Elbasso

Received the ridiculously expensive L-Ultimate today and matching filter drawer. I sincerely hope my nebula images will improve ridiculously much as well 🤣

There's a massive difference in quality when moving from a zoom kit lens to an actual scope. As already mentioned, go for something with ED glass and a good focuser. The 72ED might be a bit heavy for the mount as you'll also need a field flattener. A 60/65 doublet or triplet will work but will only give you a bit more focal length. That said, you'll be amazed how good things will look, even if you need to crop your pictures a lot. Dithering (during capturing) and drizzling (during preprocessing) will help a lot in this scenario.

Hi from København

My attempt at the rather small (in my FoV) M 101: TS-Optics 60ED (360mm), AZ-GTI with 120mm guide scope No filters, standard (unmodified) Canon EOS800D Two nights (May 12+13th), 112x 120s, ISO 800 Stacked, drizzled and processed with Siril, finalized with Photoshop

I was quite happy how M 51 turned out, given the modest specs of the gear and software used: TS-Optics 60ED (360mm), AZ-GTI with 120mm guide scope No filters, standard (unmodified) Canon EOS800D Single night (April 21st), 57x 150s, ISO 800 Stacked, cropped and processed with Siril, finalized with Photoshop

That's a very nice image Paul. Could you share a few details around the gear and settings used? Cheers! Bastiaan

Just received 2 packages within the same hour 🙂 Happy days.

That's a fairly dramatic improvement. Amazing photo! Also a fairly significant improvement in gear and software 🙂

My first ever Horsehead attempt. - AZ-GTI in EQ mode, TS-Optics PhotoLine 60 mm f/6 FPL53 Apo, no Flattener, Canon EOS 800D (unmodded) - 58 x 60s, including calibration frames - Pre-processed in Siril 1.2, finalized with Photoshop.

Dang it. That's not cool. I also have 5 cables hanging around and expect something to go wrong at some point.... If only myself tripping over the cables in the night when I re-position my mount if my house gets in the way of a new target. Think the Pegasus is a cool addition to any set-up though. They're just so friggin' expensive.

That is really nice 🙂 I'm jealous as I was up most of the (very clear) night from Sunday to Monday here in Denmark and saw no northern lights 😞 Ah well, all the more reason to book a trip to he far North!

Fear not. I think that everyone who has taken up this hobby was totally overwhelmed at first. YouTube and this site are your friend. I'm positive you'll master the basics before you know it. Welcome!

Very cool. I was literally just looking at my moon pictures from last year and thinking it's time to give it another go. Now I'm certainly going to do that to check if I can spot the impact.

That's one awesome image! And as others mentioned as well, haven't seen this target before. Not sure I'll ever be able to afford a RASA rig myself but one can dream (and in the mean time enjoy these incredible images).

I almost exclusively do deep space AP so GOTO is more or less mandatory.

Thank you so much for that outstanding description. It's highly appreciated!

I think both look great. In the end, it's just a subjective thing. Personally, I would reduce the stars in the second image a bit to let M 31 take center stage. Again, there's no right or wrong in my opinion (with these 2 variations)

I would be very happy if you could share if the professional was able to clean the lens and how this happened in the first place. Cheers,

If you stick a camera on the scope, make some pictures or a video and stack the images, you can see a lot more. It's basically why I started to get into astrophotography as I was often frustrated with the underwhelming experience though the eye piece.

Thanks. Data Quality makes good sense now 😂

Jupiter and Saturn will be very small when observed through your 6 inch scope. But, with the right focus AND good seeing conditions, you should easily be able to make out Saturn's rings and some bands on Jupiter. Have a look at this awesome post so you get a better feel for what to expect. https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/196278-what-can-i-expect-to-see/

That is some quality data you've got there! Could you share a few details on the gear you've used?

This post is pure gold for anyone thinking about buying their first scope. Love it!

Ha! AstroBackyardust posted a video which basically shows the setup I mentioned:

I realize I didn't fully answer your question. First off, you'll need to have a goto EQ mount or star tracker. The Star Adventurer Gti for example. If you hook that up to e.g. a computer running NINA or raspberry pi running StellarMate, these programs can be used to tell the mount where to point. The mount can then slew to the target and start tracking. The software can also be used to set exposure length, ISO, etc. for your camera. So it's can function as an intrervalometer. When starting off with a DSLR, I wouldn't go with the newest models. They typically produce very large files which can be slow to work with. More importantly, they might not yet be supported by the various software and hardware components. All in all, a setup with the mentioned Star Adventurer Gti, a 200-300mm (zoom) lens and a modest Canon DSLR with aps-c sensor will get you a long way.