TiffsAndAstro

Do you think I would be able to get away without guiding? I seem able to do upto 5 mins unguided if I take care with setting up, but that's at a much much bigger fov.

I've been taking all calibration frames, except dark flats with my dslr they clearly are great at improving end result when done well and I love how Nina organises them. First time I tried using dark, bias and flat in a Nina sequence I couldn't work out why Nina would only show 0.0 in the exposure length field for bias and flats, so I gave up and used my intervalometer. I think If I made a poll called "what's the longest time you've kept your gear together without making a single upgrade/change" ..,....I wouldn't want to see the results

I have recently struggled with plate solving, before eventually solving it by removing the lens cap. Also spent twenty minutes trying to focus a star before realising it was a reflection of a street lamp in kitchen window. I'm at that sort of ability level. But I'd rather fail at something a bit difficult than a bit easy.

Also I've never taken dark flats, but do take flats, bias and darks. Mostly. Not keen on flats as it is though. On an actual telescope I'm even less keen.

Ty all for this. It seems the sensor it uses is suitable and should be ok with the 72ed and a noticeable upgrade from what I have. Assuming I can get it all connected up and working Should I be unduly worried about plate solving at such smaller fov? It looks pretty extreme to me, but I'm guessing there's people here who would still think of it as wide field? the main reason I'm still considering it is m51 looked big and m31 might just fit in. If I did get the 72ed and 585mc I can get a guide scope and guide cam or a tripod. I'm assuming at this fov, guiding would be a necessity?

Yeah I initially tried to guestimate a CF from relative sensor size, but astronomy tools correctly showed a much smaller field of view than I'm used too. Zwo 585mc is a planetary camera and the only option in my budget, so I'll have a rethink. Ty for this

Trying it now seems perfect ty Lol the 585 isn't square as I thought but the smaller field of view I like Dunno if the numbers make it a suitable match or not. That is a much smaller fov then my current lens and camera, not sure I'm good enough for that bigger leap. also intending to get a guidescope and cam and will need to work out if the flo £200 bundle one will do.

Currently my best lens for ap is a 200mm and with my 1.6 canon crop is effectively 320. I'm struggling to compute a roughly equivalent crop factor for the zwo859mc. Will plug info into stellarium hopefully for a comparison

My only xp is with 600d which is 3:2 and makes me want to be able to rotate for framing. A square sensor maybe the need to rotate is diminished a little. Looks like I'll lose 10 megapixels though.

Sounds good to me Ty. A cooled osc is way beyond my budget. I'm looking at zwo 585mc on flo website about £400. I have seen a couple of videos of some £500 Blue cooled versions on AliExpress but I'm not keen.

Wow fantastic explanation Ty so much. I'll stick with latest plan of osc and sw 72ed then Have you seen videos of people using smaller pixel (planetary cams I assume) for DSO imaging?

wow some fantastic info here i had no idea about ty. one of the reasons i'd like to ditch my dslr and go over to a osc camera is to capture some Ha but this makes it sound like i would need a mono camera and multiple filters which i don't want to do for a long time. should just stick to my dslr if im going to filter out ir spectrum?

Cheers for this. Software does seem ok at removing it. Why ir cut though? Wouldn't I want ir with a osc ?

I'm about to get a zwo 585mc (and 72ed) and am clueless about what filter to get. Would Astronomik L3 filter screw in so I wouldn't need a drawer (seen videos saying back focus is tight)

Sorry for asking, but why a UV/ir cut filter ? Why not just a light pollution filter? Thinking of getting a osc and unsure which filter I should get

Ty, it's good to have someone to blame

Im hopping i can just slew and center m87 in nina over multiple nights. dslr dark frames might not be an issue for too much longer. i think its telescope and astro cam time. after what i can only assume is a decent 3ppa, it slews and is usually about 4000 pixels out. then it adjusts and is about 40 pixels out, then one last and its a couple of pixels out.

confession time: i only took 5 dark frames. also i used 'library flats' because i am lazier than cuiv and it was just another test. wasn't really expecting to actually see any galaxies and i gave up counting at twenty. i think i've managed to clean the finger print off the front element that i think caused the black hole. its good to know the cause and likely solution. im rushing a bit into more complexity, but so far its been ok. most problems are with niggly usb things. and focus. and clouds. i need time to fail more then fail bit less the next time

hope this is the right sub forum to ask this? half decent camera lenses are stupid expensive, so im thinking of getting a sky watcher 71 ed (i think it is), flattener, filter drawer, rotator and a zwo 585 uncooled colour camera for not a whole lot more but new. i saw cuiv and at least one other used a planetary (i think) camera for dso with pretty nice results. is that something i should even be considering? will also get a budget guide scope and mono camera. this is all going into a dodgyish 4way usb hub into a laptop running nina. sky watcher gti mount. back focus with a filter drawer (i assume i need one on a colour camera for light polution but not sure of a second filter needed for osc camera) and flattener and rotator i saw in a video might be an issue too

that's brilliant ty. from youtube i thought it was walking noise and tried to post process it out and im working on a guidescope and camera. i have a sw gti via nina which seems good. ty so much for this.

one other thing if you zoom in there is a sort of streaky noisy pattern. any ideas what this is? is it an artifact from too little total integration time or something else? same effect is in these two also over processing by me?

Hmm that's not terrible sounding. Hopefully combining multiple nights isn't too horrible to learn. Ty both for your advice.

Well m87 is up most of the time for me, but I'll need to Google how to combine multiple nights. Maybe I can do 5 hours at a time. No way of rotating my camera until I get a better lens with a collar ;(

Probably another stupid question by me, so apologies, but how long is a 'good amount' of time centering on m87 to get markarian's chain? took the attached last night for 45mins dodging cloud and expected nothing, but got quite a few very very small galaxies with my 200mm f5.6 canon 600d 120sec subs. would i be likely to get more definition on those tiny galaxies with a lot more total integration time, with my set up? Or is that pretty much always obviously so, irrespective of gear?

this might be a great help ty and will give it a go as soon as clouds go away. in a few months