darthraptor82

Hi everyone. I live in North Wales and am looking to potentially organise a little stargazing night at either Mol Famau or Penycloddiau the first weekend in June. Anybody else in North Wales interested in joining?

Brilliant - thanks everyone

Hi everyone. Just wondered if there are any fellow North Wales-based astrophotography enthusiasts? I'm fairly new to astrophotography but would love to try and set up some kind of regular meeting in my local area where we can discuss, go out into the area and take photos together etc. I'm based in Carmel, just outside Holywell in Flintshire Thanks Rich

Awesome - thanks. That gives me some confidence to actually try it Appreciate that my friend

Good afternoon all. I have a question you could all perhaps assist me with. I've fairly recently started astrophotography having always been a huge huge astronomy geek. I watch every rocket launch possible, study designs, the engineering behind everything from the rockets, the payload down to the telescopes and observatories around the UK. I would love to start an amateur astronomical society in my area of North Wales. I am based on the coast not far from Rhyl and Prestatyn with some great views of the night sky. The nearest astro society to me I believe is Chester. Now, I don't drive at present and Chester is a fair distance from me - especially given North Wales public transport is pretty non-existent. So I thought - why not set a society up based in Holywell/Carmel (Flintshire, North Wales) and see if there's any fellow stargazers in the area. My question is - am I learning to run before I learn to walk or is it a good idea to try and meet fellow stargazers to learn, share ideas and make friends?

Awesome - thanks, I'll give that a try later!

Hi everyone. So i've recently started shooting Moon photos with my Canon 2000D DSLR using a Canon 75-300mm zoom lens, tripod and remote shutter control. I've tried various combinations of aperture, shutter speed and ISO and the sweet spot recently seems to be ISO 100, f/5.6, 1/80 shutter speed. I managed to get some fairly decent images but the one thing I'm struggling with is calibrating my manual focus. All the tutorials say to point the camera at a bright star, use the digital preview screen and zoom in using digital zoom before adjusting the focus ring. I seem to get almost to the point where it's properly in focus but not quite sharp enough. I am in North Wales on the coast so I'm aware the temperature is around 5 degrees celsius so perhaps I'm getting some kind of condensation/fogging and need a lens warmer. Or, I'm just really bad at finding the sweet spot. Just wondered if anyone has any tips? Could a bahtinov mask help me manually focus better? Thanks Rich

Hello everyone. My name is Rich and I'm new here and fairly new to astrophotography. I've recently started taking photos of the night sky with my Canon 2000D dslr using either my 75-300mm lens or my 18-55mm lens. I've watched countless YouTube videos and read many articles but am just finding it a bit of a learning curve to get decent results. I have no doubt that I will continue to improve but thought that joining somewhere like this would be beneficial - not only for advice from fellow stargazers but also just to see other people's results and get inspiration. Thankyou and I look forward to sharing my work with you Rich