Thanks brantuk!!

[Dave In Vermont]

Here's a bunch of useful and free software-programs - including a Bahtinov Mask:

http://davesastrotools.weebly.com/download.html

Enjoy!

Dave

[ollypenrice]

Hi my friends, Im brand new to the group, so please bare wirth me, lol... I have a meade lx200 gps 8 inch that until today I was using with my nikon d7000. Problem is, I could never capture the stars without pixelation.. Today our foundation was blessed with a QHY8L for half price, we have the famous tucon skies, two questions.. What was I doing wrong with the d7000, and should the qhy8l make a signifigant difference? My family truly loves the sky, the universe is all of ours for exploring.. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you..

I can't see how your problem could be pixelation. You have a long focal length scope and a small pixel camera. Pixelation applies when you have the opposite scenario. (ie you don't have enough pixels to resolve details in the image you are taking, so you see brick-like pixels instead of smooth and continuous transititions.)

Could you post an image?

Olly