Alien 13

Thanks to your thread I went exploring Artcise kit and ended up buying one of the mid range ball heads, am blown away with the silky smoothness and the whopping 20Kg load capacity..

Alan 

Very nice, confused as the Moon is there most nights..

Alan

I expect its all about wavelength, it used to be fine to have a 5mW green laser and indeed they are completely "eye safe" but they do cause a blink reaction...strange that motorists are bombarded by 5mW lasers all the time with no ill effects. It does pose a problem for those of us who may or may not have bought 5W ex tank lasers from "exchange and mart" in the 70s.

Alan

1 minute ago, pipnina said:

Is it possible to get products that perform a similar job to laser pointers? Maybe narrow-beamed and very bright torches? Wouldn't be a perfect solution and might be dependent on RH% but there might be torches bright enough to do it?

Funny thing about torches is that you can get some that are worse than a 100mW laser, setting fires etc at a distance etc..

Alan

You can sterilize all you want but a spacecraft has to travel through our atmosphere during launch and there are lots of critters who will take a free ride on the way 😀

Alan

Its quite normal to have dead/stuck pixels even on a new camera and the method linked too by Gfamily works for me..

Here is a video.

Alan

8 minutes ago, StuartT said:

This is really helpful. Thanks

So I tried using other modes. Manual, Program and Shutter priority (Tv) all produce overexposed images relative to the live view.

However, as you say, Av mode produces an exact match for the live view. I can then just use the exposure compensation feature for finer control.

Problem solved! I am indebted to you! 

No problem glad to help, I do shoot a lot of Lunar images so I have tried lots of methods to get the required results, very useful too for daytime photography/video shooting if you are using an old manual M42 type lens.

Alan

If you are using the camera with a scope as I sometimes do there are a few things that sometimes work to get the live view image to match the final image.

1. Try using another mode like AV or T, the camera should still work in these modes.

2. Chipped adapters allow you to "dial in" a virtual f stop value so it gives you another option to fiddle with in manual mode and are available for the M42 adapters but not so much for the T adapter but there are workarounds. The low profile M42 adapter will screw into a 10mm T extension tube giving you the 11mm of the T adapter and can then be used in the same way (I bonded mine together permanently for added strength". 

This is the adapter.

Alan

In the camera "live view" settings there should be an option to enable exposure simulation, this might help.

There should be three options, on/off/during depth of field preview, I personally use the "during depth of field preview" option as it can be left on that setting all the time and doesn't interfere with getting focus if the object appears dim.

Alan

The self timer function is not normally needed to run the camera with an intervalometer however it can be useful if you want to include mirror lock up in the timing sequence as follows.

Set mirror lock up to enable.

Set self timer to 5 seconds or whatever is the lowest interval.

Set intervalometer for exposure time etc but make sure the delay is at least a few seconds longer than the self timer value, ideally you want a min of 10s plus the self timer delay.

If you are using the camera without the self timer function then uses a delay of between 6-12 seconds dependent on how long the camera takes to write to the SD card between shots.

Alan

I am sure "life" finds its own way into space without the need for spacecraft and as for sterilization its impossible to kill all life, even Domestos only gets 99.9% 😀

Alan 

Loved the landing, certainly wouldn't want to play darts against these people 

Alan

Wow, never gets boring does it..

Alan

17 minutes ago, Space Oddities said:

I found this old funny picture where I compared a 9mm lens to a 1300mm scope on an APS-C camera   

 

Love it..has given me an idea for my next session.

Alan

It could be the camera battery as mentioned above but also check that you have not got the in camera long exp noise reduction switched on. The other possibility is that the buffer is slowly getting filled up but 10s intervals should have been enough.

Alan

26 minutes ago, Airbear said:

Iapa,

Thankyou for the quick reply and putting my mind at ease.  If polar alignment doesn’t sound tricky enough I now have to do it backwards.  I think I have a lot to learn.

If you use a mobile phone polar align app it should show the SW polarscope as you see it so no having to correct things..

Alan

I think 40mm might be enough, if you plan to slide the adapter into the 2 inch focusser you could use one of these.

Alan

As a rule of thumb you will need 2 inches/50 mm of extensions, this is to compensate for the additional lightpath when the scope is used for visual with a diagonal fitted...

Alan

11 minutes ago, Corncrake said:

Thanks @JemC and @Seelive , all becomes clear

since I have not yet dabbled in the black arts of calibration frames etc I'll stop worrying

It would be nice to have a portable version though 🤣

Portable as in tablet or phone? if so might be worth giving Affinity Photo a look, the PC and Mac versions can edit any RAW and do Astro Stacking too but not sure about the cut down mobile versions.

Alan

5 minutes ago, Corncrake said:

Thanks I'll check it out. Not normally a fan of Adobe but hey, any port in a storm !

When I get a moment I'll have to look around at where Dave Coffin is, his DCRAW used to be the goto place for 'regular' raw photography processing and many processors.

 

 

Its very good and free, there are several conversion methods available too.

Alan

2 hours ago, Corncrake said:

Something to do with LibRaw, I have not fully digested yet, thought I had best do a quick one here before life changing decisions were made !! I wonder if it might be ok if the RAWs were instead first converted to TIFF with something else ??

https://github.com/deepskystacker/DSS/releases/tag/4.2.5

EOS 1D Mark IV
EOS 5D Mark II
EOS 7D
EOS 60D
EOS 550D
EOS 600D
EOS 1200D

EDIT :
Looks like it happened  somewhere about 4.2.4 or a Beta version of that.
4.2.3 is still available here https://github.com/deepskystacker/DSS/releases/tag/4.2.3-Release

I have asked in the software forum if there is a portable version of the latest, to try it. https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/375621-deep-sky-stacker-upgrade-from-410/?do=findComment&comment=4071475

 

I have found lots of third party software that struggles with certain versions of Canon RAW, its usually the latest models though but the easy fix is to use Adobe DNG (digital negative) converter which can batch process all your files in one go. DNG format is the universally accepted standard for RAW files.

Alan

I use the Coowoo dew strap listed here and it works well, as for power banks I think any that can supply 2.1A outputs will be fine..

Just measured mine with my Coowoo USB tester and get 0.6A on low setting 1.1 A on medium and 1.32A on high so I would opt for a 10000mA/hour as a minimum requirement for the power bank.

Alan

Just a heads up that Affinity has just released v 1.9.2 and is still offering the 50% discount...

Alan

This is my best "taken for fun" image of the moon captured with my Canon 70-200mm f/4 L lens all handheld. I think I captured 6 images in burst mode then processed via PIPP/Registax/Photoshop, as you can imagine the image is heavily cropped.

Thought I would add this image, single frame taken with a DSLR and my C90 Mak...

Alan

Think about focal lengths, no point in having two instruments with similar, If it was me I would go for a 70mm ish APO..

Alan