starman1969

I can't plate solve because I'm imaging on the go, using either my Astrotrac or my new Fornax LighTrack 10 mkII. Kind of testing both to see what I'm happy with, but on the filter side, maybe a CLS will work better for me. I'm probably disposing bodily waste into a strong breeze by trying to work with this 7nm HA filter on a stock dslr.

I know lol. I think a swap for a CLS is in order.

I could do with a Bahtinov mask to fit my TS 65mm quad. Do you know what would be suitable?

Thanks Carole. I think a swap is in order. Maybe a CLS will help me better.

Yes. I bought the filter from Modern Astronomy with advice. Maybe I should call back and swap for a CLS filter if i am wasting my time with this one. I used to use a modded Canon 1000d, but now use a stock Nikon D850 for my general work + astro.

So I bought this 7nm HA filter way back near the beginning on 2018 but never got around to using it until last week. I have never used any filters for astrophotography before. It's a 2" filter, which goes into my small 65mm quad refractor, which I attach my standard DSLR to. Not surprisingly for me, I failed to get anything using the filter. The first problem I had was that I could not even see anything when the filter was in the scope, so I could not line up any target. Next problem was, even if I managed to get something lined up, how do I focus? If I take the filter out and then focus before putting it back in, surely moving the camera will knock it back out of focus. The 3rd problem I had was that even giving the target more exposure, next to nothing registered on the camera. If I have to give a target 3 times the exposure using the filter then I'd rather not bother with it. I mainly got it so I could image from LP affected areas. Maybe I could swap for a CLS filter instead, if that would help at all. Can anyone advise?

Thanks for looking.

I'm looking to try my hand at CCD imaging this year and at the moment know very little about it. I recently bought an Opticstar 102 refractor on an EQ3 mount which I hope I can make a start with. Will need a dual axis drive mount with autoguiding feature. Not sure how to go about this. I'm pretty sure I'll need a field flattener/focal reducer for the scope, but no idea which one to get. Also I want a mono camera with a pretty widefield. Someone mentioned an Atik 460EX, although that is probably aiming a little high to start with. All tips welcome

Nice one. I'll get backyard Nikon.

Thanks for looking.

Thanks for the replies, maybe I'm trying to jump before I can walk. I realise the Astrotrac can only guide in RA but I'd like to see it's limits. I could do with a guide camera now which doesn't need to be connected to a laptop.

I was having a play with my modified Canon 1000d whilst in Tenerife. I had a chance to image Orion as it rose fairly high in the sky, but the conditions were anything but perfect. There was so much sand from the Sahara Desert in the atmosphere that it almost acted like thin clouds. To make things worse I messed up the settings, choosing jpeg only instead of raw files. I did, however, run the jpegs through DSS, 6 frames stacked along with 10 Dark & Bias frames each, no Flats. I don't think I did too bad a job all in considering the settings. The lens was a 50mm f/1.8 wide open, shot for 30 seconds at ISO 1600 on an Astrotrac mount. The 2nd image is a single frame which shows how bad the sand was

I'm interested in possibly using the autoguiding feature on my Astrotrac in furure & wondered if this was possible.

Very lovely set.

Wow wow wow!